The Pysht River is located approximately 30 miles west of Port Angeles, WA. Its estuary is the second largest in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. However, its habitat has been heavily impacted by rather large scale logging practices for the better part of a century. These activities have affected the estuary's function and process.
Specifically, there have been at least two methods used to dredge the river bottom within the estuary to accommodate log transport and the spoils were ultimately placed on nearby upland portions of the estuary. Clamshell shovels were used to dredge and their deposits have created large berms restricting historic tidal flows and connectivity. Suction dredging deposits also filled in tidal marshlands altering vegetation populations and interrupting marshland processes. Roads, railways and log bays were constructed to transport and store timber harvests. These effectively altered the existing sandspit's coastal geomorphic processes and filled in an existing intermediate lagoon as well as buried a Native American fishing encampment. In order to stabilize the river banks from eroding, driven log sheet piles were constructed at select locations.
An engineering feasibility assessment of restoration options was conducted. A series of GIS maps and analysis for quantifying and illustrating restoration options for consideration was performed and inlcuded: