HomeMy WebLinkAbout017November 7,2018
To: Jefferson County Planning Commission
Re: Public Comment on proposed changes to Title 18, JCC 18.20.350
Good evening, Commissioners
My name is Robyn Johnson, and I live on Tarboo Bay, one of the jewels of Jefferson County.
The moment my husband and I stepped onto the land where we built our home and have lived for
l5 years, we knew that this was a very special place. Over the years we became volunteers in
environmental stewardship, got to know our neighbors, local farms and businesses, and relished
the rhyhm of rural life. Every day, we are grateful.
The Tarboo Creek watershed has high regional significance. Many people and organizations give
their time and money to preserve it. State and federal agencies have invested grants and
partnerships. Education and stewardship programs like the Northwest Watershed Institute's
annual Plant-A-Thon, which for over a decade has engaged school children to plant thousands of
trees in the Tarboo Valley; and, the partnerships with the Jefferson Land Trust, continue to
restore and preserve the Tarboo watershed.
I don't have time here to list the number of people and organizations that give so generously and
consistently to keep the rural character of Jefferson County alive and well.
I'm submitting two publications about successful Tarboo restoration efforts. They were special
inserts in the Seattle Times. The ecological health of Jefferson County has been making news for
years, and attracts eco-friendly tourism which strengthens the natural resources ofrural Jefferson
County.
We have incredible recreation opportunities, right in our backyard. Photography is one of my
hobbies, and I discovered endless photo opps at Tarboo Lake, the headwaters of the Tarboo
Creek watershed and one of our many beautiful public lakes. Here's one I took of Tarboo Lake,
the serenity of which would be devastated if a commercial shooting complex were built on its
shores. THIS is what a commercial gun range could ruin.
The newly passed Commercial Shooting Range ordinance casts a deep shadow on the peace &
quiet of our rural land. The negative impacts are many.
In short, the ordinance is flawed and threatens the character of our County. "Harmonizing" Title
18 with the new Title 8 ordinance increases the potential of debilitating effects on public health,
safety and land use. We'd be better off leaving the Title 18 laneuage as it now exists!
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CDcScatttcCinrcs suNDAy MAGAZINE I novrrraarn 30, 2008 Ifornrs
A mogical toy tand
Garden
Seobrook goes sustoina ble
The divo af authenticity
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AWATERSHED MOMEI\T
One man and his band get clon,n
in the mud to save Puget Soulrcl
oN TIrE covEn. A tiny tee frog perches on Peter Bahls' finger in the Tarboo Creek u,etland.
Frogs and toads have benefitted fi-om the wettand r5torqtion.
Plant Life
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A mllmtible<rued couple
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Yr\RR FARI\I doesn't loolt like much.
I whitc'Paint.peels totu th" sides of the old barn. Dust coverj the concretc tlo6rs rvht'rcI cotvs ttnct'waitccl to be millted, A flat spot on a snrall hill is atl ihat's lett of thc tirrmhgusc,which burncd down decades ago. Acres oflvaist-high rveecls bend to the illtunrn rvind.
-* diut Pel.cr Bahls sees possibilities.
--T16 cartsee old-firt'th Sitkrr sprq*$lg abore a srrrall creeli rvherc coho salmon corlc
- y-vidF.the-lviqter rains to spawn. HeIffiffi irrarshes fillerl rvith the croak ol'wcstern toards,- - ponds echgfil8 with the slap of benver tails and thc cry of hald cagles.
"It's a real opportunity to restore a whole flooclptain." he slys, itaring across the tield.
Look dpse{, and already signs of change are enierging.
1!, Cralued on page t7 >
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suNDAY, NOVEMBER30,2008 | pactFtc ilonTHwrsI 15
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16 THE SEATTTE TITES
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The stream, straightened over decades to
make way for plows, weaves back and forth
again. to_gs crisscross the water, shading
schools of tiny coho. Small plastic banneri
flap ftom a few of the 50,0b0 thin young
trees planted six months earlier _ a-foresl
in waiting.
The revival of Tarboo Creek, in a small
valley feeding into Hood Canal, the slender
western arm ofPuget Sound, is the story ofa
few dreamers who fell in love with a strlam.
For one, it is also the revival of a family tra_
dition reaching back to a founding father of
America's environmental movement.
Most folks have never heard of the creek.
Fewer have waded in it.
