Late this spring, just prior to the Snowy Plover nesting season, contractor Ross Island Sand & Gravel Company installed multiple rows of high-visibility bright orange mesh fencing on the partially completed berm constructed last summer at the eastern side of Shoalwater Bay.
The goal of the fencing is to discourage nesting by the threatened birds so that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can complete dune restoration work this summer.
The Snowy Plover is listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act and as Endangered by Washington State. The current Pacific coast breeding population extends from Midway Beach on the north side of Willapa Bay to Bahia Magdalena, Baja California, Mexico. The birds also winter on their nesting grounds, as well as other sites along the Pacific coastline.
The contractor will continue to regularly inspect and maintain the fencing until the construction project manager approves its removal when new Snowy Plover nesting sites are confirmed to be established off the erosion control berm area.
To encourage the plovers to nest off the berm site, project plan call for grading out the sand in front of the dune, creating a flat sloping beach, prime habitat for plovers that like to nest in open, sandy areas.
Berm 25% complete
The $7.5 million project calls for a berm that is approximately two-miles-long with a 25-foot height above mean low tide levels. It will take the addition of an estimated 700,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from Willapa Bay to complete construction.
Work began last August and continued through mid-November, when rough weather halted the project. At that point, approximately 25% of the sand required for dune restoration had been dumped and shaped at the site.
The materials came from a dredge site approximately 3,000 offshore in Willapa Bay. During dredging, the borrow site was trawled to determine Dungeness crab population density. The plan calls for dumping empty oyster shells to the subsurface this year as a mitigation measure to create habitat and help repopulate the area more quickly.
Outlet closure failure
One of the first projects completed last summer was the placement of sand in the inlet/outlet channel to the central part of the cove, closing it to tidal flows. An an erosion control berm was also added there to increase the initial elevation of the area to 15 feet above mean low tide levels.
Extreme high tides in late fall and early winter quickly wreaked havoc with that area, allowing the water to break through and tidal flow to return inside the berm line, along with dredged sand.
Recently, work began to shore up the cut to prevent continued major saltwater intrusion into the culturally and ecologically significant wetland area between the berm and SR105.