JOHN DODGE
THE OLYMPIAN
July 3, 2005
Section: Saving Salmon
Page: 04A

CARLYON BEACH — The terraced rock wall interspersed with mostly native trees and plants in front of Jack Charneski’s summer home is an island in a sea of concrete bulkheads that armor the Carlyon Beach shoreline along Squaxin Passage.

While the project is an engineered attempt to keep the shoreline from eroding away, it’s viewed as more environmentally friendly than a concrete wall.

And for some, it represents a small step toward a sea change that will be necessary in property owner attitudes about living on the shoreline, if the region is serious about restoring and protecting Puget Sound chinook and other salmon species.

“Eventually, a lot of these concrete bulkheads will be coming out,” predicted Dean Edenstrom of Edenstrom Landscape in Olympia.

The Puget Sound chinook recovery plan for South Sound, which will be forwarded to the federal government July 7 by the nonprofit group Shared Strategy for Puget Sound, calls for a variety of near-shore work totaling $100 million during the next five years on seven miles of shoreline annually. The work includes:

• Removal of concrete bulkheads wherever possible.
• Creating larger buffers along marine bluffs and streams.
• Eliminating stormwater runoff and new wastewater discharges to Puget Sound.
• Reducing the number of new boat docks and boat ramps by encouraging shared use in the community.

“We need to create a new mental image of what living on the shoreline is all about,” said Steve Morrison, a senior planner with Thurston Regional Planning Council.

Here’s why concrete bulkheads are viewed as an obstacle to salmon recovery in South Sound:

Heavily armored shorelines cut off the complex interaction between the beach and the uplands.

Natural erosion along the shoreline, which bulkheads are designed to stop, is what feeds the beaches with sand and gravel and creates the habitat, including woody debris and overhanging branches, critical for a functioning near-shore environment, according to state Fish and Wildlife habitat biologist Margie Schirato.

It is in these near-shore areas that forage fish such as sand lance, herring and surf smelt spawn. All are species that provide food for salmon.

‘Bathtub’ effect

Yet more than half of the Thurston County shoreline with gravel and sand beaches is armored, according to a 2005 shoreline assessment by Herrera Environmental Consultants. In the entire Puget Sound region shoreline, concrete and rocks cover 33 percent of the shoreline, according to the Shared Strategy plan.

“South Sound is starting to look like a bathtub,” commented John Evans of Bay Marine Consultants, an Olympia area contractor who specializes in bulkhead replacement projects that rely on combinations of wood debris, logs, rocks and plantings.

“It’s still a hard sell to the property owner,” he said of the move away from concrete bulkheads. “Private property owners need to see some successful projects.”

Studies by Nisqually and Squaxin Island tribe biologists have shown South Sound to be a critical nursery area for juvenile chinook salmon from other watersheds in central Puget Sound.

So while the Nisqually River is the only true birthplace for naturally spawning chinook in South Sound, the rest of South Sound has a key role in chinook salmon recovery, too, said former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Bill Ruckelshaus, one of the people behind Shared Strategy for Puget Sound, the nonprofit group overseeing development of the recovery plan.

“The South Sound focus should be on habitat,” Ruckelshaus said.

At the same time, a team of scientists who reviewed the South Sound plan said it needs more work on the effect of hatchery fish and salmon harvesting in South Sound.

“We’re still working on the harvest and hatchery elements of the plan,” said Jeff Dickison, a policy analyst with the Squaxin Island tribe.

More space to the shore

Instead of building as close to the shoreline as possible, and clearing all the trees and shrubs for unrestricted views, Thurston County property owners since 1990 have been required to build 50 feet back from the edge, and are encouraged to preserve native trees and plants wherever possible.

The typical setback would increase to 100 feet under a proposed amendment to the county critical areas ordinance that will be ready for public review in August, said John Sonnen, county planning manager.

“We’re trying to avoid the need to armor the shoreline,” Sonnen said.

Setbacks for homes along rivers and streams would more than double from the existing 100 feet under the amendments under review, Sonnen added.

The existing setbacks for marine shorelines and rivers have been working well and shouldn’t be expanded without strong evidence the changes are needed, said Thurston County homebuilder Greg Amendala.

“They say they are using best available science, but they’re often experimenting at the homeowner’s expense,” he said.

For the thousands of Puget Sound property owners such as Charneski, whose homes were built next to the beach years ago before the shoreline rules were in place, a long-term bulkhead replacement program is crucial to restoring beach habitat, Dickison said.

“We need a combination of tools to reach different property owners, maybe including a tax incentive for shoreline owners to take out bulkheads,” Dickison said.

But in many cases, the close proximity of the home to the beach limits the options, Edenstrom noted.

“People are afraid of losing their land,” Edenstrom said of the erosion threat.

Charneski took his bulkhead out because the base was eroding away from the pressure of water draining from the uplands to the beach.

“All these concrete bulkheads really have a dam effect along the beach,” he said.

He hired Edenstrom to tear out the bulkhead and replace it with 150 tons of strategically placed granite rock laced with gravel, sand and 11 species of plants and trees.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” Edenstrom said. “It’s better than a vertical wall that chokes off the beach. It allows for interaction between people, the upland environment and the beach.”

Fish and Wildlife’s Schirato, agreed but was quick to point out that the rock wall is still a hardening of the shoreline that won’t encourage erosion to feed the beach.

The South Sound recovery plan calls on public agencies to lead the way with some bulkhead replacement projects so property owners can see them work.

“The problem is: We know we don’t want concrete bulkheads, but we’re not sure what the options are,” said Steve Hulbert, owner of Hulbert Auto Park in Olympia and a Johnson Point area waterfront resident.

When shopping for a waterfront home five years ago, Hulbert steered clear of homes on the market that had concrete bulkheads.

“I wanted to interact with the beach, the birds, the oysters and the fish habitat,” he said.

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