But at a time when talk of puget Sound,s
problems often tums into abstrictions like
Superfund, stormwater runoff and toxic
chemicals in parts-per-billion, this out-of-
the-way,place shows how tlre possibility for
revival also hinges on more primal elements
like mud, water and salmon. passion and
determination.
s#?l:itr[.3,'Hil:T:',:x3 r*:i,i
Like a cardiologist tracking a patient's
ONE CREEIL ONE PATCH
OFLANDATA TIME
blood vessels, rhe lanky 47-year-old looks
for signs of sickness: Undersized culvefts
that block the way for spawning salmon,
ditches that drain water from manshes, and
creeks forced into straight lines that iend
water rushing too fast for baby fish.
He sees with the eyes of a fisheries biolo_
gist. But before college, hed already gotten
Continued on next page >
Susan Freeman's husband Scott, pulls on hrs
family's cabin near Tarboo Creekjor another
As the grand-
daughter of
Aldo Leop-
old Susan
Freeman k
directly con-
nected to one
of the most
important
environmental
thinkers of the
20th century.
well-worn boots at the
day of work in the woods.
suNDAy, NoVEMBER 30,2008 | pactFtc xoRTHwEsr 17
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ONE PATCH OF LAND AT A TIME
Continued from previous page
an education in rivers. As a boy in portland, you don,t want ro do,', says Gene Jones, anBahls fell in love with them while steelhead ilder with tnepon Cr.ur"'s;rda'r# r.iu..fishingwithhisgrandfather.Th^ispastseptem- when Bahls worked for itre triie in ttreber, on his annual steelhead fishing.trip, he rqgos, he isi(ea i;;;;;i";'; ;i;;#;';used his grandfarher's sO-year-ord fibergiass cerebration of a restoratioiproject on Tarboorod. Creek. Jones tumed him down at first. feelins"I_ try to save fish most_of the year," he that Bahrs was roo .d"i;t;;iii,il[.;il;: Iexplains. "And kill 'em a few weeks of the But Bahls p".ruua.a t i*- vrLr',6'
Iyear." Today, jones sits on the board ofthe Nonh_ Irn 7992, when Bahls first set foot in the Tar- west watershed Institure, ,h. ";;;;;;;;;i, Iboo Valley ?s a. biologisr working for the porr ...ut"a ioili, iriu." vjr"v *..i.:'""'*"'" IGamble S'Klallam Tribe, it had been trans- ,,He,s iust a dynamo. H",riit" tt" Energizer Iformed by waves of settlement. The valley bot- bunny,',"Jones iuyr. .H"luri i..+, goi"g-iri Itom, which once bristled with massive Sitka going ind going.,; - ovr.6 qrru
Ispruce and wesrern red cedars, was a chain of - ov"er the"pasr"seven years, Bahls and his sup- |pastures. An occasional stump, big as a kitchen porters hav'e bought oi sotrln;;;;;;;;;; Itable, offered a clue to whar was once there. iecttons for m-o.e1'na;fyj';;;5#1";;:'#;; I.^Illb::!:.:! thevalley's main arrery, met a of it along rarUoo Ciee[. rtreft;;;H;; Irate ramlhar lo.nearry every river around puget and restored a mire and a hatf of th; ;;i; Isound. tr was dammed to make ponds for lum- S-mile creek and planted .or" tt rn oo,bto Iber mills and rerouted to clear pasture for dairy rees. The total bitt, S+ mittion ane .;il#" Ifarms. Ditches were dug to drain marshes for Uuch of the ,non.y .o.", fr;;il;;:;, I
"fi'ifrl,,,,.*has. been spared some or the i::*1 f.i:li: $rtf.Xi:f::;.#*11#. I
H":T i?TilX':;:il,t;""1,"fl,:l'.'#ff'o;'::ir *:,:nx:;i 8;;;p;;;;;;;;;;; i;;;
Icrete sea walls. Fores6, regrown since the rav- Now they are awaiting a critical decision by Iages ofearlyloggrng,blanketthehillsides.The thestateDepartmentoffraturaiil;;;;;;# Iacres -of pavement that come with subdivisions would set tir. ,tug. f- p;;iil;;;;;;,iffi I
i:.!'#!t'Jbli'f_ ffi : t ffi iff i.x"[& i;1:: :::ij"i',,Hr ;tii* *;*f",.x ITarboo creek and flow into each other - ari a narural aiea *outa "naui" in";;;.;-. ;; Iso clean they host shellfish nurseries supplying buy IanJ fr"; p;i;;;l;;;;;;;ffi;;;;;; t
