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By JEFF BURLINGAME -The Aberdeen Daily World September 19, 1998
VANCOUVER, Wash. - In a move city officials call vital to saving the southern end of Ocean Shores from catastrophic flooding, the State Parks & Recreation Commission voted Friday to allow the city to proceed with two short-term erosion-control measures.
Despite the Commission's approval, however, the city still has major hurdles to clear before installation of one of the measures.
With one commissioner absent and two abstaining, the Parks Commission voted 4-1 to extend Ocean Shores' permit for protective rock "wave bumpers" until May, said William Jolly, manager of the Parks' Environmental Program.
During the meeting, the Commission also granted the city permission to embed 540 feet of geotubes - huge sausage-shaped bags filled with sand - in a dune north of the North Jetty, Jolly said.
But the Commission's decision on the geotubes doesn't necessarily mean they will be installed, city officials warn.
"We still have some permits to get through," City Manager Jack McKenzie said Friday. "But we're pleased that the process is moving along." The city's biggest hurdle lies with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who recently threw a wrench into Ocean Shores' efforts by claiming to have jurisdiction over the eroding area of the beach.
Corps officials are scheduled to visit in early October, McKenzie said. If the Corps determines it has jurisdiction, the city would need to go through the Corps' permitting process before the geotubes are installed.
In order for the geotubes to be in place before the winter storm season, that installation would have to come by the end of October, the city manager said. He added that the first big storm typically hits the area around the first week of November.
A breach in the dunes north of the North Jetty - which many fear will come this winter without the geotubes - would cause "serious impacts to the city's sewage treatment facility and other infrastructure," according to consultants.
City officials are more direct, saying a breach most likely would flood the entire southern end of the resort community, causing millions of dollars of damage to expensive real estate and infrastructure.
Ocean Shores residents Gary and Denise Austin made the drive to Vancouver to present their story to the Commission.
The Austins' home lies in the middle of the most eroded part of the dune and is in danger of washing away without the geotubes, the family has said. A representative from the Caroline Inn, located near the Austins' home, was also present.
McKenzie said the citizen participation helped sway at least one commissioner's vote.
At least one of the abstaining commissioners, Bruce Hilyer, expressed concern that this would be just another "referral of problems" from one area to another area just north of where the geotubes were installed, Parks Manager Jolly said.
No one showed to speak against the proposals, the Parks manager said, although a letter of protest was received from the Seattle law firm, Smith & Lowney.
The Parks staff reviewed the projects prior to the meeting and recommended the Commission approve both measures, Jolly said.
The wave bumpers and geotubes, if installed, will remain in place for just one storm season, while the city looks for a long-term solution to its coastal erosion problem. Until last month, the city had been preparing an Environmental Impact Statement on that long-term solution.
But funding for the $1.56 million impact statement has run dry, and, except for a few small tasks, the process has come to a halt while the city works with state legislators to secure emergency funding.
Originally scheduled to begin in 1999, construction on the yet undetermined long-term solution - which could range from doing nothing to building a solid rock revetment - will not begin until at least 2000.