Shores residents facing up to erosion problems - June 8, 1999
By JENNY LYNN ZAPPALA - DAILY WORLD WRITER The Aberdeen Daily World
OCEAN SHORES - Fourteen months ago, Sandra Gallaher's neighbors called to say "Go look at the beach." They wouldn't say why, but Gallaher, a retired psychologist and college professor from Kent, didn't consider it an unusual request.
Gallaher had just returned from a week-long vacation and anything could have washed up along the beach outside her ocean-front home. But when her beagle, Bailey, raced to the top of the dunes and stopped, Gallaher knew something was wrong.
She was right. The dune was gone.
The sea had swept inland 15 feet, swallowed the dune and left a 10-foot sheer cliff in its wake. The once gentle sloping dune - Bailey's favorite playground - was gone. It was as if the sea had taken a 400-yard-long bite out of the beach - in the space of one week.
Gallaher had never seen anything like it in her 20 years at Ocean Shores.
"I wasn't afraid for my house," she said Monday. "But you wonder, if this is what happened this year, what will happen the year after that and the year after that? If this keeps up, my whole house and the peninsula will be under water."
At her home, a mile and a half north of the jetty, she had gained 200 feet of dune since she bought the property and built her vacation home in 1980. In the last two years, she estimates she has lost 30 to 40 feet.
Gallaher is not the only one disturbed by the ocean's appetite in the past few years. Inspired by a shrinking shoreline and chronic winter storm damage, the City of Ocean Shores began drafting a Coastal Erosion Management Strategy.
The draft Environmental Impact Statement draft, which proposes and compares several short-term and long-term solutions, is available for public comment until July 7.
Afterwards, the comments will be incorporated into the draft and the City Council will make a decision based on the final revision.
"It is important that people comment on this," said Sue Patnude, director of the Department of Community Development. "The City Council will be making a decision based on these comments."
The city, residents and other government agencies have spent 11 months drafting the 223-page document. The authors include the Army Corps of Engineers, the State Department of Ecology, Fish & Wildlife, Parks & Recreation, Battelle Memorial Institute, regional citizens and city staff.
"It is easy to read though," said Patnude.
The purpose of the draft is "to help the City of Ocean Shores select an alternative that will manage immediate coastal erosion and ocean storm surge flooding" and "develop a long-term management strategy," according to the city's announcement.
The affected management area discussed in the draft includes the entire ocean shoreline within the Ocean Shores city limits and extends about 1.76 miles north to the Quinault Indian Nation's new casino resort.
The draft compares the benefits and drawbacks of four alternatives:
¥ Taking no action at all and allowing the natural process to take place.
¥ "Retreat," meaning existing structures would be demolished. In that, a protective dune might be built to protect structures farther inland.
¥ "Beach nourishment," which means sand would dumped offshore or onshore to take the brunt of the wave energy and build up the beach.
¥ "Structural," which could include bulkheads, offshore reefs or improvements to the jetty, among other possible solutions.
The alternatives are weighed in terms of environmental impact, economic impact, cost, recreational impact and efficiency in reducing erosion.
The authors of the draft will host an open house and public meeting Wednesday night. But it will not be a public hearing and no testimony will be recorded.
Gallaher said she will be attending the public meeting - not her first on the subject.
"I went (in the past) because I didn't know a lot. I still don't think I know a lot."
Walking along the beach Monday afternoon, Gallaher pointed out her reasons to attend the meeting. High tides and wind have shaped the sheer cliff into a gentle slope of sand this year. She said she is not convinced the dune will return or the sea will be any kinder this winter.
Gallaher has witnessed "the power of a raging sea." But two years into retirement, this is her home - including the beach.
"What a terrible thing to lose," she said.
This page created and maintained by Chehalis River Council
Send comments or questions to the: Chehalis River Council