lH;'fiBTfi3l",ilf*oJ"'fi"l',i*,n,i"o i:"T'lJl::t1T,.?jlHl**i;**,""Vt"1 Iat an environmental consulting firm, hopping schools with land eGJwhere, "rf".,ir.iir* Ifrom project-to project, his thoughts retuinei ting the state land inside the.raturai ";4"# Ito Tarboo Valley. lim'its to chainsaws. IHe.was looting for a place to rry a more But alr this workdidn't happen at once. tgrand plan. Norjust a single Band-Aid but a Bahls started small. Hi'and t il'i.orn Imethodlcal restoration of a whole stream sys- removed a culven in the stream that w"as tol Item from the headwaters to the salrwater. steep for spawning coho. The cul"ilir;;il;; I. "I was hoping.ir would work out in Tarboo the driveway readlng to the h.;;;4,-# oi;_ I
ii':xilil'l:liil'#Tf*i"IIffi,Rfft,]: *;,TTj..J,"."xf:;."m g.,::r;i";;'i';; Ished." ..we ve buili a L";;il.i;;8; with rand- I
[[rnsr, BAHLS doesn't seem rike a sares. ;H.i:,,$i:]tiHtt*.y,x*i".1,";:,1 IInstead of loud and gregarious, he.is calm, He gradualry worked his ;;ti;i;i[;"f#t. Ispeaking.in abbreviated sentences, his eyei of tfr'ecommunity,winning,ti"t.ur,or'pJo"pi" Iseparated from the world by simple,, silver- who eventually iom ti, i"rd,;lb*;[i;5;; If 1nm9d. glasses. His grin, when he shows it, to get pranted arong their,,r"i-rii *i*iJ tis boyish, almost shy. Jeans and worn hiking .uimintr that she"kered rr"a r-.-a?#i""pl Iboots are his uniform. ment.
But there's a quiet intensity that never lets Bahls met with old_timers to learn about theup. Bahls can spend all
--dav driving from one valley's history. wh;. r;;;L;e;*i.r, -o.-spot to another.in the valley, without any sign ried i wetlani ."rto.ution-*oriJ flood theirot tatrgue or evidence that he's given the same road, he promised to build them a new bridge.tour countless times. An annuil tree_ptrrti"i ""*iii"*, iOO local. Bit by bit, he has turned his solitary vision schoolchildren';e p;.;r;-;-h;',ii r, ,, u
:ll--1,,1:y"1",r,:,To91l, groups woiking in tundraiser and handslon,.i.n.. p.o;".t.tne valley lnclude the Jeflerson Land Trust, the ,,He,s trying to make a connection ior people
r.ul,..99ry9ry-uncy, the state depanments of with the ptri"," ruyr c.o.g. p"rr,
" r.i."a "rFish and wildlife and Narural Resburces, local Bahls ant r"ti"*6il.gis[-..wI.'r]o, .o*_schools and a handful of landowners. bine that wittL some su'biiuniiu" *ir.t, ,t .n
_ "whether you like peter or you don't like all of a sudden you ,a"" ,""G'" pr"."" .iru.rg.Peter, he can talk you into doing things even over time.,,
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18 THI SEATTTE TITTS
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Restoring
a watershed
Environmentalwork in a
smalI vatley feeding into
Hood Canal is getting
attention as a potentiaI
modet for reviving parts of
Puget Sound. The effort -
much of it led by biotogist
Peter Bahts - involves
private landowners,
nonprofits and
governments. Private [and
atong Tarboo Creek is
being protected from
devetopment and restored
to more natural
conditions. Cutverts and
other barricades to
spawning salmon are
being removed. State and
Iocal aqencies have
acquired [and. The state
Department of Natural
Resources is considerinq
designating much of it a
naturaI area, which would
make it eligibte for money
to buy and protect [and.
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Loke
a
wateEhed
boundary
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Public protected areas
Private restoration
and conseruation areas
Privatety owned
a Fish passaqe proiects
Sou rce : No rth ||est Wote rsh e d
lnstitute, Deportment
olNoturol Rsources
THE SEATTLE TIMES
ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
Lmight sound romantic. But living
it day-to-day isn't. Imagine weeding
and landscaping a neglected yard
covering hundreds of acres.
Susan Freeman and her family
knew that better than most. But even
she wasn't quite prepared when she
saw their 17-acre share of the work.
Bahls, ever the salesman, had
driven them around the valley first.
He showed them a rebuilt stretch of
the creek. They stood on the massive
root of an old-growth spruce tree,
bridging a tributary where salmon
spawn. He spoke of a vision where
trees like that would rise up and
down the valley.
Then, he took them to the land he
wanted them to buy.
Walls of blackberrybrambles made
it hard even to see the ditch-like
remains of the creek. The previous
owner logged most of the big trees
before putting the land up for sale.
