Zangle Cove Bulkhead Removal project resulted in the removal of 200 linear foot of bulkhead along the marine shoreline of South Puget Sound. The project restored spawning habitat for beach spawning fish (e.g., surf smelt and sand lance), restored shoreline sediment transport processes, and restored shoreline riparian vegetation providing multi-species benefits. The project was implemented on private residential waterfront property near Olympia, Washington. It is an important example of regional work underway to reduce harm from hard armoring on private waterfront property throughout Puget Sound. Numerous organizations are operating under the umbrella of the Shore Friendly program, supported by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program and other partners. The Shore Friendly program is a multi-organizational effort that aims to motivate residents living on marine shorelines to remove bulkheads and preserve natural shorelines, in order to support recovery of Puget Sound’s salmon and orca populations (among other species). Shore Friendly promotes a shoreline stewardship ethic that embraces natural coastal processes that support nearshore ecology.

Purpose of the project: 

Reduce the amount of hard armor on marine shoreline, allow natural coastal processes to occur (like bluff erosion), revegetate native marine riparian buffers to support nearshore ecology, and cultivate a behavioral change in waterfront residential communities that embraces stewardship of the marine shoreline and reducing anthropogenic impacts.
 

The overall issue: Shoreline armor and poor shoreline management at residential properties throughout Puget Sound are well understood to have a significant negative impact on nearshore health and function, and approximately 57% of the Puget Sound shoreline is privately owned residential land (Coastal Geologic Services, Puget Sound Shoreline Parcel Segmentation Report, 2014). Over 73 miles of shoreline in South Puget Sound are armored, representing 40% of Puget Sound-wide armor. This is the location of the Shore Friendly Thurston program and the Zangle Cove bulkhead removal project. Thurston CD joined Pierce and Mason CDs to form a South Sound Shore Friendly collaborative and to work together to address armor impacts in South Sound. Pierce, Thurston, and Mason counties represent over 13,400 residential parcels, of which at least 8,406 are known to be armored. In these three counties over 18 miles of armored shoreline directly impacts priority ecosystem processes like sediment-generating feeder bluffs (cutting off sediment supplies) as well as critical habitats, such as documented forage fish spawning territory.
 

Unfortunately, new bulkhead installation continues, and replacement of aging armor is increasing as bulkheads installed in the 1960s-80s begin to fail. Replacement armor is a special concern because it is easier for homeowners to replace old armor than to meet the standard for new armor installation; thus, working with these populations must be a continuing focus for armor removal efforts. Just as important is the effort to work with waterfront residents who have natural marine shorelines- helping these residents adopt different management strategies that avoid the need for new armor installation is a key priority of all partners. Shoreline armor results in a chain of impacts that degrade nearshore habitat and coastal processes. These impacts are identified in ESRP and PSNERP technical reports, as well as in recent research published on the impacts of armor. Among the many impacts and threats to Puget Sound habitat and species are the following:

At its core, shoreline armor simplifies the natural complexity of the shoreline that underlies many habitats and ecosystem processes. It shortens, straightens, hardens, and eradicates diversity at the critical interface between land and water.
 

