PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles environmental group is planning a community meeting to talk about the connection between Elwha River restoration and the shoreline of west Port Angeles.
The Port Angeles-based Coastal Watershed Institute is collaborating with the city of Port Angeles, the state Department of Natural Resources and a nonprofit based in Tacoma to host a community workshop on the Port Angeles waterfront at 6:30 p.m. today at the conference room at The Landing mall, 155 E. Railroad Ave.
Anne Shaffer, executive director of the Coastal Watershed Institute, will talk about the way sediment flowing out of the Elwha River affects the area east of the mouth of the river to Ediz Hook and interacts with large rocks and a sea wall — collectively referred to as shoreline armoring — installed along the beaches there to prevent erosion.
The city of Port Angeles’ installation of a concrete sea wall on a section of bluff directly below the city’s landfill just east of Angeles Point is the most recent addition to shoreline armoring in the area, Shaffer said.
The bluff above a section of the sea wall, holding back roughly 350,000 cubic yards of garbage sited 125 feet above the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is in danger of failing, and city officials and private consultants are figuring out how the bluff can be stabilized.
A city official or a consultant will explain the issues with the sea wall and give an update on the studies of the landfill and bluff erosion currently under way, said Mike Puntenney, city engineer.
For more information on tonight’s meeting, visit the Coastal Watershed Institute’s website at http://bit.ly/SRKXRO.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
