West Bay Watersheds
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The West Bay Watersheds includes Schneider Creek Watershed and several smaller streams, stretching from the Dam at the mouth of the Deschutes Estuary, northward to Crestline Beach and beyond that Butler Cove, . This landscape is occupied by the Westside Neighborhood of the City of Olympia. The Olympia Coalition for Ecosystem Preservation has adopted this landscape as a focus of its conservation work, with its genesis around preservation of one of the last heron rookeries on Budd Inlet.
Notes
- Due to the population density and social structure, I'd propose Schneider Creek Watershed as the northern extent of the West Bay system, allowing the small dry bluff and beach system between West Bay and Butler Cove, Crestline Beach, to be a distinct ecosystem with unique character and needs, more defined by a Beach management strategy.
- Oly Ecosystems has done remarkable work with acquisition using local grants and gathering neighbor labor, reinforced by city conservation corps crews to remove large areas of ivy, beginning the restoration of native forest understory.
- The Ecosystem Guild is starting map work for this system.
- The Hardel Plywood Site is a large undeveloped site with extensive shoreline armoring proposed for intensive development.
- The Port of Olympia, City of Olympia, and Squaxin Island Tribe completed a partial assessment and prioritization of restoration options along the west bay shoreline (C&HE 2016).