Shore Stewards program helps homeowners as well as shoreline
By Jeff Chew, Peninsula Daily News
Print This |
Email This
Recent Headlines
To our readers . . . about the Aspire! Quartet’s Singing Valentine program -- 2/10/12 -01:53 PM
Floating luxury home hits the water, now moored at Point Hudson [**Video**] -- 2/10/12 -01:03 PM
Mountain goat population up about 40 percent in Olympic Mountains -- 2/10/12 -12:07 PM
417.9 million bites later . . . (does this video warrant that much attention?) -- 2/10/12 -12:02 PM
Josh Powell had ‘incestuous’ sex images, investigators say -- 2/10/12 -09:32 AM
Ten feet of their backyard bluff bank had slipped away into Port Ludlow Bay.
"It is traumatic for people like us, who had just put about everything we had into it," Anita Weakly said of the home on Condon Lane she and her husband bought 2½ years ago.
Knowing their dream was at risk, the retired educators swung into action, ultimately connecting with University of Washington Extension's Shore Stewards Program, based in Port Hadlock, and the North Olympic Salmon Coalition.
Today, the Weakleys enjoy spectacular views, watching bald eagles, with greater peace of mind.
An erosion-control drainage system has been installed to bypass their bluff's edge, which was replanted with native trees and shrubs.
Reforesting
South on Quilcene Bay, Carole and John Gusoskey have reforested the area around their home to protect the shellfish beds along the sandy gray tidelands in their back yard.
The shoreline acreage around their home — where a log dump once rested under a panoramic backdrop of the Eastern Olympic Mountains — has been replanted with about 200 trees.
Carole Gusoskey, a dog groomer, met Cammy Mills, Shore Stewards coordinator, at the program's outreach booth at the Brinnon/Hood Canal Shrimp Festival.
That led to the Gusoskeys' project.
Douglas fir saplings and snowberries now grow where invasive non-native Scotch broom, tansy ragwort and Japanese knotweed once reigned.
That is thanks to help from a weed control specialist with the county WSU Extension, Carole Gusoskey said.
"I've learned a lot from Shore Stewards," said the London, England native.
She now practices low use of pesticides and fertilizers to reduce nitrogen runoff, which is considered a cause of low oxygen levels in Hood Canal.
Lawn fertilizers, for example, promote algae growth and decomposition, reducing water oxygen levels, sometimes to the point of killing fish.
"We have one chance [on Earth], and we don't want to mess it up," she said.
Program offers advice
The Shore Stewards program gives property owners a chance to consult with an expert at their home sites.
They are told about healthy natural landscaping and gardening and acquiring donated native plant.
Shore Stewards workshops are conducted for shoreline landowners in Quilcene, Port Hadlock and Cape George.
The Hood Canal Shore Stewards strategy in Jefferson, Mason and Kitsap counties is to conserve and restore Puget Sound's marine resources on the private waterfronts, said Pat Pearson, Washington State University Extension county natural resources and stewardship coordinator.
The program is funded by a Puget Sound Action Team grant.
Through what they learned at Shore Stewards courses and through Shore Stewards staff assistance, the Weakleys and Gusoskeys can pass along their knowledge to friends and neighbors.
The topics presented:
The Weakleys paid for the re-installation of a new 18-inch drain pipe to replace one installed in the 1960s to better channel downhill-running street stormwater along the south side of their home.
The drain pipe runs down the bluff and into a stormwater catchment basin to disperse without causing erosion above.
Water absorbing willow trees were also planted on the bluff bank below.
They also hired a trapper to remove the mountain beavers that were digging holes on their bluff top, which added to soil destabilization.
From what she has learned from Shore Stewards, Anita Weakley went before the Port Ludlow Maintenance Commission, informing representatives that the water drainage problem was literally an uphill battle.
"It's not only people living on the edge, but people above us, even five miles uphill," she said, describing the water runoff problem in Port Ludlow and elsewhere.
"People cutting trees are influencing us.
"We just need to work together, and keep this beautiful, pristine place we live in."
________
Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: April 20. 2008 9:00PM