Caring for North Cove

A core part of overseeing Washington's Coastal Zone Management Program has been helping communities in the coastal zone understand and plan for climate-related hazards including beach and bluff erosion, coastal flooding, increased storm severity, and sea level rise.

A community on the edge of the world, North Cove is a small, unincorporated community perched at the edge of Washington's Pacific Ocean coast in Grays Harbor County. Recent actions to try and reverse nearly a century of beach and bluff erosion offers an important glimpse into why coordinated coastal planning matters.

The beach at North Cove is a place carved and scoured by tides and storms and was once one of the fastest eroding beaches on the U.S. West Coast. From the 1930's until around 2015, the ocean swallowed 160 structures and four square miles of land at North Cove and continued to encroach at a rate of 50 to 100 feet per year. Residents tried everything, even dumping old cars along the shore but nothing proved to be a long-term fix. Many residents often went to bed with the unsettling question: "Will my home still be standing in the morning?" The tumult earned the dubious nickname "washaway beach."

Cranberry farmers take a stand

The rapid advance of the ocean not only put structures but livelihoods at risk as well. North Cove's cranberry bogs produce two-thirds of Washington's cranberries, thriving in the region's acidic, marshy lowlands. North Cove has been characterized by cranberries since they were first planted in the 1800's. One local cranberry grower, David Cotrell, recognized the danger storm surges and saltwater intrusion posed to the freshwater bogs.

The late Cotrell's motto was "you can do something or you can do nothing. If you do nothing, you get nothing."

Cotrell observed the natural way rocky beaches along the Pacific Northwest coast absorb wave energy, slowing the rate of erosion. Inspired, he invested $400 for a truckload of small rocks he placed on the beach. He and his partner, Connie Allen, watched with cautious optimism as erosion seemed to slow at the site. Since they had no funding, Allen formed the community group WashAway No More. They sold t-shirts and baked goods at craft fairs to raise funds and awareness, eventually collecting $530 - enough to put 24 tons of rock on the beach at the end of a washed-out road where two homes had recently been swept away. Eventually, the pair placed another 10 truckloads of rock at the site which seemed to stem the erosion.

Collaboration gets the job done

Besides efforts by local residents, we had been independently monitoring and analyzing the erosion at North Cove since 2013. The nearby Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe had long maintained a dune to protect the reservation from coastal erosion.

In 2016, Chairwoman Charlene Nelson recognized the need for collaboration. Working together, North Cove residents and the Tribe secured grants in 2016 and 2017 from Pacific County Conservation District and Pacific County Drainage District to pilot a dynamic rock revetment erosion control project. The project proved to be an effective approach for stemming erosion. In 2018, Ecology, in our role overseeing the Coastal Zone Management Program, provided $600,000 to construct a 1.2 mile long dynamic revetment along the North Cove beach shoreline. Community members assisted by drilling holes and installing trackers to help better understand wave dynamics in the cove.

By 2021, erosion in the areas protected by the revetment stopped, and after a century of losing ground, the beach began to grow. Sand and woody debris accumulated helping beach dunes to naturally recover. By 2024, one 3,000 foot section helped 232,000 cubic yards of sand to accumulate, a fivefold increase in dune area. The North Cove project was named one of two Best Restored Beaches in the United States by the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. As the beach has returned, so have snowy plovers, bald eagles, razor clams and Dungeness and rock crabs.

Addressing ongoing challenges

But challenges remain due to a gap in the protective shoreline revetment along nearby State Route 105 that needs to be addressed.

Years of coordination and planning by Ecology shoreline scientists, planners and engineers culminated in 2025 when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded a $13 million grant to Pacific Conservation District and Washington State Department of Transportation to make the highway more resilient to sea level rise, beach erosion and other climate-related challenges.

Building coastal resiliency at North Cove beach has combined knowledge from lived experience, scientific information and state resources. Working with nature, the project is protecting the North Cove community and local cranberry bogs.

Once complete, the State Route 105 project will help future generations who live and visit the area thanks to a powerful coalition of community and Tribal members, local governments and state agencies.