Sea walls bring on raging debate in Washington state

By Hal Spencer / Associated Press

OCEAN SHORES, Wash. -- Rocks piled 15 feet high on a public beach to shield exclusive condos from the hungry Pacific Ocean are causing a mountain of controversy.

Should Washington state allow such sea walls or any kind of "beach armoring" to protect homes and to stem erosion?

Property owners, developers and some local officials say yes, at least to the 850-foot-long wall. Neighboring Oregon has already said no, choosing to let nature take its course.

Without sea walls, supporters say, millions of dollars in property will be lost to beach erosion that, for reasons not entirely understood, has quickened in recent years.

The beach at Ocean Shores, for instance, receded by 35 feet in the winter of 1996, after the rock sea wall was installed. But geologists say without the wall the beach would have receded another 35 feet and taken out the exclusive condos.

The wall "has been absolutely fabulous. It has done more than we had hoped for," said Terra Tosland of Point Brown Resort, manager of time-share condos for out-of-towners.

"We're fighting to protect the properties," she added, "but obviously in the back of everybody's mind is that there's a possibility these properties just won't be here."

State regulators, environmentalists and a national expert on beach erosion are also fighting to protect Washington's ocean beaches. They just choose other means.

As opponents, they say costly beach armoring destroys beaches for the public, and it often does not work. At best, they say, what little beach is left gets washed away, leaving only the sea wall. Gone is open beach for strollers, surfers, clammers and beachcombers.

At worst, these foes say, the sea works around the wall, isolating it as an island.

Orrin Pilkey, a geology professor at Duke University, says such constructions contradict "a huge national experience" that began with sea walls on the Atlantic shores 150 years ago. "Newjerseyization of the southwest beaches has begun," he warned in a 1997 management study.

Pilkey, an authority on beach erosion, dismisses the notion that the Ocean Shores sea wall is temporary. "It's going to get bigger and longer. That's speaking statistically."

Pilkey and other geologists say pent-up wave energy simply transfers to unprotected beach at walls' end, increasing erosion and requiring more construction. In fact, the city has already asked state permission to extend the barrier with 600 feet of "geotube," plastic tubing, 12 feet in diameter, filled with sand.

Ocean Shores' wall, also called a "wave bumper," is the first on Washington's oceanfront. It could set a precedent for other troubled spots, from Fort Canby near the Oregon border to as far north as Taholah at the mouth of the Quinault River.

Duke's Pilkey denounces the wall, saying the designers ignored a key principle of modern shoreline engineering: "Always try the inexpensive and soft solution first." Ocean Shores' sea wall construction, he says, would be unacceptable in East and Gulf Coast communities, and states with more experience in managing shorelines.

But as consultant Harry Hosey sees it, Pilkey isn't "living in the real world." And that's where Chuck Gale, a state negotiator who championed the sea wall, sees great impact: "People are scared."

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