Shine Tidelands

In an earlier post, I mentioned how the Hood Canal Bridge may have modified sediment transport at Salsbury Point at its eastern end. There's no question that the bridge mucked up the beaches at it's western end. The bridge is constructed on a fill that blocks northward drift and buried the southern end of a spit and its associated lagoon. Shine Tidelands is a beach with no sediment source and far less southerly wave action than prior to 1961. The southern end of the spit is riprapped and the beach is a cobble lag - starved of sand and gravel. The marsh is largely intact and remains a bit brackish near the northern end, where you can still see salicornia and the remains of the old drift logs.

We can't make the beach whole - at least not without the bridge sinking again - but we could make it a lot better. Pull the riprap out and get some small gravel and sand back onto the beach at the southern end, remove as much of the old fill as possible and plant native backshore vegetation, and maybe even restore tidal circulation with an inlet nearer the north end.

Today's meeting was exciting - maybe some of this stuff can really happen.