Someone with a penchant for dig-
ging had bulldozed big piles of dirt
and excavated two fake ponds.
Something about it, though,
recalled the place that Freeman's
grandfather turned into a birthplace
of the modern environmental move-
ment. And at least this property
didn't have a shack 3 feet deep in
chicken manure. In 1935, Aldo l,eop-
old, a scientist and Freeman's grand-
father, bought a worn-out 120-acre
farm, complete with cabin-turned-
chicken-coop, in central Wisconsin.
It became his laboratory, retreat and
muse.
He and his family restored the
shack and experimented with reviv-
ing the woods and prairie that
once thrived there. The experience
became Leopold's "A Sand County
Almanac," a book revered by Ameri-
can environmentalists for its elegant
Continued on page 22 >
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lnthk circa
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workers
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the once-
forested.
vallq.
Continued from page 19
prose and stirring call to restore what's
been lost. People now visit the shack as
if on a pilgrimage.
The place also became a central part
of the Leopold family. Susan Freeman's
father and aunts and uncles reveled in
memories of their work there. The fam-
ily started the Aldo Leopold Foundation
and helped get the shack nominated as
a National Historic Landmark.
Susan Freeman met her husband
there in 1980. Scott Freeman was a
young biologist staying nearby while
working on habitat restoration. She
was a recent art-school graduate on
a summer fellowship. They married a
year later.
The couple, who moved to Seattle in
1985, had talked for years of trying to
find their own piece of land to repair.
In 2003 they sent e-mails to local envi-
ronmental groups asking if they had
a piece of affordable land in need of
restoration.
A few weeks later, they got their first
phone call from Bahls. Someone was
selling land crossed by 1,000 feet ofTar-
boo Creek, and he was trying to find a
buyer with a conservationist bent.
He'd found them.
Today, the blackberries have been
hacked back. The stream meanders
down a new route dug by an excava-
tor. The Freemans turned the logged
trees into a 192-square-foot cabin, the
descendant of the original Leopold
shack.
They have planted 4,000 trees on
their land: cedar, alder, Douglas fir,
vine maple, Sitka spruce and white
pine. As Susanwalks through a meadow
near the creek, she gives each sapling a
proprietary touch while saying matter-
of-factly, "We come out here and we
spend the whole time working."
Bahls spends a lot ofhis time oversee-
ing work crews planting trees, digging
new stream channels or wielding mow-
ers and pickaxes to keep weeds from
choking out newly planted trees.
One day, he drives up a dirt road to
a spot stripped ofvegetation, except for
scattered nrounds of blackberry vines.
Three men, caked in dirt, two bare to
the waist, gouge away at the remaining
thicket.
"This," declares Bahls, "is the worst
job."
His foreman, Karl Peterson, who
goes by Toad, has endured hacking
blackberries in smothering heat and
planting saplings in driving sleet. Last
winter, he chopped through ice to
plant young trees.
Back on the Freeman land, one of
Scott's main assignments is keeping the
blackberries at bay.
"Some people get it. That it's nor gor-
geous, and it's not a view, and we're not
Continued on page 24 >
22
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Ninety-one-year-old Dan yarr stands in the old dairy barn on theproperty he sold to peter
- land his family began
Bahls anilthe Northwest Watershed Institute
working in 1891, Yarr was a University ofWashingtonlineman in the 193Os and still has a farmer's strong grip.
suNDAy, NOVEMBER 30, 2008 | pAGtrtc tolrHwEsT 23
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Continued from page 22
sitting out.here living the good life, sipping marti_
nis on rhe back porch,,, he says.
"Sometimes you rhink, ,ican,t wait until thistree_is big.' Which you can,t. But on the othei
hand, just enjgfrnS every year to year you feel . . .',"Connected," Susan chimes in.
'Yeah," Scott says. ,.It,s such a wonderful thing.,,
Nfll*Yu*"oNE is so enchanted with Bahls,
. The biggest source of contention is logs _ onesthlt.have been put up, and ones tt at ,oire p"ofi"
want to cut down.
, Bahls' group, a shellfishing company and sever_
ar local reslclents recently sued to block a lossins
project on a state-owned hjllside above Tarboob""u."
They want the state to wait until after the de'cision about protections for state land. A Jefferson
Countyjudge ruled in their favor, telling the stateit hadnt done enough to considei the rdk of h;a_
slides from logging.
