Advocates concerned barge landing at Jackson Beach on San Juan Island’s Griffin Bay will interfere with shoreline restoration
A newly appointed county committee will determine how to continue — if at all possible — a shoreline restoration project at a site shared by a barge landing at Griffin Bay’s Jackson Beach on San Juan Island.
San Juan County Councilmember Kari McVeigh, who represents San Juan Island, appointed the committee after public outcry over the council’s cancellation of a shoreline restoration grant and the Public Works Department’s installation of rock armoring to prevent beach erosion. Restoration advocates fear the rock armoring could hurt the shoreline by causing beach scouring and blocking the natural replenishment of sand.
McVeigh and Council Chair Justin Paulsen of Orcas Island said the county’s share of shoreline restoration costs would exceed what it has budgeted for it. Meanwhile, they said, the barge landing is an essential public facility.
Environmental advocates accused the council of abandoning shoreline restoration goals set by previous county councils and questioned whether all necessary permits were obtained for the rock work. During a site visit with key county employees, “any mention of what the needs were for the barge landing were not being well received” by shoreline restorationists, McVeigh said.
“It felt very much to me that there was not a really great dialogue happening between the barge people, if you will, and the restoration people,” she said. “I think we needed to take the temperature down, pull the right group of people who all want to work together, and see what we can make happen. I have great hope that we’re actually going to come up with a compromise.”
The committee met for the first time on May 4, McVeigh said. Members include County Manager Jessica Hudson or Deputy County Manager Tillery Williams; Deputy Public Works Director Jesse Douglas-Seitz; Marine Resources Committee Chairman Adam Parrott; county Marine Program Coordinator Sam Whitridge; county Marine Project Coordinator Katie Johnson; and Kimbal Sundberg, member of a technical advisory group that advises the county on salmon recovery.
Jackson Beach is one of several places targeted for shoreline habitat restoration in San Juan County. The county’s salmon recovery conservation plan, updated in 2022, established a goal of restoring by 2070:
- 2.8 miles of degraded spawning beaches.
- 27 miles of degraded shoreline habitats and processes.
- 688 acres of eelgrass meadows in public and/or private tidelands.
- More than 45 miles of shoreline with coastal trees and vegetation.
- 6.5 miles of feeder bluffs and 26.5 miles of pocket beaches.
The restoration would be funded by federal, state and local funds, according to the conservation plan.
Efforts to recover
Indigenous elders Caroline Ewing and Cecilia Knowlsen told the Indian Claims Commission in 1927 of Native communities, or villages, that had existed on Griffin Bay in the mid- to late 1800s, one led by Seattlak and the other by Captain George. Salmon were so abundant in Griffin Bay and elsewhere on the island then, they said, that stacks of dried fish “would stand so high just like you would cut cordwood and cord it up” and “you couldn’t walk (on the beach) without stepping on the salmon of every kind.”
But the salmon population, and the landscape, changed beginning in the 1890s.
Salmon were overharvested by commercial fish traps off the island’s shores, rendering them scarce by the time of the Indian Claims Commission hearings in 1927. Sand and gravel were excavated and barged from Jackson Beach beginning in the 1920s, and by the 1990s 300-foot Bald Hill overlooking the beach was reduced to a 55-acre pit. A salmon cannery operated at the opposite end of Jackson Beach from the 1950s to 1990s.
The University of Washington acquired 14-acre Argyle Lagoon at Jackson Beach in 1984 and manages it as a biological preserve. The Port of Friday Harbor acquired Jackson Beach for public access and recreational use in 1985. San Juan County acquired the Friday Harbor Sand and Gravel barge landing in 2006. San Juan Island Park and Recreation District, also known as Island Rec, acquired the gravel pit for use as walking trails in 2007. The port acquired the former JJ Theodore Cannery building in 2025 and is exploring ideas for its use.
But recovery is coming slow.
Griffin Bay is part of the crucial marine habitat in the San Juans where migrating salmon, particularly Chinook, are found, according to the Skagit River System Cooperative. Salmon populations in this region, especially Chinook, are threatened and are at roughly 10% of their historic numbers.
Twenty years of monitoring at Jackson Beach by the state Department of Natural Resources and other agencies document a decline in eelgrass, which provides protective refuge for juvenile salmon and habitat for the forage fish on which they feed. According to the University of Washington, the decline is primarily driven by reduced water clarity, human-driven disturbances and nutrient-driven algae growth.
There are some positive signs. Sundberg said Jackson Beach has some of the highest concentrations anywhere of sand lance, a critical bait fish for Chinook and coho salmon and birds. And County Manager Jessica Hudson said the barge landing is cleaner and healthier today than it was prior to 2023, when the county removed 132 creosoted pilings, remnants of the old Friday Harbor Sand and Gravel dock.
Public Works Director Colin Huntemer said the rock that was used for the armoring was already there, and his department moved it farther up the beach and away from the shoreline.
