An excavator removes a rock and concrete bulkhead at the Woodard Bay Restoration Project near Olympia. / Michele Zukerberg, DNR

A stretch of shoreline in south Puget Sound is getting an extreme makeover thanks to a restoration project that removed 250 feet of bulkhead, an abandoned house with a failing septic system and a variety of invasive shrubs and weeds.

Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) owns the property, located on Weyer Point north of Olympia in Woodard Bay, and wants to return it to nature.

Bulkheads and other forms of shoreline armoring can harm shorelines by preventing bluff and bank erosion—a natural process that provides sediments to maintain shoreline habitats. Also, bulkheads alter wave energy, which creates a scouring action on the beach in front of the bulkhead and damages habitat.

Watch what happens
Last fall, crews removed rock, log and concrete bulkheads—all under the watchful eye of archeologists, geologists and Michele Zukerberg, manager of DNR’s Woodard Bay restoration project.

While bulkheads have been removed in several locations around Puget Sound, they’re usually replaced with soft-shore armoring, or they require long-term maintenance through manual replenishment of beach sediments.

Nothing will replace the Weyer Point bulkheads.

“To my knowledge, simply removing the bulkheads and watching what happens has never been done,” Zukerberg said. “So there is very little information about what might happen when you take bulkheads away.”

How can you tell if it’s working?
Before the excavator rumbled to life, Zukerberg and her colleagues sampled sediments and surveyed the local sea life to gather baseline data. Results from this project could have a wide impact on shoreline armoring issues throughout Puget Sound.

“As the Sound’s landlord, it is essential for the Department of Natural Resources to set the standard for stewardship of our marine resources,” said Brad Ack, Chair of the Action Team, “This project will do just that.”

Removing the bulkheads was only one part of this impressive project. DNR staff and partners looked for ways to recycle or reuse most of the materials from the site. Zukerberg calculated that, by weight, only 13 percent of several hundred tons of material went into a landfill.

The project was funded by a grant from the Washington Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation and the FishAmerica / NOAA partnership.

For more information, visit www.dnr.wa.gov/nap/woodard_weyer/.

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