By Levi Pulkkinen - Daily World writer, The Aberdeen Daily World , 3/17/2003
WESTPORT - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' motto is Essayons. That's French for "We will try," South Jetty project manager Hiram Arden notes.
Translating it into success is the hard part.
For more than 100 years, the Corps has tried to control the ocean current churning around Westport. Last week, at the Westport Maritime Museum lecture hall, the Corps entertained new ideas on its South Jetty erosion control effort.
Westport's beaches have changed dramatically since the Harbor jetties were completed in the early 1900s. While beaches grew immediately following the South Jetty's construction, during the last 10 years sections of beach facing the ocean and within Half Moon Bay eroded, threatening the jetty and, many fear, Westport itself.
The Corps arrived at Westport in 1898 to build the South Jetty, and has been a presence here ever since. In 1994, the Corps dumped 600,000 cubic yards of dredged material into the neck of land separating Half Moon Bay from the ocean after the sandspit was washed away in a savage winter storm late in 1993.
Since then, some community leaders have asked the Corps to engineer a more permanent solution to erosion in Half Moon Bay. Last Wednesday, dozens of Corps engineers, concerned citizens and representatives of various governmental agencies met to discuss previous and potential fixes, their impacts and the very future of the beaches on the southwest Washington coast.
Much of the discussion centered on a 4 - year - old wave refraction mound inside the bay. Designed to eliminate erosion on the eastern side of Half Moon Bay, the mound has shifted the erosion toward the bay's western lip near the 1993 breach site, according to George Kaminsky of the Ecology Department. He is co - director of the Southwest Washington Coastal Erosion Study.
Kaminsky said he believes the refraction mound may be doing more harm than good.
"One thing we should be looking at," Kaminsky said, "is the affect of the mound on the erosion in Half Moon Bay. Because of the mound, we have a higher erosion level at a critical spot. We've maintained a crisis."
Initial plans for the refraction mound called for roughly three times the amount of cobblestone - size rock that was eventually dumped on the beach, and the mound's supporters blame the reduction for its mixed performance.
"Had the mound been put in the way it was designed, had the cobble been put in the way it was supposed to, we would not be having this problem," Westport Mayor Berkley Barker said at the meeting.
Arden said environmental concerns prevent the Corps from installing more rock at the site. Others at the meeting rejected the suggestion from engineers with Pacific International Engineering that material "of a more robust grain size" be added to the site. The Edmonds - based engineering firm installed the refraction mound and is currently involved in a study of its effects.
Washington Fish & Wildlife habitat specialist Bob Burkle suggested the Corps reconsider removing or modifying the jetty before considering a hard solution to the bay's erosion.
"Disable that sand starvation system that is the South Jetty," Burkle said. "The jetties were constructed when we had a sand bar (off the mouth of Grays Harbor). We're long past that now."
Burkle said the Corps and the City of Westport should abandon the coastal dynamic zone - the area of shoreline where erosion is or will likely be active. Doing so, he said, will save the taxpayers money and protect property owners from catastrophic losses.
"If you're in an area with constantly encroaching erosion, you need to pull back," he said. "You can't build something to resist that."
Westport City Administrator Randy Lewis rejected Burkle's suggestion - which was supported by representatives from the Friends of Grays Harbor and the Washington State Parks Department. He said the city's well - being would be threatened by major modifications to the jetty.
"The city, and I think citizens of Westport, would be very concerned about any one of these, for lack of a better term, experimental solutions," Lewis said.
Within the Half Moon Bay debate, attendees discussed the meaning of the term "soft solution." For Westport, Mayor Barker said a soft solution is anything short of a jetty - like structure. For the Surfrider Foundation, a national non - profit environmental organization, it is something resembling the beach's natural state.
For the Corps, a soft solution is an exhausting undertaking, said George Hart, the South Jetty Project environmental coordinator for the Corps. A soft solution, he explained, would most likely require the Corps to continue nourishing the eroding beach with sediment collected during its dredging activities on Grays Harbor's 24 - mile navigation channel.
"I want to see a soft fix, but, in doing a soft fix, everyone needs to keep in mind that we only have so much material to fill with," Hart said. "There may be a point in time that the material or the money will no longer be there. This is a dynamic system, and it's going to continue eroding."
Surfrider's regional coordinator, Kevin Ranker, however, said a harder solution - one incorporating rock or shore armor - would cost the area environmentally and economically.
"We need to understand that anything other than a soft solution will destroy this recreational resource," Ranker said.
While attendees did not agree on what the Corps should do to preserve the junction between commerce and recreation that most on hand said is crucial to Westport's survival, the Corps' meeting facilitator, Stephanie Stirling, said more meetings will be held after the Corps publishes a new study on the jetty late next month.
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