In the book The Death of Science: The Retreat from Reason in the Post Modern World, Chanda Wickramasinghe states “There is an increasing tendency to form a conclusion first and then collect the evidence to achieve that outcome.” This would be in opposition to established methods of scientific inquiry – observation>hypothesis>test>conclusion. We might also manufacture and manipulate data.
Here in Olympia the plan of action is to start with engineering and design and then strive to mitigate the damage. In practice whole scientific disciplines are either nowhere to be found or mis-applied. Perhaps we can ensure that our community exists in harmony with the natural world, not against it. While development is a perceived feature of “progress” we might ask ourselves: At what cost?
The Port Commission created the Port Economic Development Corporation (Port EDC) in 1983 to facilitate economic development and employment opportunities. Manufacturing, processing, construction and shipping. It’s a laudable idea, as we’ve heard from an assortment of consultants. We’ve got the Destination Waterfront and other plans, which all lean heavily on economic development.
In 2019 The Port of Olympia published the Port Vision 2050 Action Plan, a “Community Informed Plan for the Future”. The 14-month-long community engagement process “engaged thousands of people”; the product reflects their “shared goals and priorities”.
What’s meant by community informed? Who were the targets of “targeted outreach” and what was the level of involvement of each? Were these informed decisions? Participation preceded publication. Were these samples random? Use of the word targeted would indicate not.
Restoration isn’t specifically mentioned anywhere. A lot of people would consider restoration their first choice and restoration was not included among the choices. “The logical fallacy of limited choices, also known as a false dilemma or false dichotomy, occurs when someone presents only two options as possibilities when more options actually exist”. This renders the study invalid. We hear about environmental stewardship, compliance and sustainability. We don’t hear about restoration anywhere in the process. It goes to provisos in the 2050 action plan.
Without nature, industry and development are unsustainable. Northwest economies are grounded in nature. Production and markets will collapse. They always do. In the past we could fall back on nature. If you’re hungry, go catch a fish. That’s no longer an option in Olympia.
Phytoplankton are the base of the food web on which all life depends. Phytoplankton generate oxygen through photosynthesis and sequester carbon as they have for millions of years. They were among the earliest forms of life. They are the reason the earth looks like it does from space. Budd Inlet and particularly East Bay is a federally degraded water body due partly to low levels of dissolved oxygen. Although the correlation is never mentioned, modifications to physical parameters such as dredging, armoring and filling impact biological parameters including phytoplankton and chemical parameters including dissolved oxygen.
Indicator species such as apex predators tell us a lot about the health of an ecosystem. Waterbirds such as diving ducks are especially good indicators for a bay like Budd Inlet. On June 15, 2002 the City of Olympia was presented with the West Bay Habitat Assessment by R.W. Morse. R.W. Morse is the author of several popular field guides and considered a leading expert on Northwest Birds.
Although there were still many birds, the report states that the “biggest surprise of the study” was that the number and diversity of waterbirds had dropped significantly. A mere 15 years earlier 30 to 80 waterbirds would be seen per visit, just between the 4th and 5th ave. bridges. The R. W. Morse Assessment is comprehensive. Fifty six surveys were conducted over an eight month period. Along West Bay they counted 39 species of waterbirds and six raptors, for a total of 15,231 sightings. The authors suggest repeatedly that we should make some effort to find out why the birds were vanishing and have since vanished.
As of 2002 birds facing local extinction included: Red-necked, Horned and Western Grebes, Pelagic Cormorant, Surf Scoter, Barrows Goldeneye, Hooded, Common and Re-breasted Merganzers, Ruddy Duck, Bonaparte’s Gull and Mew and Red-winged gulls. Some were already considered locally extinct including: White Winged and Black Scoters, American Wigeon, Canvasback and Rhinoceros Auklet.
Scoters were predicted to be locally extinct as of 2004, which turned out to be an accurate prediction. Populations Puget Sound-wide were falling more slowly. Populations fell more quickly here because there’s something particularly wrong here. According to other studies as of 1980 sand lance, surf smelt and other critical forage fish were abundant.
The first step in a cleanup should be source control. Here we have a bay mired in dioxin and PCBs, two of the most biologically damaging chemicals known. Though we’re spending plenty determining where these things ended up, the sources have yet to be identified; it’s time for “cleanup” dredging which ironically always seems to occur in channels and berths. If source identification and control doesn’t precede a cleanup the sediments will be recontaminated. In this case we have an a-priori fallacy – choosing and ignoring facts.
We have too many nutrients and too little dissolved oxygen. We’ve lost primary production (healthy phytoplankton populations) and secondary production (healthy zooplankton populations) and spawning and rearing habitat for fish. We know how to fix these things: Daylight streams. Clean up and restore estuaries. Bring back tide flats and salt marsh.
