PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee outlined work it performed last year in several categories for the board of county commissioners.
Marine Resources Committee lead coordinator Katie Kowal, environment and conservation member Betsy Carlson and environment and conservation alternative Bryan DeCaterina shared a presentation April 14.
The presentation broke down work in community outreach and education, citizen science, restoration and protection projects, funding and volunteer contributions.
A total of 95 volunteers contributed to the MRC’s marine stewardship projects in 2024, Kowal said.
“We estimate that we generated about $78,000 worth of value in the amount of hours that our volunteers put in last year,” Kowal said. “That was 2,246 hours. It’s a full-time staff person, which is pretty amazing.”
Of those hours, 75 percent were contributed from MRC members and 25 percent from community members, Kowal said.
Volunteer work was distributed across several categories, with 30 percent of the volunteer hours going to meetings and administration, 23 percent going to education and outreach projects, 20 percent going to restoration and protection projects, 15 percent going to monitoring projects and 12 percent going to training and conferences.
The organization also counted $5,000 worth of in-kind match or professional services donated to the MRC.
“We do bull help monitoring out at North Beach, where we have kayak surveys doing spatial monitoring of the floating kelp canopy bed out there,” DeCaterina said. “We do that during the growing season during the summer, gets a lot of folks out of the water.”
That project has been happening for nine years in Jefferson County, DeCaterina said. A number of MRC’s in Washington counties engage in the same project, with data being loaded into SoundIQ, a Bellingham-based database, DeCaterina said.
Drones and aerial imaging strategies also are used in the bull kelp monitoring, DeCaterina said.
“All this is being used in collective with other data that’s being collected with (the state Department of Natural Resources) to understand the general overall health and how floating kelp canopies are, how they’re doing in certain areas of Puget Sound,” DeCaterina said. “We’re kind of leading that charge here in Jefferson County out at North Beach.”
DeCaterina said DNR has indicated bull kelp canopies at North Beach are stable compared with some in the south Puget Sound.
The MRC monitored forage fish, surf smelt and sand lance, at Dabob Bay and Quilcene Marina, DeCaterina said.
“These are just to provide additional data to (the state Department of Fish and Wildlife) to determine whether or not there’s active spawning happening on some of our beaches,” DeCaterina said.
The MRC made 1,823 direct contacts in 2024, Kowal said.
“That’s any time the MRC interacts one-on-one with a member of the public,” Kowal said. “Either at a tabling booth or a workshop or a lecture.”
The MRC put on four workshops last year: Searching for seaweed, digging for dinner, crabbing 101 and shoreline landowner outreach, Kowal said.
Searching for seaweed and digging for dinner are presented in partnership with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Kowal said.
The popular seaweed workshop had a waitlist last year and provided education on identifying seaweed, Kowal said.
Digging for dinner was an opportunity for community members to learn about clamming.
“A couple of WDFW staff give a great presentation out on the beach for participants,” Kowal said. “Then we spend the next couple hours with WDFW staff and MRC members practicing digging up clams and shucking oysters and talking about best methods for doing that. It’s fun, it’s muddy. It’s happening in about a month.”
The MRC attended both Shrimp Fest and the Wooden Boat Festival in 2024.
“We had about 1,034 people (at the Wooden Boat Festival stage),” Carlson said. “We took count of every time somebody showed up to listen. Eighteen different presentations, 25 presenters, because some presentations have more than one presenter. The topics were all over the place, but they were all based on topics that made sense for the MRC to be presenting on.”
The MRC maintained no-anchor zones along the Port Townsend shoreline to protect eelgrass and shellfish, DeCaterina said.
The MRC also worked on Olympia oyster restoration in Discovery Bay and hosted six rain garden work parties. The MRC has 19 rain gardens in Jefferson County.
The MRC receives its funding through the Northwest Straits Commission; in 2024, the MRC received $194,000. The Straight Commission funding came through a mix of state and federal dollars.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