• Armor stops the natural process of shoreline erosion, which is a critical process. Erosion contributes necessary sediment to beaches and maintains important beach characteristics, such as a gradually sloped profile (in many environments) and diverse sediments sizes that support conditions needed by spawning forage fish like surf smelt. Over time, natural erosion processes contribute sediment to drift cells that carry it along the shoreline and help to maintain shore forms such as accretion spits and other features. These sediment-fed features often enable intertidal vegetation to grow, especially on more sheltered beaches or on the side of berms protected from wind-generated waves. In turn, these plants help to secure sediment in place and provide food and cover to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial species, including pollinators.
•  Armor installation includes removal of riparian vegetation which would otherwise overhang and shade the beach, contributing large woody debris and detritus to feed the nearshore environment and support critical macroinvertebrate populations on the upper beaches. Overhanging riparian vegetation also modulates temperature on the upper beach and creates a protective microclimate that, in spawning areas, protects forage fish eggs from baking in the sun. Riparian vegetation is almost never replaced after a bulkhead goes in; instead, homeowners install lawn which provides no ecosystem benefit.
• The marine nearshore provides an essential and ecologically complex interface between aquatic and terrestrial landscapes. Armor destroys the connectivity of beach to upland by establishing a physical barrier that fragments the landscape. Vertical concrete bulkheads make movement between these two environments more difficult –if not impossible- for much wildlife.
• With the loss of appropriate sediment, microclimate, and cover, the food web is degraded. The decline of habitat for foundational species like forage fish degrades the entire Puget Sound ecosystem, which needs to maintain layers of complexity and species to feed the greater whole.
• On the beach itself, armor can in some cases exacerbate or concentrate surface erosion by deflecting wave energy down towards the beach surface, causing sediment to be scoured away and leading to a lowering of the beach profile and coarsening of beach sediment. Finer material tends to be lost as the beach can only retain larger cobble or exposed glacial till.
• From a hydrological perspective, armor can destroy natural drainage patterns. Armor leads engineers to simplify drainage, so that banks which once hosted multiple year-round seeps are converted into concentrated flows of water at a minimal number of discharge points. This transformation has many implications for the condition of the beach and the life that evolved to live around cool, continual freshwater seeps that normally emerge on banks or in the upper beach.
• Amor can also simply eradicate important shoreforms such as tidal wetlands or barrier beaches and embayments, slowly starving them of sediment over time or simply filling them in to create a foundation for a concrete wall.

Human Interest/Community Benefit: 

This project exemplifies regional efforts across Puget Sound focused specifically on residential marine waterfront homeowners to remove hard shoreline armor like bulkheads, to avoid building new bulkheads, and to steward the marine shoreline in support of natural coastal processes and ecological health. Local programs were established under ESRP’s Shore Friendly initiative and launched 6 years ago. Each program works directly with area homeowners to inspire shoreline management behavior changes towards stewardship and bulkhead removal. A key part of the Shore Friendly work is to help waterfront residents understand and appreciate coastal processes and change, rather than trying to control these natural processes. Understanding the role of sediment transport (including deposition and erosion) and riparian buffers in the marine nearshore environment helps these waterfront homeowners adopt management practices that benefit and sustain shoreline ecology, rather than destroy it.

The Zangle Cover project exemplifies the desired outcome of this regional effort. Olympia area property owners worked with Thurston Conservation District’s Shore Friendly program through design and construction of a restoration project that benefits aquatic species like salmon and the Orca whales that depend on salmon, as well as forage fish and many other species that utilize nearshore habitats. Zangle Cove represents the first of numerous South Puget Sound Shore Friendly bulkhead removal projects in development. Thurston Conservation District will remove another 100 LF of armor in Eld Inlet in summer 2024, and with their South Sound Shore Friendly partners at Pierce Conservation District, are on track to remove over 1700 linear feet of bulkhead at 7 unique residential properties, representing a third of a mile. The inherent complexity of Shore Friendly work is that marine shoreline parcels, unlike parks or other large public properties, have been subdivided into small lots. Removal of large stretches of shoreline armor presents an ongoing challenge that is building in momentum but requires Shore Friendly program leads to work closely with numerous individual landowners to remove small sections of shoreline armor at a time.

Project Timeline: 

Zangle Cove Bulkhead Removal started in 2019 and the bulkhead was removed in late summer 2023. Ongoing revegetation work continues through 2025.
 

Funding: $200,335
• $40,000 PMEP
• $113,073 WA State Salmon Recovery Funding Board ($30,922) and Estuary and Salmon Restoration Programs ($79,151)
• $37,262 WA State Conservation Commission
• $10,000 Landowner contributions
 

Partners: 

• PMEP
• Thurston Conservation District
• Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program
• Puget Sound waterfront homeowners