Can we improve ecological function? Can we realistically employ science in our decisions? The baseline should be the way things once were, not the way they are now. 35% of historical coastal embayments have been lost. 74% of tidal wetlands surrounding the shores of Puget Sound have been lost.
The place where a creek enters salt water is called a pocket estuary. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, almost every pocket estuary on Puget Sound was inhabited by a village between 40 and 50 people, representing five or six extended family units.
Estuaries rank among the most productive ecosystems. Rivers and streams slow and broaden as they encounter seawater, expanding the photic zone, the area penetrated by sunlight, and increasing the time water takes to move through. Because of their position at the base of a watershed, estuaries have high nutrient concentrations.
Estuaries are the places where fresh water and nutrients flowing from land encounter and mix with marine waters. Fresh water being lighter than salt water tends to flow out on the surface drawing salt water and marine organisms in underneath. Nutrients are consumed by phytoplankton, tiny plants in a process known as primary production, the origin of life. Phytoplankton are in turn consumed by zooplankton which either grow into larger fish or are consumed by larger fish which are then consumed by larger species and so on up the food web. Persistent mixing patterns, the result of natural structure best illustrated by tide flats are critical to the process. It all happens best in shallow waters in the presence of sunlight and atmospheric oxygen.
In Puget Sound, the most important physical parameters, the estuaries, have been channeled through long culverts, they’ve been dredged for navigation and their shores have been armored with concrete and rock to prevent erosion and provide for industry and development. The Puget lowlands ecoregion is unique, characterized historically by large trees and prairies. Lowland watersheds tend to drain directly to the sound through many streams. Each of these streams has an estuary which together form a “string of pearls” for migrating salmon. In Olympia, 160 miles of surface and near surface waters have been confined to culverts.
The Capitol Lake dam removal is touted as an estuary restoration. Just what this is going to cost is impossible to figure out, there are so many variables. The initial cost of removing the dam is estimated to be between $25 million and $350 million depending on details and who one asks. The long term funding through 2050 might come to $66,374,000.
To be a complete restoration we’d have to do something about the Deschutes Parkway, like get rid of it. We’d have to deal with nearshore armoring and fill and estuarine culverts throughout South Budd Inlet. Removing the dam may gobble every available penny. Is the dam really that big a problem? The costs and benefits of East Bay, Capitol Lake and West Bay proposed improvements should be considered together. It’s all part of the Deschutes River estuary.
A few decades ago Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) was trending. Then the goal became the Best Available Science (BAS). The reality has been rule based management; how well a proposal complies with codes, ordinances and plans which may or may not be science based. The discourse over Westman Mill for example was: Do the appellants have standing and does a stream in a pipe exist?
Many shorelines are experiencing multiple stressors and cumulative impacts. Activities are frequently planned in sensitive areas for reasons other than restoration, activities such as business and real estate development. Work must comply with rules that don’t include restoration. We theoretically can’t damage a site. We can however declare that once a place has been damaged, it shall remain damaged. There’s plenty of ecology occurring in urban settings and lots of room for improvement. The problem is that recognizing something like this would involve scientific inquiry, which is scarce.
We really shouldn’t ignore ecological potential. What values can we protect, restore and enhance? What guidelines might we follow? A narrow band of shoreline serves as a transition zone providing ecologically important connections between the terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystem types. These beaches, embayments and delta shorelines are heavily impacted by human changes. The nearshore zone is a strategic focus for Puget Sound recovery.
Doing the right thing isn’t prohibited. The problem is that it also isn’t required. If we want better it’s going to be up to local governing bodies. Restorations like this can only be initiated at a local level. West Bay Yards is a proposal currently before the City. The plan is to place 40,000 cubic yards of fill over 165,000 square feet of aquatic substrate below the OHWM (ordinary high water mark) and call it a “shoreline restoration”. Extending the ordinary high water mark out with fill moves the setback out as well so they can build on what’s currently the water’s edge. The fill will bury existing benthic communities and modify the historic shape and structure of the bay.
A VCA (vegetation conservation area) would extend 30 feet landward from the OHWM. The claim is that the VCA would consist of “native coniferous and deciduous trees and shrubs and would screen the shoreline from the upland uses, while also providing enhanced terrestrial habitat functions.” Runoff and other influences will impact this area of transition. How is such a narrow buffer up next to enormous buildings going to supply all these services?
The term restoration has a very specific definition: “bring back (a previous right, practice, custom, or situation); reinstate. Return (someone or something) to a former condition, place, or position”. Building something new that might look like something old is not restoration. Let’s call it what it is.
We can’t permit one property owner the right to do something and deny the neighbor the same right. What happens at West Bay Yards will serve as precedent for what will happen next door at the proposed West Bayview Landing development. What happens at both will determine the future of Budd Inlet. We must consider cumulative impacts.
