Tag Archives: Harper Estuary

New facts and findings about the European green crab invasion

The ongoing story of the European green crab invasion offers us scientific, social and even psychological drama, which I would like to update by mentioning four new developments:

  1. The somewhat mysterious finding of a partially eaten green crab on the Bellingham waterfront,
  2. A “story map” that spells out much of what we know about European green crabs in Puget Sound, including maps, photos and videos.
  3. Information about Harper Estuary in South Kitsap and other areas where groups of citizen scientists are on the lookout for green crabs, and
  4. Reports of a new breed of European green crab in Maine that attacks people and may prove to be more destructive than the green crabs that have lived in the area for a very long time.

Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Harper Estuary project gets started following years of discussion

Excavation started today on a $1.3-million project to reshape and restore Harper Estuary in South Kitsap.

Work began today on access roads for the Harper Estuary restoration project. Photo: Doris Small, WDFW
Heavy equipment begins work today to build access roads for the Harper Estuary restoration project.
Photo: Doris Small, WDFW

It is a project that I’ve been discussing since 2001, when former Harper resident Chuck Hower first introduced me to the idea, a concept that he had been promoting with state and federal officials. (See Kitsap Sun, Feb. 2, 2001.)

Orion Marine Contractors was the successful bidder among six companies that offered bids on the project to remove much of the fill material placed in and around the estuary. The amount of soil to be removed is estimated at more than 15,000 cubic yards, or enough to fill roughly 1,000 dump trucks.

“The work will restore (the estuary) to levels conducive to marsh establishment,” said Doris Small of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The project will recover a spit, reconnect saltwater to an impounded wetland and remove a bulkhead and old “relic” road that impounds the wetland, she said.

Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Harper Estuary project nears fall construction; bridge to come later

A new Harper Estuary bridge is being planned with a trail to the water. Graphic: Kitsap County Public Works
A new Harper Estuary bridge is being planned with a trail to the water. // Graphic: Kitsap County Public Works

The Harper Estuary restoration project is finally coming together, with one contractor being hired for culvert removal, others bidding for the excavation work and engineers completing the designs for a new bridge.

Since June, the first phase of the project has been divided into two parts. The first actual construction will involve the replacement of a 24-inch culvert that carries Harper Creek under Southworth Drive. The new structure will be a three-sided, open-bottom culvert that spans 16 feet across the stream.

A larger culvert will carry Harper Creek under Southworth Drive. Graphic: Kitsap County Public Works
A larger culvert will carry Harper Creek under Southworth Drive. (Click to enlarge.)
Graphic: Kitsap County Public Works

Bids were opened, and a contractor has been preliminarily selected, said Doris Small, project coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. A meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday to iron out the final details and award the contract, she said.

The work must be completed by Oct. 15, so things will progress rapidly, she said. An announcement will be made soon regarding a temporary detour on Southworth Drive.

The remainder of the first phase involves the excavation of dirt and other debris used to fill in the estuary years ago. The project has been reduced slightly in size from the original design, reducing water contact in certain spots, Doris told me. Also, an analysis of the soils to be removed concluded that some of the fill material is contaminated at such a low level that it can be used as fill elsewhere or sent to a composting facility.

Olympiad Drive crosses Harper Estuary. Photo: Kitsap County Public Works
Olympiad Drive crosses Harper Estuary.
Photo: Kitsap County Public Works

Bids will be taken on the excavation project until Sept. 13, and the work must be done before the middle of February.

The design of a new 120-foot-long bridge on Olympiad Drive is between 60 and 90 percent complete. Applications have been submitted for several grants to complete the project, primarily construction of the new bridge. The bridge will replace a 36-inch culvert where the road crosses the estuary. The design includes access for people to walk down to the water, and it can be used to launch small hand-carried boats.

As I described in Water Ways in June, the existing makeshift boat launch must be removed to allow the restored estuary to function properly. I am told, however, that county officials are still looking for a nearby site to build a new boat launch with access for trailered boats.

