Shoreline Development or Repetative Stewardship?

Ralph W. Thacker is a native of Southern California, who made a career in community organization, insurance and banking in New England. He moved to Bellingham two years ago, following his retirement. He has become active in Southside Neighborhood Groups concerned with the future of Fairhaven shoreline. He holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

From the first Native American settlements onward, our Bellingham shoreline has been the focus of human recreational, educational and vocational activity, shaping and being shaped by our collective endeavors. As a result, the shoreline has acquired cultural associations to complement its natural attributes. Culture and nature have now become inseparable. Consequently, the shoreline is a major source of our sense of place and of our sense of identity. It clearly deserves our most careful stewardship.

Regrettably, the watchword for Bellingham’s treatment of the shoreline has been development and not stewardship. We have viewed our shoreline as the target for the exploitation of riparian resources and as the locus for processing and transporting raw materials from inland areas. We have acted as competitors for the control and consumption of natural resources rather than as conservators living in harmony with our environment and each other. Our shoreline has been severely compromised in beauty, accessibility and enjoyment, and our experience of community seriously restricted.

Originally, the Bellingham shoreline was a narrow strip of rocks, gravel and sand running along the foot of a Chuckanut sandstone bluff between Squalicum and Padden Creeks. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, as our commercial and residential neighborhoods spread out along the top of the bluff, the shoreline extended outward from its base by a series of major landfills to accommodate industrial expansion, showing little concern for environmental stewardship. As a result, we typically refer to our shoreline as the “working” waterfront, not as an “inspirational” or “recreational” locale.

Fortunately, the Waterfront Futures Group, an effort jointly sponsored by the city and the Port of Bellingham, is taking a fresh look at our shoreline. This thorough and thoughtful undertaking is intended to produce an integrated master plan for our shoreline. To yield beneficial and lasting results, that plan must raise our level of consciousness about the ecological imperatives relating to our shoreline and shift our approach to it from development to stewardship. This task must target two prime areas for change, our land valuation criteria and our zoning ordinances.

Traditionally, we have valued land in terms of the most financially profitable use the market would bear. Impacts upon the health and appearance of the natural environment and upon public views and access have received little consideration or have been entirely neglected. Our shoreline belongs to everyone, especially since almost all of it is held in public trust by the Port of Bellingham. Therefore, its highest and best use should be determined primarily in terms of environmental preservation and public enjoyment and secondarily in terms of income-generating potential.

Our natural shoreline is a finite resource. It cannot be recreated, only altered in terms of access, appearance and use. Once surrendered to private development, it cannot be easily recovered for public purposes. Consequently, it should be devoted solely to marine-related uses, that maximize the enjoyment of the shoreline by individuals and/or groups accessing it from either the land or the water, within the constraints of ecological responsibility. These uses include all businesses that require waterfront sites in order to deliver their products, services or benefits and also others that may not.

Originally, most of our waterfront businesses were of the first type. Changing transportation patterns have moved some of them into the second category. However, several businesses in the latter group provide our only remaining tangible links with enterprises once vital to our community, e.g., fish processing and boat building. Keeping them in place provides “hands on” contacts with historic waterfront activities and with current ones, hence, they are doubly marine-related. Without their presence on the shoreline, both our sense of place and our sense of identity would be decidedly incomplete.

The goal of the Washington Shoreline Management Act (SMA) is “to utilize, protect, restore and preserve the shorelines as among the state’s most valuable and fragile natural resources.” However, the SMA does not differentiate between natural and artifical shorelines. It limits building height to protect views of the shoreline from the land but ignores protecting views of the shoreline from the water. It also makes no mention of building length, appearance or spacing, which also impact shoreline views. Finally, it overlooks the shoreline’s cultural aspects, such as the discussions made above.

The Bellingham zoning ordinances evidence many of the same deficiencies. Not regarding the bluff that originally defined our shoreline as a primary natural asset, they contain no provisions for restoring or preserving it. In fact, our industrial use zoning ordinance, which applies to many shoreline sites, stipulates no height restrictions whatsoever. Consequently, structures can be erected on the shoreline that will obscure views of the bluff from the water and views of the shoreline from upland trails, streets and residences.

The 1.43-acre of port-owned shoreline property laying between the Douglas and Gambier rights of way provides an ideal test site for more holistic shoreline stewardship practices. This area was originally a small cove flanked by a bluff of Chuckanut sandstone 40 to 50 feet high. The cove became a lagoon by the laying of the railroad bed. The lagoon later became a facility for dumping and storing logs by filling and ramping. Now the face of the bluff is entirely hidden by fill and vegetation. This site is designated Urban I, while the land to the south is zoned Industrial and the land to the north is Commercial.

First, the Gambier vacation issue should be amicably resolved with the city holding title. The subject site should then be added to the city parks system. Next, the entire face of the bluff bordering the site should be revealed by grading the filled portion of the site down to the track level. Only a portion of the bluff would be partially hidden by an emergency and pedestrian access way descending westward from the corner of 10th and Douglas and then going southward along the tracks. A well designed and landscaped overlook should be created at the north end of the South Bay Trail, at it’s the highest point.

The combined surface area of the site and the Douglas and Gambier rights of way may then be landscaped and planted with native vegetation. A natural bulge in the bluff at the center of the site’s eastern boundary would provide an ideal vista point just off the South Bay Trail. A sloping path should be made along the face of the bluff from the trail’s southern end to afford direct pedestrian and bicycle access between the site and the Fairhaven Green. A giant Lummi totem pole should be erected near the foot of the path to serve as an icon visible for hundreds of yards from both the shore and the water.

Pavilions modeled after historic Lummi dwellings could be located on the site to provide a protected “pausing place” and picnic facility and to offer refreshments for pedestrians, bikers and boaters. Additional moorings should be added to those currently in front of the site. The former log dump dock could be rebuilt and reconnected to give access to the site and to the Fairhaven Green. Building 8 in the Fairhaven Marine Industrial Park should be refurbished to house services for small boat owners. All this would create a destination point for pleasure boats rivaling those on the San Juan Islands.

The target site has another distinctive feature, a sandy beach accessible at low tide. This beach was created by natural forces after construction of the rip-rap railroad trestle. Perhaps those same forces could be assisted to make the beach accessible at high tide as well. (An engineering study could be launched to determine the feasibility of this idea.) In either case, direct access to the beach from the renewed Taylor Avenue dock and a gated crossing of the railroad tracks at the restored log dump dock would make the area a favorite destination for local families to walk, rest, picnic, swim, row, paddle and sail.

Implementing this proposal should be charged to a Shoreline Stewardship Committee, comprising representatives from the Lummi Nation, local neighborhood groups and business owners, the city and the Port of Bellingham. The site should be declared a special district and a pilot zoning ordinance crafted to focus on recovery of natural features and use from both the land and the water. This scenario would maximize the aesthetic appeal and public enjoyment of this small space, generate direct and indirect economic benefits, and exemplify the values that make our community so attractive. §