Friends of the San Juans has received competitive funding through the National Estuary Program to study threats to shoreline habitat, private property, and public infrastructure from rising sea levels and the cumulative impacts of shoreline modifications in San Juan County. The results of the study, which will include new erosion rates and sea level rise models and maps, as well as ways to reduce risk, will be applicable throughout Puget Sound.

Shoreline modification poses one of the most significant risks to the long-term health of our nearshore ecosystems, including those southern resident orcas, marbled murrelet seabirds, steller sea lions, and chinook salmon. In San Juan County, over 20 miles of local beaches have already been armored by roads and residential and commercial bulkheads. Nearly one third of the Puget Sound basin’s 2,500 miles is already armored, and every year additional miles of shoreline are hardened.  If this trend continues, it is anticipated to make beaches more vulnerable to climate change by shrinking or fully submerging them.  Beach habitat is an important part of marine food webs, essential to the spawning fish that feed seabirds, large fishes like salmon and ling cod, and marine mammals.

“It’s really important to start asking the tough questions about which special places for fish, wildlife and people are going to suffer increased flooding. Without this basic information, we can’t move forward as a community to figure out how to reduce the risk through modified development techniques or locations,” said Tina Whitman, director at Friends of the San Juans.

Friends of the San Juans will complete this innovative shoreline protection project with Coastal Geologic Services, Inc. of Bellingham and a technical team of local and regional experts.  For more info on shoreline habitats and sea level rise, contact the Friends of the San Juans or visit www.sanjuans.org.