Talk:Duwamish River/GA1

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Generalissima (talk · contribs) 05:48, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Maltazarian (talk · contribs) 20:07, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Permalinks: (Review start · Post-reviewer copyedits · Review finish)

Preliminary checks

Done by the reviewer in conjunction with the opening of the review.

**Preliminary checks for immediate failures and drive-by nominations.**
· The nominator is a major contributor to the article. 94.5% authorship
· The article's images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. All images are free and uploaded to Commons.
· The article does not get caught by Earwig for any obvious copyright violations. The most similar page that EarWig came up with had a 38.3% similarity rating; this was caused by that page having a source list with many of the same sources that the article uses. Remaining pages have very low similarity ratings.
· The article is free of valid clean-up banners and does not have many clean-up tags. No maintenance banner or tag templates are transcluded onto the page.
· The article is stable. Last edit on 30 May 2026, the edit before that 12 May 2026.
· The article, if it previously failed a good article review, is free of the problems that led it to do so. This is the first GA review of the article.
· The article is free of any other major problems that will cause it to obviously fail a good article review. I do not see anything unusual with the article.

Review template

Main workspace area for the review. The reply buttons do work without breaking stuff here, if you wish to use them.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

·You can hover over icons to see what they indicate.

1. Is it well written?

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· A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct.

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· a. The prose is clear.

→ · Constrained by the terraces along the floodplain, this was a relatively small area of tidal marsh compared to similarly-sized rivers. – I'd like it to say that it was constrained to about 700 meters near Kelogg Island. Readers are unlikely to have an idea of is relatively small areas of tidal marsh for rivers of this size, so a number would help here.

Fixed.-G

→ · Once readers reach the sentence Denser settlement increased towards the Duwamish heartland in the dxʷdəw, with at least three settlements located in the region prior to American settlement. in the "History" section there is a good chance they will have forgotten what dxʷdəw refers to. Also, citation [50] verifies that sentence on its own, while I don't understand what exactly [48] is doing there, as it doesn't seem to lend any additional support.

Clarified.-G

→ · "British, Spanish, and Russian merchants frequented the region in the following years as part of the maritime fur trade, trading for pelts which they sold in Asia." With whom? I know it refers to Indigenous peoples, but readers might not, and could misinterpret it as saying that the British, Spanish and Russian merchants were trading with each other or perhaps incorrectly assume it refers to trade with their settlers in the region. I think most readers won't pick up on the fact that the choice of words, "trading for pelts" instead of "buying/purchasing pelts", hints at barter with peoples who did not use European currencies.

Clarified.-G

→ · In 1846, with increasing numbers of settlers traveling the Oregon Trail, the area was transferred to United States control and colonists began to settle in what was to become the Washington Territory. – The previous sentence to this one says colonists had already begun settling the area prior to the transfer of the territory to the US.

American settlers specifically, clarified.-G

→ · In the "Rerouting" subsection it's worth mentioning that farmers had been blowing up logjams for decades in efforts to try and divert flooding from their farmlands, had been causing others' farmlands to flood by doing so and that the farmers in 1899 didn't realize they'd end up causing a landslide that would divert the White River when they detonated their explosives. Currently it sounds like it was a planned operation, in part due to it just being referred to as clearing a small bluff, with no mention of logs, and that the paragraph ends with ..the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the rerouting was legal. which gives the vibe that rerouting was the reason the explosives were detonated, rather than it being a "happy accident" for King County farmers, so to speak.
- Clarified.-G

· b. The prose is concise.

· I don't have much to say here other than that it is concise. I didn't notice any issues.

· c. The spelling and grammar are correct.

· Minor things here and there were taken care of on the spot, and there are no overarching issues.

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· B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

· a. It complies with the manual of style guideline for lead sections.

· All claims in the lead section are supported by the body text.

· The lead gives a reasonably long accessible overview and due weight is given.

· MOS:OPEN and MOS:FIRST are followed, with MOS:LEADTITLE followed while avoiding MOS:REDUNDANCY.

· MOS:CONTEXTLINK is followed.

