Critter-Friendly Shoreline for Bellingham

Wendy Steffensen is the North Sound Baykeeper with RE Sources. She’s a trained toxiciologist and specialist in water quality issues. She has been working on Bellingham Bay issues since 2000.

Fish and other animals make their way, as they can, along Bellingham Bay’s shoreline, but their journey is harder than it once was. Due to our urban past, shorelines of the city are contaminated, fragmented, steepened and hardened and offer only minimal respite and food for our marine animals.

The opportunity to make our shorelines more hospitable is happening now. We can make regulatory changes to the city of Bellingham shoreline rules and we can demand a more protective and habitat-friendly cleanup in the Whatcom Waterway, the navigation channel that connects the Whatcom Creek estuary to Bellingham Bay.

The importance of improving habitat in our urban bay cannot be underestimated. In the past 100 years, the filling and dredging of inner Bellingham Bay has resulted in the loss of over 200 acres of eelgrass and 320 acres of intertidal habitat. We know that loss of habitat is a leading cause in the depletion of our birds and fish. Puget Sound chinook salmon are listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act; populations of over-wintering birds such as western grebes and surf scoters have decreased as much as 95 and 65 percent, respectively, within the last 10 years; and the fragmentation and “bulkheading” of our shorelines have significantly lessened the spawning habitat available for forage fish, a key component of salmon diets. The health of these declining species, and others, depends on a healthy nearshore environment, in all of the bays and inlets of Puget Sound, including Bellingham Bay.

Salmon, crabs, birds and other fish thrive where shorelines provide continuous, vegetated, shallow, inter- and subtidal habitats. They use these areas for feeding, rearing, hiding and migrating. For our marine animals to live well, we must not only address toxic contamination problems, but we must also protect existing habitat and make physical improvements to the shoreline, returning it back to some of its former function.

The intertidal zone is where shorebirds skitter back and forth along the waves and small schools of fish navigate the shore. This is the place where the tide flushes in and out; it is the zone that is neither wet nor dry all of the time. It’s often vegetated and is rich in small prey. The intertidal area offers key feeding areas for shorebirds, crabs, and juvenile salmon and flatfish, refuge from predators for crabs and juvenile fish, and spawning areas for forage fish that lay their eggs on sand and gravel.

On most urban waterfronts, including Bellingham’s, a bit of intertidal habitat remains and the remainder has been filled in with bulkheads. The bit of intertidal habitat that remains should be protected, as it is easier to protect what Mother Nature has already provided, than to re-create it.

In central Bellingham Bay, intertidal habitat exists at small pocket beaches, located at the ends of I&J Waterway, G Street, C Street, Central Avenue, Georgia-Pacific log pond, and Cornwall Avenue and on the mudflat at Roeder Avenue (see map on page 6). Protection of these beaches and mudflat will provide feeding and spawning areas for shorebirds and forage fish. Restoration in the form of grading the steep beaches, removing creosote pilings and planting vegetation will enhance their function as habitat. In addition to the beaches, more intertidal habitat must be provided to create a network of shallow protective areas such that fish, birds and crabs can move easily from one area to the next.

Restoration of existing shorelines through re-engineering or “softening” can also provide intertidal habitat in Bellingham Bay. To soften a shoreline, hard steep bulkheads and riprap are removed and the interface between the land and the water is graded at a shallow angle. In the central waterfront area, the best candidates for shore softening are along the Cornwall Landfill, Pine Street, Georgia-Pacific’s (G-P) old treatment lagoon, east side of the Whatcom Waterway and portions of the I&J Waterway (see map on page 6). A successful example of a softened shoreline is at Marine Park in Fairhaven, where a riprapped shoreline was converted to a sandy, much more functional beach.

