Tramp Harbor Dock

Rewild the Sound: No Dock!

The big challenge for Vashon residents is to consider that every dollar we spend on the future cannot be spent on nostalgia, but on repairing the damage we are doing to the environment.

Nature’s Needs First! Beautiful as our views are across the Sound, let’s face it: we are looking at a dying body of water.

Starfish are mostly gone, kelp beds are mostly gone, Dungeness crab is diminishing, and tube worms, which are filter feeders, have disappeared from the pilings.

A quart of oil spilled from car or boat engines can contaminate 2 acres of fresh water, killing an adult salmon in less than three hours. Run-off contaminated with pesticides, artificial fertilizers and drugs, sunscreen, firework residue and glitter that looks like fish food…the list is long and pollutants are increasing as the island population grows.

Plankton supplies more than 70% of the planet’s oxygen worldwide. The whole aquatic food chain is based on its existence, and in our waters, used to be viewed as an abundant life force under Vashon diver Karlista Rickerson’s microscope. Today, the amount and variety she collects is frighteningly diminished.

Can we let go of the dream of replacing an iconic dock, or preserving a view that we grew up with in favor of a future-focused mindset? Such as: “We’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed a healthy environment in Vashon’s past. But now, let’s take those thousands or millions of big bucks from King County to restore what has been lost, so that one day our children and grandchildren will be looking at a Sound that is rich with abundant life again.

– Tag Gornall, Rondi Lightmark and Karlista Rickerson

Memories of the dock will endure

My husband and I purchased property on Vashon in 1987 and built a home here in 1993.

In the past 35 years, we have seen several island sites including Vashon Elementary and Burton Elementary removed and transformed. The original structures provided years of memories and sentimental attachment for generations of islanders.

The current, younger generation will have their memories and sentiments attached to wonderful playfields and BARC providing options for physical, mental and social enjoyment. The transformation of the properties was not an easy task but the structures were unsafe and outdated, and the funding to bring them to code was excessive.

My favorite memory of Tramp Harbor Dock took place years ago. My young son and I went to the dock when we heard a grey whale was swimming in the area. The sun was setting, we stood on the dock, heard the blow and felt the mist of water vapor as the whale swam under us. It was an amazing, jaw-dropping moment and a memory we share.

I have never fished off the dock or snorkeled under it but realize it is an activity enjoyed by some islanders.

Previous activity in the dock area, including a ferry connection and oil supply station/dock, has been well documented. Artists and photographers have enjoyed its lines and perspective.

Its presence has been preserved.

Unfortunately, like previously mentioned structures, the dock is unsafe, outdated and the funding to bring it to code is excessive. In my opinion, the dock should be removed and not replaced.

The location of the dock — an eroding road at the base of a steep hillside, vulnerable to rising sea level — does not seem like the place for VPD to spend $800,000.

Of course, no one wants to see a habitat site study done for obvious reasons. This should be a financial and environmental decision not based on sentiment… Memories will endure.

– Suzanne Lloyd-Gornall

Land Acknowledgments

Actions, not just statements, are needed

I noted in last week’s Beachcomber that the community council is searching for help in composing a Land Acknowledgement Statement — one of those statements you hear at the beginning of meetings or events, noting that attendees have gathered on traditional and unceded Indigenous land.

I have heard well-intentioned but empty statements like this across the nation, and each time they are met with a brief reverence that results in no actions whatsoever. No one is giving up their land. No reparations are in sight. There are no extra places at the table for the tribes. Some European Americans may have their guilt momentarily assuaged, but frankly, I don’t see much benefit in these statements unless we can accompany them with real actions.

I’d like to challenge Vashon and Maury Islands, named for invading colonists, to buck up and do one better.

Instead of just paying lip service to people who will never hear the statement, let’s do something that would follow in the footsteps of those Indigenous Peoples.

Here are three ideas:

1. Work with the tribes to identify ways to restore habitat, remediate the impacts of some destructive “modern” development, and introduce a degree of rewilding. There are plenty of ways to do this.
2. Work with the tribes and the County to amend land use codes and practices to allow individual property owners to benefit from habitat restoration, reforestation, and removal of invasive species, in ways that are more significant than exist today.
3. Work with the tribes and whoever else we can find as partners to identify existing programs and initiatives that do things like the above, expand upon those where we can, modify others, and take our message to a wider audience.

Or we can just spend our time composing a Land Acknowledgement Statement that makes us feel good for a few seconds.

The summers are drying out, the water is rising, and the cedars and hemlocks are dying because of us, but hey, it’s a free country.

– Greg Wessel