By Ashley Shomo - The Aberdeen Daily World writer, 1/29/2002
WESTPORT - Early this winter, the coast took several hits: Record rainfall, towering waves and punishing winds - cumulatively the storm of a century.
But after $22 million worth of anti - erosion work over the past eight years - including a miniature Westport in Mississippi - the beaches held up better than anyone expected, and the work is almost done.
"The beach barely moved," said Harry Hosey, the president of Pacific International Engineering of Edmonds, the consultant for the City of Westport. "They were big waves - really big waves. It was packing a lot of energy on the beach."
Despite fears that Westport would face a breach near the South Jetty by late December, the Army Corps of Engineers says the crisis was avoided thanks to some experimental structures designed to protect Half Moon Bay.
The Corps' key interest - one dating back more than a century - is to protect the navigation channel for Grays Harbor, according to Hiram Arden, the South Jetty project manager with the Corps.
The Corps built a giant mound of rocks at the end of the jetty to help deflect waves that were chewing on the south side of Half Moon Bay. It also fortified parts of the beach with gravel, and placed a buried revetment at the northern part of the beach as a final defense.
"Until we had experienced this series of storms, we were anxious to see how it was going to perform," Arden said last week. "At this point, we're encouraged that it performed as well as it did."
After the last breach in 1994, the City of Westport went into crisis mode. County officials emphasized the need for local cooperation between the twin counties, neighboring ports and other governmental entities that face erosion problems.
A new group was formed - the Coastal Communities of Southwest Washington. It secured grants to study solutions and work through the politics and turf wars that had hampered relationships with the Corps.
The cooperation has produced results, according to Hosey."The bottom line was that this project that failed in 1994 experienced a stronger set of storms and worked perfectly (this year)," Hosey said last week. "This is very much an experiment."
In all, the Corps has spent about $22 million in research and construction in an effort to keep the shifting sands stable.
Federal scientists at the Engineering Research & Development Center in Mississippi developed a model of Half Moon bay that would fill a large auditorium. The tank has water, waves and land, just like a mini - Westport.
They used the model to simulate storm events and design the mound that was later placed at the real Westport.
During the early winter storms, officials weren't sure how the anti - erosion structures were going to help. Sand was sluicing away on the south side of Half Moon Bay and the heavy rain was carving ravines that were amplified by the crashing waves. A breach was feared, but never occurred.
Now that the storms are over - hopefully the worst of them, at least - and the numbers are in, Hosey and Arden say that it could have been a lot worse.
"This was the biggest energy challenge in probably 100 years," Hosey said, referring to the forces of nature.
From Oct. 20 to Dec. 31, Hosey recorded four of the 15 worst storms since 1982. The waves reached up to 30 feet and came crashing ashore 20 seconds apart. It was relentless.
"The failure turned out to be related to rain," the consultant said. "The rain collected and made huge gullies."
After the storms, the Corps filled the ravines with sand and built the beach back to where it was. The rest, Arden said, is simply maintenance.
"You expect that you're going to have to come in periodically and nourish the eroding areas," he said. "It looks real good that we'll be able to do some maintenance and dredging to keep the system working."
In addition, the Corps will plant dune grass to help the sand hold when it pours.
Although the Corps and Coastal Communities are flush with success, no one is claiming perfection.
"It's been a misunderstanding that any of us were saying that we had found the magic solution that ends it or fixes it," said Randy Lewis, the city administrator at Westport.
"Basically, erosion is going to continue. What we're attempting to do is manage it to where we can keep ahead of it and prevent it from doing damage to critical facilities," he said. "We're not so arrogant that we're going to say we can stand up and put a halt to Mother Nature."
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