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Stormwater Monitoring Season is Here! 

 

Autumn 2022 starts our second two-year stormwater sampling campaign. This time with a twist: new citizen scientists in three more cities will be monitoring city stormwater outfalls in addition to continuing our work in Anacortes. Oak Harbor, Mukilteo, and Edmonds are now part of the expanded monitoring work that Friends of Skagit Beaches is leading in the North Sound. 

20221008 104425 1000226 1K smThis work is funded by a grant from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundations’ Southern Resident Killer Whale Conservation Program for the purpose of improving habitat, food sources, and conducting research to support recovery of the Southern Resident Orca population within our region. The grant covers the costs for volunteer coordination, recruiting, training, equipping, and managing the data captured by our volunteers.

During the summer of 2022 Friends established a partnership with the Snohomish County Beach Watcher program and the Sound Waters Stewards on Whidbey Island to connect to eager citizen science volunteers in their programs.  We recruited, trained, and equipped volunteers in Oak Harbor, Mukilteo, and Edmonds, as well as new volunteers for Anacortes. All three groups of eager volunteers are ready to get down to the beach and sometimes even in the water (photo left) to sample and take monitoring measurements. 20211115 102742 1022691 1Kpix

This volunteer effort addresses a shortcoming in our federal Clean Water Act: no required periodic monitoring of stormwater outfall pipes. Local towns would have difficulty in financially supporting the manpower and equipment costs for this activity. That’s where Friends of Skagit Beaches and our citizen science volunteers come to the rescue . . .

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Changing Shorelines

Along Fidalgo Bay

Learning from the past to shape a healthier future

p2 12 top

When Coast Salish tribes made their summer camps along local shores, the land transitioned naturally to the sea—forage fish laid eggs on shady pebble beaches; shellfish burrowed in eelgrass-covered mud flats; wetlands buffered wave action against the shore; and sloughing bluffs nourished nearby beaches.

New settlers, however, saw opportunity in cutting trees for building materials, dredging and filling tidal wetlands, and armoring the shore.

Modern understanding of the value of coastal habitats calls us to preserve and restore shorelines that nurture the food web and protect against storm damage and rising sea levels.

Taming the delta

p2 12taming the delta

Fidalgo Island was once knit to the mainland by extensive marshes, cut by channels of the Skagit River delta. The marshland, as well as a portage between Fidalgo and Similk bays (now a golf course), was drained and filled for farmland. Swinomish Channel is now spanned by Berentsen Bridge and regularly dredged for boat passage.

Against the flow

p2 12 against the flow

In the 1890s, the south shore of Fidalgo Bay was blasted, filled, and lined with rock for a rail line and road. This disrupted the natural flow of sediment from the adjacent bluff that replenished Weaverling Spit's north beach. To maintain the beach for recreation and habitat, members of the Samish tribe, today, must repeatedly add new material.

Grand plans

Anacortes founder Amos Bowman

Anacortes founder Amos Bowman, in 1890, conceived an ambitious plan to fill Cap Sante basin with streets and industry. The newly incorporated Port of Anacortes, in 1927, also had a grand plan to develop the harbor with warehouses and rail and ship terminals, above left. Economic depressions doomed both visions.

Industrial overreach

Industrial overreach

Early lumber mills freely expanded facilities into Fidalgo Bay, filling in the shoreline and shallow mud flats to access deeper waters. Docks—even buildings—extended further over the water on piers, facilitating delivery of log rafts directly to mills. Today, shoreline changes require strict review and permitting to assess and manage shoreline impacts.

In Friends Notes

Autumn 2022 starts our second two-year stormwater sampling campaign. This t...
UPDATE: Grant for Fidalgo Bay and City of Anacortes stormwater monitoring. ...
Compiled by Chris Wood with contributions from Ellen Anderson, Betty Carter...

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