Then there are the hundreds of logs Bahls hasplanted in the middle of the valley. Weathered to
Karl "Toad" peterson, left, Luke Eaton and Brian Iardella are,hacking out blackberries. lt's a hardjob, 'the worst," says p;kr Bahls. ,,It s a long-term battle,and the restoration of the forest willshaile out the blaciberries,, eventually.
Susan Freeman
makes her way
back to the cabin.
Her grandfather,
conservationist
Ald.o Leopold
affectionately
called. his rustic
Wisconsin srruc-
ture "the shack."
It wos there that
he wrote "A Sand
County Almanac.,,
24
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silver, some more than 40 feet tall, they poke frompastures like abandoned totem poles. - '
. Bahls calls it "Woodhenge." Ae had workers outthem there as a place for fish_eating birds to peich
and bug-eating birds to peck.
. His thinking: If you're trying to restore a forest.the last impsrrant_piece of habitat you'll get is bi[dead trees. So he decided to speed thinn, io.But ir ha_sn t proven popular with s6md locals,,1Jr f"y McDonald,
_a heavy_equipm.rt op".utoiwho lives nearby and sold 72 acres of his iand toBahls'group.
."Yo]lought to see the calls I,ve gotten from peo_
l]q.'Wha11 going on?' Just compiiiningi, M;6;;-ald says. "lt really isn't attractive. end it"doeinl loa damn bit of good.,'
- The debate about the trees underscores some_thing deeper. Everyone involved t u, un ,".tt "ii.sense ot what the landscape orght to look like.
. .Take Jim yeakel. who-mordd frorn Bainbridge
Island to get away from the crowds. His Ura
^Ur't,properry owned by Bahls,institute. He agreed toput a conservation easement on 20 acres of his landalong a fork of Tarboo Creek. But t"', ."furJ-iogive Bahls a conservation easement on more land orlet them.plant more trees. He doesn,t wani;it";;;
the middle of a forest.
. "Basically we bought rhis place because we like it
!f,q *ly it is," Yeakel says. .Aad so long as we ownIr rhat s rhe way ir's going ro sray..'
Pun,YuT is more.accepring of the changes ro avatte-y he first lived in as a newborn, 9.1 yeirs aso-His family started working the land in 1'8t1. w?thhis massive hands and the strength that made him aUniversity of Washington linemin, he heloed dis anew channel for pan of the creek 60 v.u.j ,n.. "
_ Now, he's watching as Bahls undoei all thaiwork.Bahls'institute bought yarr's 200 acres, turnins itrnto a centerpiece of the project. Besides tryins"toconveft the pasrure back into a forest, Bahls dreimsof building an environmental
"au.ution .""i.irnJ
cahrns where researchers can stay.
- Yarr drives down from his home near poft Had_lock occasionally to see the work. u. ip"rLr-.iitwlth the circumspection of someone wh-o has seenatmost a century ofchange.
. "The land is still there," he tells critics. .,It,s norDeen covered with blacktop. If the countrv everneeds it to produce food, the land's there." -
F I\^4RONMENTA_L RESTORATION projects dol-have a checkered history.
_
Government workers planted reed canarv srassalong Tarboo Creek. Now it's despised a, un i"nuu_sive weed that chokes out native pjants.McDonald, the heavy-equipment operator,remembers jobs where he plucked fallen tiees fromstreams. Biologists thoughr it would help salmonby clearing obstacles. Today, scientist, ,uy log, u."critical to a.healthy stream. McDonald is gEningpaid to put the logs back in.
"Hopefully we're getting bener ar this restorarion
as hme goes on, because there's a lot of weird stuff,,,Bahls says of past work.
Continued on next page >
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A red-legged lrog does a Michael Phelps imitation as it swims away in Tarboo Creek.
Continued from previous page
Visit one of the places where he has reworked
a creek, and what's most striking is how natural
it looks.
The stream flows beneath tangles of logs and
settles into shaded pools where tiny coho swim. It s
hard to realize that, for now, it's as artificial as the
ditch cutting through hay fields.
Bahls tells stories of coho spawning in streams
they couldn't reach before. One neighbor reponed
seeing trumpeter swans feeding in a revived marsh
for the first time in 40 years. Eagles perch in the
maligned dead trees, watching for salmon.
But for now, success here is measured more
in anecdotes than hard dara. The kind of change
envisioned here can take decades, as trees grow
and generations of fish retum.
When Bahls wants a reminder of his vision for
the valley's future, he straps on his waders.
The final half mile of Tarboo Creek, before it
reaches the tideflats of Tarboo Bay, hasn,t been
logged for 80 years or more. The state bought 1S8
acres there from the Pope Resources timber com-
pany in 1998, and has basically ignored it ever
since.