“We brought no rocks to the site. We cleaned up the beach. We removed thousands of pounds of creosote pilings out of the beach and then we pulled all the rubble that we could find and cleaned it up. And I’m very proud of how it turned out,” he said. “What I’ve tried to illustrate is there’s a way to restore the shoreline, or make improvements to the environment, while still retaining the ability for the county’s essential functions to exist there. There’s a way for a reasonable amount of both of these things to happen.”
Huntemer said the rock armoring protects an adjacent stockpiling area from erosion. Once a year, a barge brings some 6,000 tons — that’s 1.3 million pounds — of aggregate to Jackson Beach for use on the island’s roads. It takes three days for county trucks to offload the aggregate and take it to the adjacent staging area, where it is stockpiled. Total cost: $330,000, Huntemer said.
He said it would take three months and considerably more cost if the material was delivered truck by truck by truck via the state ferry.
“If we don’t have this material staging area, then we don’t have this activity here,” Huntemer said. “The concern with removing all the rock from the beach is this activity just disappears.”
Sundberg said he believes the barge landing and shoreline restoration can coexist. He said engineered drawings by the technical advisory group called for removing excess rock from the barge landing area to make that portion of nearshore usable by forage fish and salmon.
“All the people that I work with on the (advisory group) understood that this was going to continue to be a barge landing, but we were trying to improve the habitat while the barge landing activities continued to occur on the site,” he told the council on March 23. “I thought that these drawings that were submitted showed that you could have both in the same place.”
He added, “I think we can still get to ‘yes’ on this and have a win-win, but we need to basically spend this year with the groups and come up with a permanent solution for Jackson Beach that includes the essential facility, but also improves habitat there.”
‘I love Jackson Beach’
Residents and environmental advocates told the county council of Jackson Beach’s importance recreationally, scientifically and culturally. Jackson Beach is enjoyed by swimmers, kayakers and beachcombers.
Coast Salish canoes land here during an annual gathering called Gathering of the Eagles. In 2023, the Lummi Nation installed a story pole honoring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, the Southern Resident orca who died at the Miami Seaquarium after 53 years in captivity.
“I love Jackson Beach. Love it,” said Eva Schulte, executive director of Friends of the San Juans. “It is our locals’ beach. In fact, before even coming to the island, I heard this from residents across the San Juans. This is one of our most accessible places and it’s a multi-benefit opportunity for our community. I know that there’s cold-water immersion. I know that there’s swimming. I know how important Jackson Beach is to tribes and to cultural preservation.”
In an earlier letter to the county council, Schulte called to explore options for shoreline restoration and ensure adequate public participation in the planning process.
“Jackson Beach still has the potential to be a model of how marine ecosystem benefits can coexist with infrastructure and economic development interests,” she wrote. “The site is expansive with significant opportunities for ecosystem and recreational enhancement consistent with continuation of thoughtful barge uses at the site.”
Dr. Olivia Graham, a member of the county Marine Resources Committee and a marine scientist at University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs, told of walking the beach and seeing tube snout fish eggs on eelgrass washed up by wind and waves. “This was a double treasure as an eelgrass ecologist,” she said. “Seeing healthy eelgrass is always meaningful, but seeing fish eggs attached to those leaves was a powerful reminder that those underwater meadows actively serve as nursery habitat for marine life.”
Extensive eelgrass declines require that the county prioritize eelgrass conservation and management, she said.
Flora Vaught, a senior at Friday Harbor High School, president of the Friday Harbor Eco Club and youth member of the Marine Resources Committee, told of diving into the waters of Jackson Beach at age 5, of her grandmother taking her around the shore and telling her the names of all the plants and the algae.
“Jackson Beach holds a really important place in many of our hearts,” Vaught said. “My peers and I love that place and we’ve grown up around it and in it for a very long time, and we want to be involved in the decisions that affect its future.”
County Council member Jane Fuller of Lopez Island had a change of heart after hearing the public testimony, and withdrew her support of cancelling shoreline restoration at Jackson Beach.
“I no longer support that,” she said. “That was always my intention, that both projects be pursued at the same time, recognizing the importance of both. It’s not lost on me, the amount of energy and resources that have already gone into conceptualizing this project over 10 years, and also the commitments that we’ve made to the Puget Sound Partnership, to Northwest Straits Commission and to the MRC.”
Paulsen said he supports barge landing improvements and shoreline restoration but is financially cautious. “We have to work within the funding that we have,” he said. “I’ve already stated my position on that. I don’t want to cancel looking at restoration, but I am not suggesting that we blow the bank on any kind of work that goes forward.”
McVeigh is confident the barge landing and shoreline restoration will coexist. “We have fish and habitat we need to protect,” she said. “And we also have to maintain the barge landing, which is an essential public facility and, with the unpredictability at Washington State Ferries, is only going to become more necessary as an option for how people do business. But I truly believe that (committee members) have good minds and good hearts and will figure this out. I think we can come up with the right balance.”
—By Richard Arlin Walker