Beach erosion threatens coastal state park

WESTPORT, Grays Harbor County — At high tide, green-gray waves sweep around Half Moon Bay and slam into a barrier of 1,250-pound concrete blocks. As each wave recedes, it rattles the bed of tennis-ball-sized rocks beneath it, producing a crackling noise that sounds like the beach itself is applauding.

Randy Lewis isn't clapping. As city administrator to this town of 2,100, Lewis sees each high tide and each winter storm as one more threat to a popular state park and visitor attraction.

"To the city, this has become a crisis," Lewis said.

Just a few yards in front of the waves lies Westhaven State Park, which drew 157,000 visitors last year. Huge chunks of beach were lost in severe storms in October and December, the latest blows to a narrow strip of land between the Pacific Ocean on the west and Half Moon Bay on the east.

The storms also have undermined part of a paved, accessible walkway completed just last spring. The walkway connects the park to Westport's marina area a mile away. To protect the path from further damage, crews have blocked off a section and covered it under several feet of sand.

In an area where erosion has been a fact of life, no solution can please everyone involved.

In its latest proposal, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seeks to dump 25,000 cubic yards of sand in Half Moon Bay and along the beach, which it concedes is a stop-gap measure. But the move is drawing criticism from environmentalists.

"Millions of dollars of money has been kind of cast to the wind there," said area resident R.D. Grunbaum, a leading critic of the corps' actions. "We think that's a reckless way of coastal engineering and a reckless way to take care of public assets."

Court action possible soon

Court action is possible as early as this week. Last year, Seattle attorney Knoll Lowney, representing Grunbaum and a group called Wildlife Forever, got a federal-court restraining order blocking an earlier version of the plan, which called for dumping 40,000 tons of gravel and rock in and along the bay.

Environmentalists not only object to the current proposal but fear it could lead to creation of a more massive erosion-blocking project that, in turn, could encourage a years-old plan to build more than 200 condominium units in an area they view as precious habitat for migrating seabirds and other species.

City officials, Lewis said, favor the sand-dumping plan as an emergency effort. He had hoped the 750 concrete blocks the city set on the beach in October and December would already have been replaced by now with a more substantial fill.

Also watching the situation closely are officials with the Port of Grays Harbor, who would like to see the corps take a more lasting action to abate the erosion.

"We'd like to get out of the cycle of having to deal with this every five or six years," said the port's executive director, Gary Nelson.

The port's chief concern is the nearby South Jetty, which protects the southern side of the navigation channel into the Grays Harbor ports of Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Cosmopolis.

"This is the lifeblood for southwest Washington in terms of economic activity," said Nelson, adding that the approximately 4,500 port-related jobs represent roughly one-fourth of the county's employment.

Westhaven State Park's visitor count makes it "the busiest park for its size" in the state, said Ed Girard, parks area manager. The park is listed as being 78 acres, "but it may be more like 60 by now," Girard said.

Winter is the slow season for Westport tourism; many of the park's visitors are surfers, braving chilling wind and waves near the jetty. But Al Perlee, owner of The Surf Shop, said Westhaven is by no means just a park for surfers.

"In the summer, that parking lot fills up in the mornings," Perlee said. "A lot of out-of-town visitors come here. They fly kites. They climb around on the rocks. They beachcomb and they dig clams, they fish off the jetty, play football, have picnics, little kids eat sand ... everybody experiences the beach in their own way."

Shrinking beach

Erosion has been a fact of life in this area, especially when fierce winds add an extra blast to high tides.

The adjacent ocean beach has lost 2 to 62 feet a year since the 1960s. Restroom structures in the park have been destroyed twice by erosion. The current restrooms — the park's third — are in a portable building so they can be taken out of harm's way.

Since the early 1990s, waves have taken an especially big bite along Half Moon Bay, which lies south and east of the South Jetty.

In a dramatic display of nature's power, waves topped the jetty in 1993, severing the narrow land bridge alongside it and, in effect, turning the jetty into an island.

With congressional authorization, the Army Corps of Engineers restored the connection within months, spending $11 million to strengthen the jetty and $4 million to place 600,000 cubic yards of sand — enough to cover a football field more than 300 feet deep. Despite the magnitude of the project, the solution was expected to last only five to 10 years.

Lowney, representing Wildlife Forever, said the erosion-control methods are more of a threat to a user-friendly ocean beach than the erosion itself.

If erosion is allowed to take its course, he said, the result would likely be a smoothly sloping beach, even though it would continue to move inland. In contrast, sand-dumping efforts have produced sharp cliffs where waves undercut the fill, creating a hazard for visitors.

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com