If grants are approved to cover the cost, the bridge could be under construction next summer, Doris said. The total estimated cost of the entire restoration is now $7 million, with $4.1 million approved from a mitigation fund related to contamination from the Asarco smelter in Tacoma.

For information:

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Engineers find new location for boat facility in Harper Estuary

At a community meeting in March, many residents of Harper in South Kitsap expressed profound disappointment that the latest plan to restore Harper Estuary would remove a low-key boat launch used by many people in the area. See Kitsap Sun story, March 31.

The makeshift boat launch, built on fill, provides the only access to the beach in that area, community members noted. Many expressed their belief that county and state officials had failed in their commitment to maintain beach access.

Not yet approved, this rough drawing shows how a trail alongside Olympiad Drive could be used to reach Harper Estuary. Drawing: Kitsap County Public Works
Not yet approved, this rough drawing shows a trail alongside Olympiad Drive to Harper Estuary.
Drawing: Kitsap County Public Works

After the meeting, five representatives of the community met onsite with officials involved in the project. Several ideas were discussed, and it appears that a new access to the estuary is gaining approval, though it won’t allow vehicles with trailers to reach the water. The new access would be an earthen ramp on the opposite side of Olympiad Drive.

An addendum to the planning documents (PDF 1.1 mb) makes it clear that the old boat launch basically prevents the $4-million restoration project from being done right.

“Retaining the boat landing in its current location will:

  • “Block the ability to replace the undersized culvert with a large bridge in order to restore estuary function and tidal exchange,
  • “Reduce sediment contaminant removal associated with the excavation project,
  • “Retain compacted gravel substrate that does not support aquatic plants or benthic organisms at the existing boat launch, and
  • “Impede restoration of filled estuarine habitat and functional channel geometry.”

The proposal now under consideration is to grade the slope alongside Olympiad Drive at a gentle 5:1 angle. Cars and trucks could pull off the side of the road long enough to unload their boats, which would be carried down the slope. For people who just want to walk down to the water, the ramp would provide the needed access and perhaps the beginning of a proposed trail system around the estuary.

Harper Estuary Contributed photo
Harper Estuary // Contributed photo

A plan to build stairs down to the water from Southworth Drive raised objections during the March meeting, because it would be difficult and unsafe to carry boats across the busy roadway and down concrete steps, which could become slippery. If the stairs are built, which remains undecided, they could be designed to contain gravel, making them less slippery.

Jim Heytvelt, a community leader in Harper, said the new access to the beach would meet the needs of most, but not all, people in the community. Most people in support of the restoration never wanted a major boat launch like the one at Manchester, he said. People are beginning to come around to the reality of the situation, given conditions needed to restore the estuary, he said.

During surveys of the property, officials discovered another problem that could have thrown a monkey wrench into the boat launch at its current location. The county learned that it does not own the property where the boat launch was built, as had been widely assumed. The property is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources — and nobody has ever been given approval to use the site.

Even if the restoration could be done without removing the launch site, nobody knows if the DNR would grant a lease for the use to continue. Someone might need to assume liability at the site. The proposed ramp to the estuary seems to eliminate that problem, as the property is almost entirely owned by the county.

Delays in preparing the plans, getting permits and putting the project out to bid has caused the schedule to slip from early summer into late summer and fall, said Doris Small of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. That assumes the project can be advertised for bids by the end of this month — something that is still not certain.

Any further delays could put the funding in jeopardy and might require new approvals from the Washington Department of Ecology and possibly the Legislature. The restoration money comes from a fund set up to mitigate for damages from the ASARCO smelter in Tacoma, which emitted toxic pollution for decades, some of which reached South Kitsap.

The first phase of the project involves excavation to remove most of the fill dumped into the estuary, allowing the shorelines to return to a natural condition. To complete the restoration, additional funding is being sought to build a bridge, which will replace the culvert under Olympiad Drive. If funding is approved, the bridge could be built as early as next summer.

