Draft Supplemental Environmental Assessment. Shoalwater Bay Shoreline Erosion, Washington, Pacific County, Washington. Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation, Flood and Coastal Storm Damage Reduction.

摘要

This draft Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) evaluates the difference in potential environmental effects between the work proposed for 2013 and the project as described in the initial 2009 Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Shoalwater Bay coastal storm damage reduction project in Pacific County, Washington. The project area is located on the north side of the entrance to Willapa Bay, a large estuarine system located on the southwest Pacific Ocean coast of the State of Washington, in Pacific County. The project will be located on and adjacent to the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribes Reservation on the northern edge of Willapa Bay, between Cape Shoalwater/Washaway Beach and Toke Point. The Reservation was created by an Executive Order in 1866; is approximately one mile square in size, and has 2/3 of its area specifically set aside as intertidal and subtidal lands to support the Tribes subsistence shellfish harvesting and other fishery related activities. Recent flooding and storm damage on the Shoalwater Reservation is believed to be a direct result of erosion and breaching of the barrier dune on Graveyard Spit that fronts the Tokeland Peninsula. With continued coastal erosion, the limited wave protection currently afforded by the eroded barrier dune will continue to decrease, and flooding of the Shoalwater Reservation and adjoining lands will occur at increasingly frequent intervals. The proposed project consists of the restoration of the deteriorated barrier dune system to protect the Shoalwater Reservation. The difference between the proposal reflected in this draft SEA and the previously analyzed project is that due to safety concerns for the dredge vessel and personnel during the fall/winter season on the Washington Coast, the Corps proposes to amend the in-water work window. There are also additional listings of threatened and endangered species (eulachon and proposed listing of streaked horned lark) and critical habitat (eulachon, green sturgeon, leatherback sea turtle, revised critical habitat for western snowy plover, proposed critical habitat for streaked horned lark) since the original EA was prepared.