Shoreline protection is honorable after all.

Environmental Insight With a Touch of Real Science
by Don Flora (a real scientist and Bainbridge shoreline homeowner)

Six months ago I summarized “science” doctrine about bulkheads, all of which declared bulkheads bad for the environment. I asked, “Where is the research?” and “What are the numbers?”

Lo and behold, I hadn’t noticed a couple batches of existing numbers. They come from shoreline inventories conducted by Bainbridge Island and Kitsap County. The inventories included human-built “stressors” like docks and bulkheads, plus natural habitats including eelgrass beds, forage-fish spawning areas, and the extent of seaweed and kelp.

These things were tallied for each of the hundreds of beach reaches around eastern Kitsap and Bainbridge Island for which data was available. Then a consulting firm combined the data in various ways to develop, for each shoreline reach, an index number intended to summarize habitat welfare in each reach.

Harm from nearshore development almost zero.

Environmental Insight With a Touch of Real Science
by Don Flora (a real scientist and Bainbridge shoreline homeowner)

Editor’s note: For the last dozen or so years, shoreline protection and restoration activists have worked feverishly to prove that Puget Sound has been “destroyed” by armoring and other human activities. As Dr. Flora has shown, their own data disproves their hypothesis. Unfortunately, few planners at the state or local level have scientific credentials. They believe what they want to believe and we pay the price.

A well-known Northwest contract-research firm has shown that a broad array of man-caused features along tidewater shores have no meaningful impact on “ecosystem functions”. Despite an obviously vigorous and fairly complex effort, a relationship between human-installed “stressors” and habitat factors was not found.

Statistical analyses of the studies’ data show that little of the variation in ecosystem (habitat) functions can be explained by a large basket of stressors. The correlation of multiple stressors with the welfare of nearshore habitats is not significantly different from zero (Bainbridge Island) or extremely low (East Kitsap County).

Do environmental activists ignore the science they claim to support?

by Todd Myers, Director, Washington Policy Center’s Center for the Environment, excerpted from his “Commentary on the Issues” – June 26, 2009

Recent wildfires are … cited as evidence of climate change. The National Wildlife Federation claimed that “Warmer temperatures are also to blame for the invasion of mountain pine beetles, which have already decimated over 32 million acres of forest in Washington and British Columbia.” There are problems with this claim.

Forestry scientists say the primary cause of insect infestations is that too many trees are fighting for too few nutrients and water. In many Washington forests there are many more trees per acre than hundreds of years ago. Stressed trees cannot fight off natural infestations that were manageable for centuries. While working at the State Department of Natural Resources, I spoke with many foresters and entomologists who demonstrated this very process.

How government destroyed science…

How Government Destroyed Science in 
Columbia River Dam Decision Making
Remarks by James Buchal at the First Annual Northwest Water Law Symposium, Lewis & Clark Law School, January 31, 2009 (edited)

Before I begin discussing the use of science in Columbia River decision making, I think it is important to have a definition of what science is, and I am going to choose a definition that will make it clear that science is not really used at all any more.

What is science? Since this is a law school, I will cite the Supreme Court’s Daubert case, which determined how federal courts should decide whether to accept scientific expert testimony. In that case, the Court actually managed at one point to stumble right on it: “‘Scientific methodology today is based on generating hypotheses and testing them to see if they can be falsified; indeed, this methodology is what distinguishes science from other fields of human inquiry….”

Do docks impede passing salmon?

Our shoreline neighbor Dr. Don Flora offers his comments regarding the impact of residential docks on passing salmon. We offer a brief introduction and a link below…

There are studies showing that docks’ shadows affect the welfare of juvenile salmon headed toward the sea. Wide docks (ships’ piers and ferry terminals) create sharp breaks between sunlight and deep shade. One effect, shading-out of eelgrass, is observed but the impacts on salmon have not been measured and aren’t discussed here.

It has been supposed that predator fish, lurking in the darkness, will dash out to consume the passing salmon. Shade-based predation has been discounted, as discussed later.

Abrupt light-to-dark transitions, on sunny days under large docks, cause some salmon to detour around the discontinuity. Shade-driven diversion has been reported. But not under narrow residential docks.

If residential docks are making a difference to emigrating juvenile salmon, how large might that impact be? Small, according to calculations shown here. An average of 93 feet are added to the 55-mile swim from Kitsap County’s Sinclair Inlet to Puget Sound’s exit.

Here’s a link to Dr. Flora’s commentary on residential docks and passing salmon, or read the document below. Why is this relevant? Because state and local planners want to outlaw residential docks to save salmon.

View this document on Scribd

Don Flora’s comments on the value of lawns.

Our shoreline neighbor Dr. Don Flora offers his comments regarding the value of lawns to Kitsap County’s shoreline residents. We offer a brief introduction and a link below…

Kitsap County’s charm flows partly from its lawns. Grassed lawns have played an admirable environmental role. Readers are reminded that, for other reasons too, lawns are and have ever been immensely important places.

These pages report research showing that replacing lawns with non-grass vegetation will not likely reduce alleged potential problems with excess nutrients nor ‘pollutants’. Certain heavy-duty chemicals, released steadily and copiously, are likely to sluice through vegetation, regardless of its kind. This because of our stormwater’s habits. However no kind of vegetation surpasses lawn grass in absorbing pollutants of all kinds.

Here’s a link to Dr. Flora’s commentary on the value of lawns or read the document below.

Why is this relevant? Because state and local planners want to outlaw your lawn and force you to replace it with “native vegetation.”

View this document on Scribd

Puget Sound and the slippery slope.

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…