→

· b. It complies with the manual of style guideline for layout.

→ · This is borderline, but per MOS:FURTHER: Any links to external websites included under "Further reading" are subject to the guidelines described at Wikipedia:External links. Part of WP:EXTERNAL, WP:RICHMEDIA, says Try to avoid directly linking to any content that requires special software, or an add-on to a browser. It is always preferred to link to a page rendered in normal HTML that contains embedded links to the rich media. The link in the "Further reading" section is currently going directly to the PDF, which counts as "rich media". Per WP:RICHMEDIA, I think it should instead be going to , which in turn has a link to the PDF.
- Fixed.-G

· c. It complies with the manual of style guideline for words to watch.

· There are, as far as I can tell, no noticeable issues relating to MOS:WTW.

· d. It complies with the manual of style guideline for fiction.

· As a consequence of the Duwamish River being real.

· e. It complies with the manual of style guideline for list incorporation.

· As a consequence of the article not incorporating any lists.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

· A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.

· The nominator did not forget to add the reflist.

→

· B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).

· All the sources are reliable. There are 23 sources used, of which 14 are books and 11 are reports compiled by experts for government agencies.

→ · Last sentence of the "Course" section needs a citation.

Fixed.-G

→ · Citation [7] in the "Present" subsection says 18 km, which is about 11 mi, while the article says 12 mi (19 km). WindWard p. 5 does say 19 km (12 mi). Will leave it up to you on which one to go for.

I'll go with the 18 km, because that source feels higher quality. I do think this is a rounding problem, not a definitional one.-G

→ · Citation [19] in the "Hydrology" subsection says the interface of fresh and salt waters can take the form of a wedge between river mile 2.8 to 4.8, but the article says A saltwater intrusion occasionally forms between 2.8 to 4.8 miles (4.5 to 7.7 km) upstream from the mouth.. which I don't think is supported by the source. To say the saltwater intrusion forms there feels like something else; the saltwater is coming from Elliot Bay due to the tide, so saying the saltwater intrusion occurs upstream isn't really adding up. See also p. 775 of Morley et al. (2012), where it is described as a salt water wedge of Elliot Bay extending upstream.

Reworded this.-G

→ · Citation [44] mostly checks out, but Following the Osceola Mudflow, significant progradation (delta growth) and aggradation (vertical accumulation of sediment) occurred, eventually channeling the river into roughly its historic course. is dubious. It's not clear what historic course refers to here. I kind of see how the source backs it up in that it says the Duwamish valley was filled up by sediment to its current position, but saying that accounts for its historic course is quite vague. It's really leaves a lot of interpretation up to the reader in what "course" is that can easily lead to reading it in a way that the source doesn't support.

Fixed.-G

→ · Also in the "Geology" section, at the end of it, Alluvial deposits directly along the river are younger than those along the broader valley, which were deposited while the valley was still flooded by seawater. should in some way clarify that it is talking about surface alluvial deposits, as the older ones are also present directly along the river, underneath the younger ones. Thinking about it now I do not know why I didn't just boldly fix that.

Clarified.-G

→ · Citation [61] in the "Colonial settlement" subsection mostly checks out, but the text suggests that Fort Dent was erected between the outbreak of the war and the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliot, while the source says it was erected after the treat was signed.

Reworded.-G

→ · Citation [63] in the "Colonial settlement" subsection says 300 were camped at the mouth of the Duwamish, likely at Lushootseed: tutúɬaqs, but not certainly.

Clarified.-G

→ · [64] checks out, but I'm not sure what [50] is doing next to it as it doesn't really support any of the claims that [64] does as far as I can see. What's up with that?

Removed.-G

→ · Construction on the Seattle and Walla Walla finished in August and October, stretching only as far east as Renton. – The source ([65]) says (at something like p. 73 or p.74, I'm reading via ProQuest Ebook Reader where the page numbers are not visible on the pages themselves and the page numbers given by ProQuest are off by a couple pages) that the line extended northeast from Renton to the coal mines at Newcastle (it doesn't explicitly say northeast but Newcastle, Washington is in fact northeast of Renton, as far as I can tell). Another source confirms this here.

