Proceedings of the 8th Annual Elwha Nearshore Consortium Workshop

Welcome to the 8th annual Elwha Nearshore Consortium (ENC) proceedings. The ENC is a work group of scientists, managers, and citizens first formed in 2004 and dedicated to understanding and promoting the nearshore restoration associated with the Elwha dam removals. We are geologists, hydrologists, oceanographers, biologists, anthropologists, economists, engineers, managers, and landowners. Some of us live locally, others in the Puget Sound corridor, others from as far away as California. Our work is founded on collaboration and good will. This is the first time the ENC has met since dam removal began in September 2011. After almost a decade of talking about what we need to do when dam removals occur, we are now in the midst of dam removal. The changes underway are literally jaw dropping. The scale of this restoration event is surreal. Nobody anticipated the visual impact of a nearshore restoration project of the scale now underway. This is truly a one is a lifetime event- and exhilarating both personally and professionally for each of us to be at this place and time. The theme of this day long workshop is gratitude. This project would not be occurring if it were not for the tenacity, dedication, and leadership of the staff of Olympic National Park and the federal ecosystem protection and treaty trust responsibilities that are at the core of this project. It also would not be happening without the leadership of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. As you read these proceedings, remember to be thankful for this project, and to these two entities for persevering for over a quarter of a century to make it happen. The Elwha nearshore, defined as extending from the area of tidal influence to 30 meters MLLW and including the riparian zone, is large (approximately 12 linear miles), complex (including a embayed shoreline, estuary, feeder bluffs, and spit), and severely impaired ecologically primarily due sediment starvation from shoreline alterations and in-river dams. The dams are now coming out-providing us with an opportunity to optimize the delivery of 100 years of sediment to the nearshore (as of January approximately 20% of the total sediment volume of the project was estimated to be mobilized in the river-the fine material has just begun to reach the river mouth). The other nearshore impairments are still in place-and in fact the city is in the process of considering expanding shoreline armoring-making this Elwha nearshore restoration event temporary in some areas of the Elwha nearshore. If we are to understand, promote, and optimize this restoration event we need to start working harder than ever. This workshop provides updates of work to date on the Elwha nearshore restoration, and the discussion on we can best inform management needs including sediment fate, ecosystem services of historic, current, and future nearshore, and next steps to understand and optimize this event. Information 2013 Elwha Nearshore Consortium Proceedings provided in technical presentations is provisional, and the intellectual property of individual authors.

Proceedings of the 8th Annual Elwha Nearshore Consortium Workshop

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