Another community meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Colby United Methodist Church, 2881 Harvey St. SE. Officials will provide an update on the restoration efforts. County Commission Charlotte Garrido said she would like to continue discussions about what the community would like to see in the future, hoping to build a stronger relationship between the county and the community.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Harper Estuary moving toward restoration, including a new bridge

At Harper Estuary in South Kitsap, the question of “bridge or no bridge?” has become, “How long should the bridge be to protect the ecosystem?”

It’s a story I’ve been covering since 2001, when Harper resident Chuck Hower first told me about an old brick factory that operated in Harper during the early 1900s. He was dismayed by the massive amount of fill dirt later brought in to build roads across what had been a beautiful salt marsh. See Kitsap Sun, Feb. 12, 2001.

Although state and federal agencies were convinced that restoration of the estuary would be a wonderful thing for fish and wildlife, funding proposals came and went until two years ago. That’s when the Legislature decided that the Harper project should receive $4.1 million. The money was from a $142-million settlement with ASARCO related to pollution from company-owned smelters in Tacoma and Everett. More than $8 million was earmarked for environmental restoration. Check out this story, Kitsap Sun, Jan. 14, 2014.

Once the money was approved, the project got rolling. Planners had to decide how much of the fill material could be removed with the available money and what to do with Olympiad Drive, built on an earthen causeway across the upper portion of the estuary.

Biologists generally agreed that the best thing for the ecosystem was to take out Olympiad Drive entirely, although that would force area residents to take an alternate route on Nokomis Road to Southworth Drive. The result would be only one road in and out of the community east of the estuary, and that did not sit well with folks in the area.

Local fire officials were not happy with that arrangement either, according to Kathy Peters, salmon recovery coordinator for Kitsap County. They said it would cut down response time to the neighborhood.

In addition, she said, county engineers determined that the width of Nokomis Road would not meet design standards if the majority of area traffic began using the road. Widening the road would create other complications, such as buying right of way and tearing down some buildings.

“For all these reasons, everyone agreed that we can’t abandon the road,” Kathy told me.

What then resulted was a question of how long to make the bridge. Often, a longer bridge means greater ecosystem integrity. But there’s always the matter of cost.

What then ensued behind the scenes was a lot of haggling among biologists, engineers and other county officials, as well representatives of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Suquamish Tribe. I’ve been hearing about these difficult discussions for months.

Finally, a resolution came when Kitsap County’s new public works director, Andy Nelson, suggested that the county proceed with preliminary design studies, as it would for any bridge, but include ecosystem restoration as a primary design criteria. Nobody could find any reason not to go that way, Kathy said.

The county is now contracting for a consultant to do preliminary design, which will include various options, how much they will cost and how close they can come to a fully functioning natural system.

Meanwhile, WDFW is moving forward with its plans to restore the estuary and get that project under construction. Much of the work will involve removal of fill on both sides of Olympiad Drive and along the shoreline to bring the estuary back to a semblance of what it once was. A boat launch will be relocated.

A few other details, including the biological value of estuaries, can be found in a fact sheet on the county’s Harper Estuary website. Officials are pulling together additional information in preparation for a public meeting April 6 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Colby United Methodist Church.

Community involvement in the project is important, according to Kathy Peters, who wants people to enjoy the waterway and be able to observe as a variety of plants and animals recolonize the estuary.

Removing the fill is expected to unearth a huge number of old bricks, which were dumped into the estuary after the Harper Brick and Tile Factory went out of business in the 1930s.

Jim Heytvelt, who lives near the estuary, said neighbors have been discussing gathering up the bricks and forming them into some kind of monument.

“We have a pretty tight community,” Jim said. “We have neighborhoods on both the east and west sides of the estuary who want to get involved.”

He said most everyone is excited about the restoration, which has been a long time coming.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post