A short note was not added by G here but this was addressed.-M

→ · ..was abandoned following the railroad's sale and rebranding as the Columbia and Puget Sound isn't entirely supported by [66]. It can perhaps be inferred from it, and the inference would be correct; the claim is directly supported by p. 265 of the third edition of Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History.) I suggest writing something like "..was abandoned following the railroad's 1880 sale to Henry Villard, who renamed it the Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad." as that would also help out in solving the next problem as it gives readers a better understanding of the sale.

Added.-G

→ · The tidal flats originally deeded to the Seattle and Walla Walla now theoretically belonged to Northern Pacific. doesn't explain why that is. Note that Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle's Topography seems to be getting it wrong by saying Villard purchased Northern Pacific. Other sources state he was elected as its chairman. This also raises questions about what the ownership structure actually looked like, considering Too High and Too Steep might not be getting its facts right about Villard and Northern Pacific's relationship and that our article on the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad does not mention ownership by Northern Pacific. To be safe, I'd rewrite it as something like "In 1883, Henry Yesler began to construct on the tidal flats of the Duwamish estuary, which by then were in the possession of Villard and Northern Pacific; however, they declined to take any action against Yesler, and in doing so triggered a land rush for the tidal flats." Obviously you can phrase it in any way you want, this is just to illustrate how you can sidestep making a claim of ownership/belonging and instead making the wording about effective control over the tidal flats; changing de jure to de facto, so to speak.

Reworded on your suggestion.-G

→ · Citation [68] didn't check out. It said the plan was James J. Hill's, not Virgil Bogue's. In fact, it says both Bogue and Thomson were aligned politically.

This got fixed.-G

→ · The Port of Seattle was created to channelize the Duwamish and manage local harbor facilities. – Sources cited only say the Port of Seattle was created to develop the area, and later that the Duwamish was channelized, but not that the Port of Seattle was created in order to channelize it.

Fixed.-G

→ · Citation [86], in the "Industrialization" subsection, mostly checks out, but technically Auburn, Kent and Renton discharged sewage into the Green River, which of course flows into the Duwamish meaning the effect is the same. Still, one could argue the sources do not support this claim Green River.

Reworded.-G

→ · Citation [89] cannot possibly support the claim that the Duwamish #1 Site area was left undeveloped for several decades considering it was published in 1977. It also surely shouldn't be cited for Terminal 107 Park sentence (yeah the second one I could easily have just addressed myself, I don't know why I didn't do it).

Oops, fixed.- That's meant to just be for it being a UW team.-G

· C. It contains no original research.

· I wouldn't characterize any of the verifiability slipups as OR.

· D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism.

· EarWig, as stated in the preliminary checks, took no issue with the article.

· I did not see anything that can reasonably be said to constitute close paraphrasing nor did I see any other form of copyright violation or plagiarism while I was checking sources.

Record of checking sources – Completed

This is collapsed so the page doesn't get filled with "[n] checks out". Anything that is relevant for the nominator to know will also be placed outside of this box. Citation numbers correspond to this version of the article.

"Name" section

[1] checks out, had incorrect page given but I fixed it.
[3] checks out

"Course" section

[5] checks out, kinda, it said 4,250km2 but the convert template was turning 1,640 sq mi into 4,200km2, which I fixed by appending |-1 at the end of it, forcing a higher accuracy conversion.

"Present" subsection

[7] did not check out. That paper says 18 km, which is about 11 mi, while the article says 12 mi (19 km). WindWard p. 5 does say 19 km (12 mi). How to handle it left up to nominator.
[8] checked out but was missing some pages.
[9] checks out
[10] checks out
[11] checks out, albeit in a somewhat confusing way.