Another potential area to create intertidal area is at G-P’s old treatment lagoon. Intertidal habitat can be created on the outside of the breakwaters, whether this site becomes a park or a marina. If the lagoon becomes a marina, both the inner and outer breakwater would be graded to provide intertidal habitat, according to Port of Bellingham plans. As a participant in the port’s marina charrette, I can testify that the possibility of opening up the lagoon to aquatic habitat is promising from a habitat perspective. (See “Citizens Promote Ecologically- and Neighborhood-Friendly Waterfront,” cover article in December 2003 Whatcom Watch.)

The initial charrette plans call for grading of the breakwaters to a shallow slope, planting native vegetation and creating fish passages such that fish can travel along fairly continuous stretches of intertidal habitat. In order for the proposed marina habitat to have sufficient value, the port will need to make good on its promise of creating habitat in what it terms a “clean ocean” marina, including habitat enhancements and control of pollutants.

Of note, RE Sources and the North Sound Baykeeper have not endorsed the creation of a marina or a park in the lagoon because of the unresolved toxics issues surrounding the cleanup. The lagoon is a possible location to store the toxics that it and the Whatcom Waterway contain. The decision as to the fate of the lagoon should be made only after the cleanup decisions have been made, so that we know whether the lagoon is the best place to store the toxic material.

The subtidal zone is the area that’s always submerged. In the nearshore environment, shallow subtidal areas where light penetrates and aquatic vegetation grows are the most productive. Fish and crabs use vegetated subtidal areas much the same as they do in the intertidal area, for refuge and feeding. In order to augment lost habitat for fish and crabs, actual re-creation of subtidal habitat is possible, although it’s still experimental.

“Salmon benches” outside of steep shorelines can be made from mounds of clean dredged sediment. When functioning, these benches are colonized by aquatic vegetation and serve as migratory corridors offering salmon food and refuge from predators. In Bellingham Bay, there exists one experimental salmon bench outside of the Squalicum Marina breakwater. Initial results indicate that the bench has lost some of its sediment, but that it has also been colonized to some extent by aquatic vegetation. Whether the bench provides beneficial subtidal habitat has not yet been determined. Additional experimental benches could be placed where the shore cannot be softened, in areas outside of high wind and wave action.

Nearly all of the central waterfront area is paved and void of any vegetation. A healthy nearshore environment has trees that provide shade at the upper reaches of the intertidal zone and plants of all sizes and types that provide small bits of detritus and insects to the nearshore marine waters. Forage fish require shade to prevent their eggs from drying out in summer heat. Juvenile salmon subsist to a large part on the detritus and insects from vegetation on land. To restore habitat along the shore, small overhanging trees should be planted at pocket beaches and vegetation should be planted along the shoreline, wherever possible.

Man-made structures that overhang and shade the water are detrimental to salmon and crabs. When marine waters are shaded, the growth of eelgrass and kelp, needed for migration corridors and nursery areas, is inhibited. Additionally, as salmon transition from freshwater to saltwater, one of the physiological changes they undergo is a change in the way their eyes perceive color and light. This physiological change actually makes salmon avoid shaded areas and go out into deeper, less protected water, where they are more vulnerable to predation.

Restoration of subtidal and intertidal areas will occur through the removal of docks in the Whatcom Waterway and removal of a short overhanging road end supported by pilings at Central Avenue (see map). The removals will increase the value of the waterway as a salmon migration corridor and of the Central Avenue pocket beach as a vegetated refuge for crabs and fish.

Restoration in Bellingham Bay is not about turning back the hands of time; it is about returning small bits of habitat and connecting them, so that fish, birds, crabs and all of the animals that depend on them can thrive.

Look for a July release of the revised city of Bellingham Shoreline Master Program update and the new draft Remedial Investigation/ Feasibility Study for the Whatcom Waterway. Comment on these plans. Make your voice heard for habitat, for all of the critters who cannot speak.

To learn more about habitat options in Bellingham Bay, and to view maps, go to: http://www.re-sources.org/bellinghamwaterfrontredevelopment.htm. To get weekly updates on marine events and opportunities for comment, sign up on the North Sound Baykeeper e-list: waters@re-sources.org. §