Blaine

Marine Park in Blaine, just south of the Canadian border, is located on the northwestern edge of a large peninsula built out of fill when they dredged their port and marina. The shoreline edge is pretty ragged and was composed of rocky headlands formed from old concrete and rock debris and a few scattered, somewhat accidental beaches. I visited it six years ago when the City was contemplating improvements to the park's shoreline (Blaine 2010).

AERIAL VIEW

One segment of the shoreline has recently been fixed up. The concrete has been replaced with better constructed and more attractive riprap promontories and the pocket beach has been enhanced. The idea of taking advantage of the existing headlands is a good one and it facilitates the creation of stable pocket beaches. There's probably more that they could do along here, but this is a great start.

There were signs of some erosion of the bank just north of the large log and root wad (see pictures). This isn't anything serious, although it bears watching. I wonder if it's a result of last months high tide storm interacting with the large log that's been placed on the bank. This log, which includes a big root wad, seems too high to have just floated in, so I assume it's an installation. As we've seen on other sites, there's some risk associated with placing big wood high on a steep profile - - it may eventually get undermined. But then it roll down to a more natural place on the beach.