Environmental insight with a touch of real science…
by Don Flora, a real scientist and Bainbridge shoreline homeowner.
A George Will column in February 15’s Kitsap Sun quotes Michel Eyquem de Montaigne’s axiom: ”Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”
Kitsap County is about to follow other nearby places down the slippery slope into murky waters: struggling to dredge up a firm scientific basis for our updated Shoreline Master Program.
Required by state law, that plan will have tight control over what happens along our shores and for 200 feet inland. We all look to the County’s staff for wisdom in drafting the thing, and they seek a base of scientific information. Lot’s of luck on the science. Here’s why…
Making sane rules about shoreline use and development depends on a boatload of information on what, if anything, is broken within ties among the upshore, the beach, the bays, and beyond. Then where, when, and how much needs fixing? Which comes first, at what cost? And there is the matter of “restoration.” How much, to what effect, and so on?
There is broad agreement among marine scientists that little is known about these things. For one thing, diversity rules: every place and every kind of marine life has myriad variations.
A natural reaction is to guess the answers to all those questions and finesse those answers with words like “may”, “might”, or “likely to.” There lies the slippery slope.
In time, a presumed expert sating “maybe” is seen as an oracle saying “will.” Few experts turn away from that perception.
Here’s an example. A university scholar wrote (in the proceedings of a recent regional conference) that “Shoreline armoring truncates the intertidal zone, degrades or eliminates shallow nearshore habitats, and disrupts the connection between shore and uplands.” Wrong, if modern bulkhead techniques are used.
Another example: (In the same proceedings) “Impervious surfaces accumulate automotive, household, and industrial pollutants, channeling them directly into streams when riparian buffers are insufficient.” Perhaps, but buffers of any width are unlikely to stop these sorts of pollutants.
Those proceedings again: “[F]eeder bluffs… provide up to 90 percent of the sediment on Puget Sound regional beaches.” But on how many of those beaches? Perhaps only one of a few that were studies.
Yet another, this in a Department of Fish and Wildlife publication: “Increased boat use may affect eelgrass meadows through light attenuation caused by propeller-generated bubbles.” Disturbing indeed.
And another from the same publication: ”… the shaded, deep water environment under piers can create a favorable habitat for predatory fish.” No research has ever supported this claim.
Viewed critically, all of these statements could be called fabricated science. Certainly they draw readers to the slippery slope of credulity.
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