Once a week, for much of the year, Bahls wades
up the stream, counting salmon and steelhead.
On a recent day, he goes to see if coho or chinook
have arrived to spawn. On the bank, near the creek,s
mouth, the shiny skin of d coho lies crumpled in the
din, the meat picked clean by a raccoon or otter.
Continued on page 28 >
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ONE PATCH OF LAI{D AT A TIME
Towering over tiny Tarboo Creek, an old-growth Sitka spruce rises above the other trees as Peter
Bahk estimates its height to be at least 15O feet.
Continued from page 26
Bahls clambers onto a fallen log and looks
into a deep, brown pool where the creek
slows.
"This is where the fish come in early," he
says. "They'lljust sit here." He knows every
bend, every logiam, every sandbar.
The air is moist and cool. A canopy of
cedars, spruce and Douglas firs turns the
midday light to dusk. Orange maple leaves
stand out like tiny lanterns. Few blackberries
remain entrenched here, and no reed canary
grass - it doesn't thrive in the shade.
Quiet except for the gurgle of the creek,
it feels like a different world from the open
pasnrres upstream. Bahls is thinking decades
ahead when, if everything goes as planned,
the forests return to all ofTarboo Creek. @
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Most days
in Dabob
Bay, harbor
seals,
like these
resting on
a shell-
fish raft,
outnumber
people at
least 100
to 1.
This whale seemed to be on a
mission. Setting out on its own,
away from the pod, the whale swam
slowly up the shoreline of Dabob,
then up the other side, circumnavi-
gating the entire body of water.
Finally, out in the darker, deep
water near the bay's center, the whale
swam with more urgenry toward
Broad Spit, a thumb of land that
stick out from the Bolton Peninsula.
And there, chaos erupted.
The whale's pod mates, lurk-
ing all this time behind the spit's
tall, sandy bluff, pounced and, in a
biitzkrieg ofbared teerh, atacked
a group of harbor seals, which the
intrepid scout whale had rounded
up and delivered right to them.
It's the son of thing, says local
conservationist Peter Bahls, that one
might expect to see on the BBC, or
perhaps "Animal Planef'- not in the
placid waters of a quaint, quiet salt-
water inlet only a short distance, as
the gull flies, fiom dor.rntorn n Seattle.
It was just another day in Dabob
o
Dabob Bay, viewed from the north, with the exposed tidelands of Tarboo Bay in the fore-
ground, stretches into Hood Canal, its waters more than 600 feet deep in the center. lts quiet
isolation is preferred by oyster growers and the Navy, which uses it as an underwater testing
site.
&e4a
PHIIIAII IORIES JOItxIO PHISIRI/E OABOB BAY, P NO
lHE ORCA appeared to be up to something.
by Ron Judd >> photos by Tom Reese
When a local oysterman saw the big blacKish swim into Hood Canal's Dabob Bay a few years back, he wasn't
entirely surprised. Transient orcas often follow schools of salmon around Puget Sound, cornering them in places
like Dabob, an unusually deep, uncommonly pristine pocket of water near Quilcene.
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It's a fragile balance: Biologists fear that even if Dabob Bay's trademark clean waters are protected locally, alarming shifts in acid levels occurring
in the Pacific Ocean still could threaten or devastate local shellfish production.
Bay, one of the last, best places in
ail of Puget Sound to witness, in a
single tide cycle, the entire aquaric
f,ood chain - ftom microscopic
organisms to eelgrass to little fish
to medium-sized fish to salmon to
seals to whales - in motion.
Ali in a piace which, unlike
most of the rest of the Sound, has
changed little since Capt. George
Vancouver entered local waters
and started naming ever)'thing
220 years ago.
OI( one large exception. There
is the matter of those many-orders-
of-magnitude-larger blackfish -lethal, silent Trident ballisric-mis-
sile submarines, which also have
made the bay their semi-secret
home for decades.
And one smaller one: A half-
dozen commercial shellfish
operations, where three genera-
tions of growers have produced
world-renormed oysters, some of
them responsible for restocking
the West Coast's oyster suppliers
after their oysters stopped repro-
ducing naturally six years ago.
Those oyster farms, especially the
hatchery run byTaylor Shellfish,
rely on Dabob's pristine, forest-
and tide-flat-filtered waters to
rurn spat into gold.
"lt's sort of a flagship conser-
vation project for Puget Sound,"
says Bahls (pronounced "Bails"),
a fish biologist by trade who
now heads the Port Townsend-
based Northwest Watersheds
Institute. "l don't think there's
many places like it 1eft."
