Monday, February 27, 2012

Gravel Beach and Wolf Bauer

Shore of the Salish Sea, Port Townsend, Washington
Accreting shoreline with feeder bluff in the distance

Hugh Shipman wrote up a very nice post on Wolf Bauer: http://gravelbeach.blogspot.com/2012/02/wolf-bauer.html. Bauer translated coastal geologic processes in a manner that thousands of Salish Sea dwellers understood and because of him Washington State has shoreline policies that protect not only the public resources of our shoreline but individual property as well.

Hugh himself has done an admirable job carrying on the legacy with the Washington State Department of Ecology. Fellow Bellinghamhamster Jim Johannessen has also been instrumental educational force on shoreline policy as a shoreline consulting geologist.

I do a fair bit of shoreline bluff work in regards to landslide risk. I am frequently impressed with the knowledge of shoreline property owners when it comes to shoreline processes. Frequently they reference the three coastal geologists named above. I had a conversation with a client today who casually mentioned, "the property is located on a feeder bluff" (an eroding bluff that provides sediment to beaches).   

Feeder bluff on the shore of the Salish Sea
  

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