"Bridges" subsection

[14] checks out

"'Watershed" section'

[15] checks out
[16] checks out

"Hydrology" subsection

[17] has some funny business going on. The source has done the conversion incorrectly. It says 85 to 140 m3/s but gives the conversion of that as 3,920 to 6,460 cuft, which isn't correct. I think you should either go with the m3/s number given there and convert to cuft for usage in the article, as that is the "main" unit they're using, or just exclude that part entirely because they've messed it up. If you include it you should also add a footnote explaining the source has messed up.
[18] checks out
[19] doesn't check out due to the wording ending up meaning something that I don't think the sources are saying.
[20] checks out
[21] checks out
[22] checks out
[10] checks out
[19] checks out

"Water quality" subsection

[23] checks out
[24] checks out

"Biology" section

[26], [28] and [29] check out but caused me some issues. The link was broken so I went to fix it, but I thought the citation was referring to the executive summary pages 11 to 55, while it was actually referring to page 11 dash 55. I have taken the liberty of addressing this. The Pacific sand lance was piped incorrectly; it was linking Ammodytes personatus, which is known as Pacific sandlance, but the report says it is referring to Ammodytes hexapterus.
[27] checks out but also had a broken link, which I have fixed.
[30] checks out
[31] checks out

"Geology" section

[32] checks out
[35] checks out
[36] checks out
[38], [39] and [40] check out other than the fact they don't support "Duwamish Limb" being a proper name rather than just a description (only one source calls it that and they're lowercasing the l in limb).
[44] mostly checks out, but Following the Osceola Mudflow, significant progradation (delta growth) and aggradation (vertical accumulation of sediment) occurred, eventually channeling the river into roughly its historic course. is dubious. It's not clear what historic course refers to here. I kind of see how the source backs it up in that it says the Duwamish valley was filled up by sediment to its current position, but saying that accounts for its historic course is quite vague. It's really leaves a lot of interpretation up to the reader in what "course" is that can easily lead to reading it in a way that the source doesn't support.

"History" section

[47] mostly checked out but lacked full page span and also had a mistake in that it said Herring's House had at least three longhouses when the source says it had at least four longhouses (although technically "at least four" also means "at least three" is factually correct).
[48] is leaving me confused. I can't see how it supports the claim.
[50] checks out
[51] checks out
[52] checks out, but [53] should be cited next to it (the geoduck, for example, is not mentioned in [52]); I fixed it.
[53] checks out

"Colonial settlement" subsection

[55] mostly checks out (with some clarifications needed about "..and colonists began to settle.."), although I did adjust the page number here too.
[61] mostly checks out, but the text gives the suggestion that Fort Dent was erected between the outbreak of the war and the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliot, while the source says it happened after the treat was signed.
[64] checks out, but I'm not sure what [50] is doing next to it as it doesn't really support any of the claims that [64] does as far as I can see.
[65] mostly checks out, but it stretched beyond Renton, to Newcastle.
[66], [67] and their related text have some problems that have to be addressed, explained in detailed outside of the source-check box as the comments on them consist of quite a few words.

"Rerouting" subsection

[72] checks out for most material its referenced for, but I'm not sure what it's doing next to [74].
[68] didn't check out. It said the plan was James J. Hill's, not Virgil Bogue's. In fact, it says both Bogue and Thomson were aligned politically.
[76] and [77] check out now, but the article was saying 1909 instead of 1910, the latter of which both [76] and [77] give as the year of completion of Harbor Island.
[78] checks out, although there was some rushed mistakes there that I fixed.
[79] and [80] nearly check out, but they do use the generic "develop" instead of "channelize" in reference to what the Port of Seattle was intended to do with the Duwamish.
[82] checks out
[5] checks out

"Industralization" subsection

[84] checks out
[76] checks out
[85] checks out
[77] checks out
[86] mostly checks out, but technically Auburn, Kent and Renton discharged sewage into the Green River, which of course flows into the Duwamish meaning the effect is the same, but still, technically should say Green River.
[78] checks out
[89] cannot possibly support the claim that the Duwamish #1 Site area was left undeveloped for several decades considering it was published in 1977. It also shouldn't be used to support the Terminal 107 Park sentence.
[91] checks out
[93] checks out
[94] checks out
[95] checks out
[19] checks out

"Land use" section

[96] checks out
[95] checks out

"Recreation and fishing" subsection

[96] checks out
[97] checks out
[98] checks out
[99] checks out
[100] checks out

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

→

· A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic.