Today, the question in Dabob
Bay is not how all the seemingly
incongruous pieces of a decidedly
strange-bedfellows conserva-
tion pian fit together, but how
the place moving forward might
remain anywhere close to as pris-
tine with any one of them pulled
from the mix.
ATURE, LEFT TO its own
, , devices, has been known to
regularly turn lemons inro
meringue pie. But few places in >
THE SEATTLE TIMES T NOVEMBER 18, 2012 17
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One of the secrets to
Dabob Bay's successful
preservation might be its
distinctly diff icult access
for shorebound residents.
Steep shorelines and pri-
vate property combine to
make public beach access
very scarce.
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rounded by steep-walled, forested hills, some
of them logged in the early 20th century,
most now back to their evergreen state. The
glaciers that long ago carved this deep notch
couid not have known that they were creat-
ing a chasm so impressive that it would be
tough, even for humans, to scre.vv up.
Hood Canal, which acnrally is the long,
crooked western arm ofPuget Sound, once
boasted a wealth of rich saltwater esruaries -places where crystal-clear freshwater streams
danced from the leeward Olympic Mountains
and met the saltchuck, creating rich, fertile
tidelands that provided the springboard
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the Northwest boast the odd pile of ingredi-
ents - man, mollusk, mammal and mili-
tary- found in the deep mixing bowl that
is Dabob Bay, a waterway that sticks like a
hitchhiker's thumb northward from Hood
Canal, t}re nation's longest narural fiord.
That has a little to do with luck, but much
more to do with hard work by various public
and private parties, with the ongoing assis-
tance ofthe naturally secluded nature ofthe
bay itself.
Dabob, tucked mostly out of sight berween
the Bolton and Toandos peninsulas along
the northwest shore of Hood Canal, is sur-
for the local marine food chain. All of these
remain, in varying degrees of ill-repair. A
quick glance at any map reveals that the
major ones - at the mouths of the Skokom-
ish, Duckabush and Dosewallips rivers - all
have a common denominator: They're partly
bisected by a road, Highway 101.
Not so for Dabob. Uncommonly steep
shorelines and very deep water (the center is
more than 600 feet deep; picrure the Space
Needle submerged) made highway engineers
shrug and say, "Go around." And that is
exactly what most motorists do today, pass-
ing by Dabob via Highways 104 and 101 and
not even realizing it's there.
The skirting of the highway preserves
Dabob's secluded status in another important
way: Several handfuls of homes are scattered
about in the watershed's uplands, but few
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public roads intrude into the area. Access is
primarily on private, gravel lanes that dis-
courage tourists. The primary public access
to Dabob is by water, via boat or kayak; the
Quilcene Marina, a good 5 miles from the
head of the bay, is the closest major public
launching point.
The result: Most days, Dabob is home to
many more seals, porpoises and seabirds
than people. Plenry of boat traffic - some
sightseers, commercial and recreational fish-
ernen, oyster farmers and strong kayakers
- does make its way into the bay. But the
scarcity of year-round dwellers leaves the bay
mostly to its own peaceful devices.
'i ji ;HAT WOULD YOU see on a trek up
,, .-ioauouz' : Harbor seals, Iots of 'em, with moms
Dabob's handful of
year-round residents
sometimes are
treated to the site
of bald eagles - as
many as 100 at a
time - feeding on
shorelines. This
one is preserved
for tourist eyeballs
on a store wall in
Ouilcene.
The quiet, clear
waters of Dabob
and Ouilcene bays
have their own
thriving com-
merce - shellfish
production; six
companies culti-
vate and produce
oysters and other
shellfish here.
Oyster spat from
Dabob helped re-
stock many other
hatcheries after a
widespread oyster
die-off in the past
decade.
and pups hauled out on beaches and shell-
fish-farm floats. Occasional jumping salmon;
recovering runs of coho and chum returning
to the main feeder stream, Tarboo Creeh
aftract the seals.
Porpoises will fin about. Loons bobble on
the waves. The lucky visitor might see an
endangered marbled murrelet; known nest-
ing sites are found here.
Perhaps more striking are the shorelines
themselves. They're not much different from
others in the Sound, except for one thing:
They are unintemrpted, with nary a bulk-
head, jetty wall or other man-made "feature"
marring the symmetry.
The bay's most distinctive feature, however,
is easy to miss from the water: a series of arffi.rl
sand spits, a few visible at high tide, an addi
tional half-dozen emerging at low. The spits,
formed over cenrwies by sediment moved by
the bay's unique hydrodynamics, break the
innerbay into segments, with two larger ones
separating Tarboo Bay, at the north tip -much of the time, an unnavigable tidal mud
flat - from Dabob Bay proper, which sffetches,
technically, a dozen miles to the south.
