NWSF Partners with Landowners to Restore Part of Chuckanut Bay

NWSF partnered with shoreline landowners Patrice Clark and Bill Wright to help them remove the large breakwater at Clark’s Point in Bellingham. We started working with Patrice and Bill in 2015 when they approached us looking for solutions to restore the tidal flow within the small embayment on the north end of Chuckanut Bay. The project site sits within an approximately 71-acre conservation easement. The Clark family has been stewarding these lands for decades and have actively reforested the area and managed the site by removing derelict structures and invasive vegetation.

The breakwater was created in the late 1950s and expanded in the 1960s to create a boat basin for private boat moorage. The boat basin breakwater was constructed of large sandstone boulders, which were reportedly blasted from the adjacent cliff that comprises the western edge of the boat basin, and also by blasting a gap into the narrow sandstone peninsula that formed the eastern side of the basin.

American Construction removed 1,950 tons of rock from the site in November along with the remaining remnants of a small dock. Engineering and design was provided by Coastal Geologic Services.

We will continue to watch the site as it changes over the next few years, looking at the small patches of eelgrass that provide refuge and foraging for salmonids as well as crabs, shrimp, marine birds and other critters. Photos by Bob Morton.