→ · I think the burning of túʔulʔaltxʷ (Herring's House) by settlers is a significant enough event to require mentioning in the article.

→ · The Treaty of 1818 should be mentioned as it is very important context for the transfer of the territory to the US.

· B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

· I have no complaints about this, and considering the article is over 5,000 words long that is honestly pretty impressive.

4. Is it neutral?

· A. It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

· The main thing that can end up failing NPOV in articles like this one is the history sections, but there wasn't really anything there that I sensed could reasonably be construed as being an NPOV concern.

5. Is it stable?

· A. It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

· Per preliminary check, and no edit war has erupted during the course of the review.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

· A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.

· Per preliminary checks.

· B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

· The images are all clearly relevant to the topic and the captions are short and informative.

Overall: → ·

Miscellaneous comments and advice

· – In your short footnotes you are often missing including pages that are used to verify the claims. I tend to look around if I can't find the material needed to verify something on the cited page, but others may only look at the page you cited, fail to find all the material needed to verify a claim and think the claim is wholly unsupported. It also does make the job harder for people trying to verify it, so being more careful is a nice thing to do either way.

· – In the "Course" section a conversion template was turning 1,640 sq mi into 4,200 km2, while [5] was saying 4,250 km2; if you're converting doing a "double-convert" like this one, make sure the end result is the same as that of the source; details on how to manually select how many significant digits to use can be found at Template:Convert.

· – Watch out for fish with similar common names. The Pacific sand lance was piped to Ammodytes personatus, which is commonly called the Pacific sand lance, but the report ([27]) says it is referring to Ammodytes hexapterus, which is also commonly called the Pacific sand lance. Also, for [27], when linking to a chapter (must be using |chapter parameter) it helps if you use |chapter-url instead of |url, which makes embeds the link in the chapter's name instead of the full publication's name.

· – If you want to you can use some of the graphics in Mitchell & Conn (2024) are public domain as that is a USGS publication (exception being stuff credited as having been made by a someone else if that person's work isn't in the public domain).

· – "Duwamish Limb", in the "Geology" section, does not appear to be a proper name going by the sources. Only one of them use that term and they lowercase limb, which implies it is a descriptive term, not a name. This is not part of any of the criteria so it goes in this section.

Discussion

Pretty much anything goes here.

Adding this to get a reply button to use. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 03:07, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Review is trucking along steadily and should be done soon. Currently on the History section. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 07:43, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

@Maltazarian: Just checking back in on this. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 04:19, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm done and intending on posting it this evening! I'm really sorry it took longer than usual and with an empty page, I was trying a new workflow where I wrote stuff on a notepad separately, and I got delayed by other things which made the review take longer than the week it should at most. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 17:06, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

@Generalissima Done. It looks like a lot of stuff pointed out on 2.B. in the but most of it is minor and there really isn't any risk of you not being able to fix them and get this article passed. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 00:02, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

For the record I'm not intending on failing this article after a week has passed on hold because it would be insanely inefficient and overly bureaucratic. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 11:23, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much; sorry for only getting back to this now. Much of this article I had actually written when I was very new to the site, but it had sat on the back-burner for two years before I finally got back to it, which has surely helped contribute to the source and page number inconsistencies. Apologies for that! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Maltazarian: Thank you very much for the detailed review and suggestions. I think I got to everything? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:19, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Ok I will go over later this evening, currently working on other stuff and I've got some chores to do. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 14:22, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

"This evening", yeah right.. my sincere apologies for that. I admittedly tried to do a few too many things at once on and off wiki and wasn't able to keep up. All the changes you made are great, but – and I feel kind of bad coming back after nearly a week to say "you missed a spot" – I do believe you missed my comments under criterium 3.A.; main aspects. For the sake of not being very annoying I've just gone ahead and added some words to cover each of the parts I wanted covered, cited to sources already in use in the article, so I can pass the article. I have no issue with you tweaking the wording of course. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 09:28, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.