The City’s 2016 West Bay Environmental Restoration Final Report, written by Coast & Harbor Engineering, claims to contain a “restoration proposal” that is consistent with the “intent and objectives” of the report. The Schneider Creek estuary runs through the middle of the area of development. The report states that the creek “was beyond the scope of the Plan”. How can we declare the most important feature to be beyond the scope of a “restoration proposal”? This is critical habitat for endangered species.
According to a report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history – and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely…The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
We have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to advocate for viable solutions. Whether that means preserving critical habitat, creating wildlife corridors, or reevaluating development plans, we must make it clear that economic growth should never include ecological destruction.
A stream in a pipe is unable to process nutrients because there is no sunlight and hence no plankton. The estuary of Schneider Creek on the western shore of Budd Inlet runs through a 500 foot long culvert. The culvert is intertidal, the tide backs up the entire length. The estuary, is run through a pipe.
Oceanography is the study of physical, chemical and biological parameters. Chemical and biological parameters are generally influenced by physical parameters, the shape and structure of beach and benthic soils and the flow of currents.
If we think we can create a beach, a wetland or some other hydrologically determined geologic feature in a location where one didn’t exist, there’s a likelihood that over time it will return to what it was. There’s a long list of failed mitigation sites. Geology is counted in millions of years while the environment is much more dynamic. Geology is a limiting factor in the makeup of species capable of existing in any given location.
Why not include geology, oceanography and ecology at this stage? If we don’t understand the potential, how can we make an informed decision?
What can we do?
Critical Habitat is habitat that contains features or areas essential for the conservation and recovery of Endangered Species. We’re required to address critical habitat based on the best available science and there has been little relevant science here. A science based innovative plan would qualify for a lot of outside funding. We’d have something to be proud of when we’re done. Such a plan can only be initiated at a local level. The ball is in our court. Let’s not ignore ecological potential.
What do we mean by ecological potential? Let’s say we want to build a building near a stream that’s confined to a concrete pipe. We have two choices: We can ignore the stream. Being in Olympia it legally doesn’t exist; Or we can incorporate the stream into our design. The building might mimic overhanging vegetation or a large boulder. We might begin with enhanced eelgrass beds, tide pools, salt marsh and tide flats and then figure how a building might utilize foundation structure, light wells or other features to mimic nature.
We might want something that would look like Tolmie State Park with buildings plopped here and there as opposed to something dominated by structures with livings things plopped here and there. If so, we’d have to include the idea from the beginning. Natural improvements should be the first question followed by the question of how to make the building fit the improvements. The existing process is backwards.
Places with the greatest potential will have the greatest value when done. Funding for projects with the greatest potential will be most forthcoming. A piece of waterfront in an estuary is going to have tremendous ecological potential. East Bay is a federally degraded water body based on low dissolved oxygen. As bad as it is, this represents great opportunity.
In considering any piece of land our first question should be: Is there anything we can do to improve ecological function? The answer should be based on the best available science. There is no valid reason that assessing ecological function should not precede the design phase. If we’re designing something, a plan is already in place. Ecological potential should be determined prior to design in order to be a part of design.
Our management of forest and agricultural lands, not to mention nearshore and wetlands, is anything but sustainable. There’s an idea, somewhere between collective precognition, emergent eschatology and quantum entanglement, that we can predict the future, especially war and famine, both of which are looking inevitable. Not to give up though, the enlightenment will follow.
Logical fallacies prevail. All of the following have played a roll, some repeatedly ad nauseam. Leading the way is Equivocation. If we see the term “sustainable” we can count on the opposite. There’s the Gish Gallup fallacy, introducing irrelevant material to dilute and confuse. There’s the Red Herring, look over there not over here; the False Dilemma, limited options and false solutions; the Circular Argument, repeating nonsense, the big lie; and others including the Strawman, the Slippery Slope, the Appeal to Authority and the Fallacy of Sunk Costs.
Ad Hominem, characterizing your opponent as a poorly informed, non-professional advocate.
Strawman Argument, mischaracterizing an opponent’s arguments
Appeal to Ignorance, a position must be true because it hasn’t been disproven
False Dilemma, limited options and false solutions
Slippery Slope, assuming that something will lead to other things
Circular Argument, repeating the same nonsense, the big lie
Hasty Generalization, arguments based on a few examples rather than the whole picture
Red Herring, look over there not over here
Appeal to Hypocrisy, attempt to divert blame
Causal Fallacy, assuming cause and effect connections
Fallacy of Sunk Costs, we’re already invested and need to continue
Appeal to Authority, overstating expertise, if the state OKs it it’s good
Equivocation, re-defining words and using words to confuse or mislead
Bandwagon Fallacy, some people agree, it must be true
Gish Gallup Fallacy, introducing an excessive number of arguments to throw discussion off
a-priori fallacy, choosing only arguments that support a claim while ignoring those that contradict a claim.
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/#:~:text=The%20Report%20finds%20that%20around,20%25%2C%20mostly%20since%201900.
Garden Bay 