Starting with Westport in 2016, coastal resiliency and erosion adaptation efforts throughout Grays Harbor, specifically the North and Westport jetties, have been a win some, lose some proposition.

Ocean Shores has recently taken Westport’s sea wall lead and has had some success with a new, temporary cobble berm along the south shore of what is known as Oyhut Bay.

In Ocean Shores, Oyhut Bay erosion has averaged 60 feet per year from 2017-2023, in Westport, Pacific Coast erosion has ranged from 2.3 to 11.5 feet per year from 2002-2016, while Half Moon Bay erosion has averaged three feet per year during the same time period.

According to Ocean Shores Lead Planner and Shoreline Administrator Marshall Read, it was determined that it would be better to stop the shoreline retreat rather than wait for encroaching waves to destroy homes and threaten critical infrastructure, hence the cobble berm.

However, the canceled Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) federal grant program left numerous local and regional infrastructure projects in limbo. Since then, stakeholders have been seeking alternative funding sources.

In 1916, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the construction of Grays Harbor’s North Jetty, a three mile-long berm of boulders jutting into the Pacific, hugging and holding the entire southern shoreline of Ocean Shores. Oyhut Bay did not exist at that time.

Today, a large remnant of that jetty, roughly 10,000 feet angling to the northeast from the peninsula’s western hoof to the Damon Point parking lot, lies stranded and submerged in the bay, battered by 100 years of bashing saltwater, waves and, once, the impact of an errant fishing boat. Due to erosion and severe weather Damon Point and the Quinault Marina and RV Park at the south end of Ocean Shores are closed indefinitely.

The Army Corps of Engineers is set to begin work on a $17 million federally-funded project to repair the North Jetty, protecting the west side of the peninsula, including the Ocean Shores wastewater treatment plant. The scope of that project does not include repairs to the remnant jetty. However, there is a school of thought that repairing that remnant jetty would be extremely helpful as well.

According to an Army Corps of Engineers presentation to the Port of Grays Harbor Board of Commissioners delivered Tuesday, funding should be awarded for the North Jetty repair in September, staging procurement and delivery of rock could happen as early as December, with the placement of rock starting next summer.

Ocean Shores has applied for and received a Cooperating Technical Partners (CTP) grant to study the north side of the entrance to Grays Harbor.

“The first (CTP) grant is independent, that’s just the city of Ocean Shores, and that’s going to be looking at that area between Damon Point, the (remnant) jetty, and Oyhut Wildlife Recreation Area, to see the sediment flows, and impacts of that (remnant) jetty and now the impacts of a potential channel opening along that jetty into the inner bay and the North Bay,” Read said back in January. “That data will feed into other projects as we merge resources with the city of Westport moving forward.”

Shortly after the new cobble berm was constructed in Ocean Shores, Grays Harbor County, Ocean Shores and Westport, with the dogged determination of coastal erosion consultant Scott Boettcher, submitted a CTP grant application through FEMA.

Boettcher updated the Ocean Shores City Council on the progress of grant applications and funding Tuesday evening. Grant applications have been submitted to FEMA as well as the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and its National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF), which supports nature-based solutions that enhance the resilience of coastal communities and habitats to address increasing threats from storms, sea and lake level changes, flooding, erosion and other coastal hazards.

Despite the uncertainty with FEMA funding and the cancellation of the BRIC grant program, the agency is expected to ask the Grays Harbor County coastal resiliency committee for a full proposal for the CTP grant Boettcher applied for in February.

“We received word the other day informally from FEMA that we should start getting ready because we will probably get a request to submit the final, full proposal, which was very good,” Boettcher said. “(The NCRF grant) is a similar kind of grant in terms of funding, $300,000. We submitted the preproposal, and we got the request to submit the full proposal. It’s due on the 17th.”

According to the application sent to the NCRF, “Widespread, accelerating coastal erosion in northern Columbia River littoral cell presents a significant, long-term hazard for Ocean Shores, Westport, and coastal Grays Harbor County, threatening ecologic and community resilience and requiring a long-term strategy of sequenced multi-benefit (nature-based solutions) investments.”

“If we get the funding, you will hopefully see a lot of me,” Boettcher said. “We really need a healthy discussion around what is resiliency. What is resiliency for Ocean Shores, for Westport, for unincorporated county on the coastline. … We need multiple rounds of funding, we really do.”

The discussion will continue at Greater Grays Harbor, Inc.’s Business Forum Lunch: Coastal Development Updates and Flood Control Efforts on July 22 at the Rotary Log Pavilion in Aberdeen. The forum will feature key updates on coastal development and flood control efforts in the region.

Guest speakers will include Ryann Day, who will share insights into the proposed Westport Golf Links project, and Boettcher, who will provide critical updates on the North and South Beach Cooperative Technical Partners Erosion Control Project and the North Beach Flood District.

Material from The Daily World reporter Clayton Franke’s Nov. 2, 2023 article was used for this story.