FRONT PAGE

Beach residents hope to avoid rerun

By Meg Olson

County engineers say they are finally ready to implement some of the recommendations of a 2005 report that Maple Beach residents say could have saved their properties from damage during last winter’s storms.
“That report was done before that bad storm last year and there was a process to deal with the emergency, but nothing was done,” said Bob Cannon, who owns a cottage on Bayview Drive and Fir Street.

The August 2005 report by Coastal Geologic Services of Bellingham follows a detailed analysis of the evolution of the shoreline from Lily Point north to Canada with four recommendations: an emergency/contingency plan to handle sudden storm damage and erosion; extending the footing of the seawall downwards; broad-scale beach nourishment; and the abandonment of some sections of wall and roadway. Abandoning portions of the roadway would be an extreme measure, recommended only if beach nourishment and wall repairs could not maintain the shoreline.

“The seawall was never designed properly,” Cannon said, and needed to be replaced with a more efficient design, including deeper footings. Changing erosion patterns have meant the beach at Maple Beach has been shrinking, while it is growing north of the border. “The beach has eroded completely,” Cannon said. “Now at high tide there’s three feet of water right at the seawall and it’s like a surfing wave coming over.”

Chris Brueske, one of the county’s engineering project managers, said they were planning to implement the beach feeding portion of the report recommendations as soon as the federal permits they have applied for are issued. “I don’t think we’ll get permission before winter,” he said.

Once permits are issued they will begin spilling 3/4 to 1 inch cobbles over the existing seawall and “let the wave action move it around and spread it in. By making the slope of the beach steeper, Brueske said, “It would dissipate some of that energy as it heads up the beach and before it hits the wall.”

This November, pending permits from the county, Brueske said they would be anchoring the northern panels of the wall to prevent further rotation. They would not, as the report recommends, be replacing the wall and deepening the footings. “Deepening the footings is quite an undertaking,” he said,” and I’m not sure it’s necessary. That wall has stood there for over 20 years and it’s only moved 3/4 of an inch. I think it’s holding up well and in the short term if the beach nourishment goes well I don’t know it will be necessary to replace the wall.”

Cannon said he was frustrated by the delay in getting critical repairs done and said if it meant only dumping boulders along the wall to break the wave action, the community is demanding action before the storm season hits. “If the county has held off again and it’s another bad year for storms you’ve got a fresh class-action lawsuit.”