Death at Tacoma park culvert wasn’t the first. It’s long been targeted for replacement

The man who drowned Monday at Titlow Park wasn’t the first person to be sucked into and killed by the culvert that moves seawater between Puget Sound and a Metro Parks Tacoma lagoon. The pipe has long been targeted for replacement, but it’s unclear who installed it in the first place and who is responsible for it now.

Robert Logan Jr. of University Place was swimming just offshore at Titlow Park when he was pulled into the pipe as the lagoon was filling with water from an incoming tide. Although he had a pulse when firefighters found him in the pond, according to Tacoma police, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The approximately 100-foot-long and 4-foot-wide concrete culvert runs underneath two BNSF Railway tracks and a walking trail. The lagoon draws seawater from the Sound at high tide — which was occurring when the man was sucked into it — and then drains the lagoon at low tide.

For more than a decade, Metro Parks, the city of Tacoma, BNSF Railway and environmentally focused groups have wanted to replace the culvert with a train trestle in order to return the lagoon to its natural state and improve fish habitat.

The roadblock to that goal: a lack of money.

Freak accident?

The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Thursday that Logan, 68, accidentally drowned.

According to Logan’s companion, he was seen standing in chest-high water before disappearing into a vortex. Vortexes, or whirlpools, are larger versions of what occurs when a plug is pulled from a bathtub drain. Although they occur naturally in oceans , the Titlow Beach vortex is caused by the human-placed pipe.

Metro Parks Tacoma planner Marty Stump acknowledged the enormity of Monday’s tragedy while explaining the dynamics of the vortex on Wednesday.

“The lagoon water elevation can’t keep up with the rising tide,” he said. “So that creates that vortex and it’s kind of a visual thing. We’ve seen it, (passersby) see it. They think it’s kind of interesting.”

On the Sound side, the pipe’s outlet is above water at low tide. But at high tide, it’s underwater and is difficult or impossible to see.

Although the pipe’s occasional whirlpool phenomenon is known by beach goers, it wasn’t believed to be a hazard until Monday.

No one currently working at Tacoma Fire Department could recall a similar incident, according to department spokesperson Chelsea Shepherd.

But at least one other person has been killed by a tidal change between the lagoon and the Sound, probably involving the same pipe.

Caught in a culvert

In 1933, a 21-year-old Oregon man, Jake Mola, drowned after he was caught in a strong current and pulled into the culvert. Unlike Monday’s tragedy, Mola was swimming in the lagoon and ended up in the Sound, where his body was found the next day.

According to a Aug. 14, 1933 story in the Tacoma News Tribune, Mola ignored warnings from lifeguards to stay away from the pipe. After he became pinned at a flume that served as the culvert’s entrance, lifeguard Tommy Sandegren made a “heroic” effort to save Mola but was himself sucked into the tube and swept into the Sound.

“He held his breath during the swift trip, however, and immediately returned to resume his rescue efforts,” the newspaper wrote. A gate which could be closed to slow water from leaving the lagoon wouldn’t shut because Mola’s body was blocking it. Mola was eventually sucked into the pipe and disappeared into the Sound.

Later, Mola’s wife sued the Metropolitan Park District for $30,000, claiming wrongful death.

Titlow Park history

Long before the West Coast’s main railroad route was built through Titlow, the present-day lagoon was an estuary of Puget Sound, according to Stump.

A 1927 photo in the collection of Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room shows a more natural appearing lagoon. A train trestle can be seen in the distance. A 1931 aerial photo clearly shows a trestle over the mouth of the estuary.

On June 7, 1932, The Tacoma Daily Ledger headlined a story, “Titlow Beach swimming hole opening today.” The article says the “improved lagoon” would be turned over to Metropolitan Park District that day from the Titlow Beach and University Place improvements clubs. State Sen. Henry O. Foss was one of the officials at the ceremony.

The story also states that the lagoon extended inland from a “Northern Pacific fill, which replaces a former trestle and bridge.”

While the story doesn’t mention a culvert, it does refer to the tidal gate. It also states the lagoon was able to become larger because of the fill. Fill refers to earth that is placed in a construction site to create a roadway, building site or, in this case, a causeway for a railroad line.

Whose culvert is it?

The present day culvert, which has warning signs on the lagoon side but not the Sound side, could be the one installed in 1932. Because 92 years have passed, records are sketchy. Northern Pacific has become BNSF Railway, and the Metropolitan Park District is now Metro Parks Tacoma.

Stacia Glenn, Metro Parks Tacoma spokesperson, told The News Tribune on Thursday that the agency is confident that it does not own nor maintain the culvert.

According to a Metro Parks master plan for renovating the lagoon presented on Aug. 6, 2023, a major goal is to, “Remove the City of Tacoma owned culvert and Metro Parks’ tidal gate infrastructure under the BNSF rail line and install a new railroad trestle bridge.”

BNSF Railway acknowledged a query from the newspaper but did not provide any information by deadline on Thursday.

The city of Tacoma was looking into the history of the culvert on Thursday.

A better lagoon

All across Washington, culverts built in the 1900s are being replaced with bridges and other structures to return waterways to their natural state and improve fish conditions. That’s the goal behind removing the Titlow Beach culvert.

In August 2023, Metro Parks launched its “Restore the Titlow Lagoon” plan following a decade of planning and discussion. After public comment, two alternatives for the plan to revamp the lagoon emerged. Both call for the replacement of the culvert with a 96-foot-long train trestle.

Creating an open waterway would make it easier for fish to get back and forth from the Sound and their spawning and rearing grounds.

“Juvenile salmon and other aquatic species (will) have a greater connectivity because that lagoon has high habitat value,” Stump said.

Preliminary design work is underway for the lagoon. It places the new water entrance south of the existing culvert because testing showed buried remains of the former trestle are still in place there.

The project is expensive and complicated, as it involves hydrology, wildlife, railway disruption and other factors.

Funding

In 2012, BNSF Railway expressed support for the trestle project but didn’t offer to pay for it.

In a letter to the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group , BNSF public projects manager Richard Wagner wrote, “If the Salmon Enhancement Group is successful in obtaining funding to support this project ...,” the rail company would advise on construction means and methods.

Construction money, which would probably come from state, federal and private sources, is years away. There’s not even funding to complete the project’s planning.

“We’re about a million dollars shy of the funding necessary to complete all the engineering,” Stump said Wednesday.

Stump estimates it would be at least five years before a new trestle replaces the culvert. However, Logan’s death on Monday could affect the timeline or at least put the project in a new perspective.

“The topic of public safety and the elimination of that vortex, as a public safety element, has not been the primary driver behind the project,” he said. “Now that this has occurred, it is a reminder that a project like this has multiple benefits.”