SOUNDER THE ISLANDS’
Serving Orcas, Lopez and San Juan County
WEDNESDAY, July 16, 2014 VOL. 47, NO. 29 75¢ islandssounder.com
The Bobs coming to Orcas – page 8
A new bridge for Deer Harbor by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH Sounder contributor
Cali Bagby/Staff Photos
Drew Harvell/Contributed photo
Top: Healthy-looking sea stars near Indian Island. Below, and right: A view of Indian Island at high tide. Left: A look at an ochre sea star with sea star wasting syndrome.
Are the sea stars dying? A look at sea star wasting syndrome and how it affects Indian Island waters by CALI BAGBY Assistant editor
They are dying – wasting away, drying out and disintegrating into sun-bleached piles of dust. Limbs detach from the body and seem to melt away. The victims are ochre sea stars. Researchers are calling the sickness sea star wasting syndrome. “We have evidence that an infectious agent is involved, but it is too soon to say yet whether it is a virus or a bacterium,” said Drew Harvell, a marine epidemiologist at Cornell University. Some scientists are making ominous predictions that all the ochre sea stars near Indian Island could be dead soon, whereas other research points to only a 7 percent infection rate. The questions are: what exactly is this syndrome and are we looking at an extinction? Sea stars belong to the class Asteroidea, which is hypothesized to be at least 450 million years old.
There are more than 20 species of stars in the San Juans, and Harvell says that most of them have been reported to have some sign of disease in intertidal and sub-tidal surveys. Researchers like Harvell gave the disease its name due to the rapid nature of the sickness and its deterioration of the species. The wasting disease hits both densely populated areas as well as areas with only a few stars. Harvell said the disease happening in the San Juans is similar to what is occurring to millions of sea stars from Alaska to Mexico and is being studied by various teams, including about 40 biologists from many west coast universities and all the major aquariums. “This is slow, careful work that takes repeated experimentation in the lab and many tests to verify,” she said. Harvell told PBS reporters in June that all the ochre (pisaster ochraceus) sea stars at Indian Island survey sites would be dead at the end of the month. She told the Sounder that there is now good news. “At the East Sound site they have not all died, but they did go from none visibly sick in May to just over
SEE SEASTARS, PAGE 6
Silt-choked Cayou Lagoon should be breathing easier next year, released from the stranglehold of the 1970s-era rock fill and bridge that have reduced tidal interchange, caused bank erosion and suffocated native species. Public Works Project Engineer Colin Huntemer is working with a consultant to complete the design for a replacement bridge by December 2014 with plans to begin construction in April 2015. With the nuts and bolts in place, “we’re looking for feedback on the aesthetic elements,” explained Huntemer at a July 10 public meeting on Orcas. The proposed replacement bridge will be 80 feet long and 28 feet wide, with 10-foot traffic lanes and four-foot pedestrian lanes on each side. The bridge will be two and a half feet higher than the existing bridge, designed to clear the 100-year flood water elevation by three feet. A $2,284,000 Federal Bridge Replacement Advisory Committee grant will cover 80 percent of essential construction, with a 20 percent match by the county Public Works Department. The existing bridge, built in the 1970s, has just a 52-foot span and is 24.5 feet wide. An earlier bridge, its predecessor, was 60 feet long and only 15 feet wide. Huntemer said the community can help determine the placement and angle of the bridge, details like guardrail design and decorative concrete finishes and whether the bridge will include pedestrian lookouts and informational plaques. The grant will pay for basic construction only, so any aesthetic enhancements will need to be locally funded, he said. Construction is expected to take four to six months, and traffic will be kept flowing along Channel Road using either a detour bridge or a staged construction approach, depending on the exact location chosen. The angle of the new bridge will also determine the exact curve of the road on each end, and how the neighboring
properties will be affected. “The three property owners directly west of the bridge have demonstrated a willingness to work with us to discuss a road realignment to address the bluff erosion,” Public Works Engineer Rachel Dietzman told the Sounder. “Areas we expand to outside of the existing roadway and/or easement will need to be acquired through a right of way process.” According to an environmental assessment conducted in 2005 as part of the Deer Harbor Estuary Habitat Restoration Project, the 17 feet of rock fill placed on each side of the lagoon’s mouth in the 1970s has partly blocked the tidal interchange of oxygen-rich seawater and lagoon water, causing oxygen levels to drop. The rock also prevents tidal scouring, allowing silt to pile up and suffocate bottomdwelling species like oysters, flatfish and eelgrass. The tide rushing in through the smaller opening also causes greater erosion of the lagoon’s west bank and more silt, estimated to be up to 10 or 15 feet deep. With a larger opening and phased silt removal, Huntemer
SEE BRIDGE, PAGE 3
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