The spit's sandy uplands host rare veg-
etation, their backwaters provide rich salt
marshes festooned with eelgrass and other
host species vital to the hatching of marine life.
Viewed lrom the air, the sand spits look
like delicate artwork - sweeping arches
with Renoir colors and Van Gogh curves. It's
a stunning image, and the concentration of
spits in Dabob's relatively confined quarters
make it unique in Puget Sound.
Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish, who has
worked in the indusnyfor 30 years, got his >
THE SEATTLE TIMES t NOVEMBER 1A,2012
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At low tide, the Dabob/Iarboo
estuary's water-fi ltering action
can be seen, smelled and even
heard as the inner bay trens-
forms twice daily with broad
tide s.wings.
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start with a private grower up in the
shallow waters of Tarboo. His unbiased
opinion:
"It's about as close to heaven as you get.
I hope it stays that way."
:IHREE DECADES ago, those deiicate
j sculptures in sand drew the attention
ll of conservationists, and of the Depart-
ment of Natural Resources, charged with
preserrring the state's most treasured
natural features. The DNR declared about
200 acres of sand spits and immediate
shoreline areas as Dabob Bay Natural
Area, protecting it from development.
Over the years, landowners along the
bay and in its uplands realized that that
designation alone would not prorem the
bay's true treasure, its clean water. Thou-
sands of acres of the steep uplands were
in private hands - logging company pope
Resources and others - thousands more
already in DNR ownership, but slated
for logging to benefit state school con-
struction. Other private tracts were large
enough to accommodate subdevelopment
and further home construction - not at
all a stretch of the imaginarion given the
area's stunning beauty and relative prox-
imity to the Seattle metro area.
After much grass roots lobbying and
organizing, Commissioner of public Lands
Peter Goldmark in 2009 signed a measure
to protect almost the entire warershed by
drawing a line around the bay, nearly to
the top of its uplands, and designating it
as Dabob Bay Natural Area. About half the
4,000 acres inside that line was already
public; all private land within the bound-
aries remained so.
Conservationists moved quickly, secur-
ing private donations and matching public
money to convince Pope and many private
homeowners to either sell land for trust
status or issue conservation easements
ensuring the properry will never be fur-
ther developed.
Wildlife photographer Keith Lazelle, a
2)-year Dabob resident, stepped forward.
He recently sold two 6-acre parcels of for-
est land thar sit on either side of his home,
about 350 feet above Dabob, to the DNR,s
natural reserve, and signed a conservation
easement with the Jefferson Land Trust
for his home lot.
He'd like ro see the best fearure of his
land - the almost eerie quiet - remain
that way. Some of the oyster farmers
Dabob Bay Natural Area
The Department of Naturat Resources in 2009
expanded the boundaries of the Dabob Natural
Area to include most ofthe [oca[ watershed.
Tarboo
Boy
across the bay occasionally run old trucks
with "funky mufflers," but that,s about the
only unnarural sound you hear at Lazelle,s
place.
"You can actually hear people talking
on the other side of the bay,,, more than a
mile away, he says.
All of those oyster farmers - some have
been here for three generations - have
been active advocates for the conservation
effort: With fragile water tolerances for
shellfish producrion, they fret about even
small changes to the upland forests that
filter their water.
The state has done its part, as well,
transferring some 2,000 acres of School
Trust timber land to conservation status,
in exchange for either cash or replacement
timber acreage that's less environmentally
sensitive.
And a seemingly unlikely parrner,
the U.S. Naly, has been proven to be a
tremendous ally in Dabob's green quest.
The Navy, whose West Coast base for
Ohio-class Trident submarines is a short
distance to the east, ar Bangor in Kitsap
County, set aside outer Dabob's deep
waters as a non-explosion missile test
range long before conservation status
came to the inner bay. Sub fleet com-
manders have an interest that dovetails >
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Wildlife, including numerous birds, has coexisted with humans in Dabob for centuries. Managers ofthe Dabob Natural Area warn that the balance could be interrupted by future residential development.
Canada geese fly past a vulture and hillside homes.
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Sources: ESRI,
MARK NOWLIN i THE SEATTLE TIMES
THE SEATTLE TIMES t NOVEMBER 18, 201Z
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Subtle tidal
patterns,
which depos-
it driftwood
and some
evidence of
human activ-
ity, operate
within the
bay as they
have for mil-
lennia, largely
because the
contiguous
shorelines
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