Before the Next High Tide
An 1878 editorial warns that hauling gravel and pulling drift logs off the Point Hudson spit has already helped flood Port Townsend twice—and calls for an ordinance before the winter storms return.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Now that the season of high tides is approaching, and the clerk of the weather has predicted an unusually high tide with a heavy sea sometime in the latter part of December, it is of interest not only to owners of property on the flat but to the whole business community to protect the town so as to leave no chance for another overflow. Twice has this town been overflowed through an ignorant intermeddling with the beach.
The first was many years ago, and was caused by putting a flume through the top of the beach to drain a pond or lagoon near Plummer's Point. The whole flat was then covered with shrubbery—crab apple, raspberry and rose bushes. The flume was not properly constructed, was washed away by the winter storms, and the vegetation was destroyed by the salt water. The next overflow was caused by allowing Indians and others to remove drift logs from the beach at Point Hudson, exposing that portion of the spit to the winter storms. They soon made a breach through the sand, and the spit was covered with water—a condition not wholly remedied until the present breakwater was built.
In the formation of ocean beaches and spits, nature points out the method of keeping them intact. Wherever drift logs, brush or tide wreck are thrown ashore and left by the receding tide, a deposit of sand and gravel collects upon it; if not disturbed, in a few seasons it will be covered with ocean grass, which is at once a protection and a barrier against the tides. In all the states—but more particularly in some—sea beaches are protected by law. Removing any deposit of sand, gravel or driftwood that lowers the crown of the beach is considered a misdemeanor and punished by fine or imprisonment, being against public policy.
Our attention has been called to the removal of gravel from the top of the beach, which has been hauled down the hill to grade streets. The damage is not perceptible now, but if allowed to continue it will produce lasting injury. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is an old adage. We recommend calling the attention of the council to this matter and urging the enactment of an ordinance that shall prevent anyone from taking ballast or gravel from below high-water mark, or removing logs or drift stuff embedded in the sand. If precautions are taken, it will not be many years before the beach at Point Hudson will have become so denuded as to effectually invite another overflow.
“Twice has this town been overflowed through an ignorant intermeddling with the beach.”
Port Townsend's waterfront still depends on engineered barriers where the old spit once did the work; Point Hudson now has a breakwater and restored beaches. The editorial's logic—that a shoreline is infrastructure, not a gravel pit—has only become more urgent as sea-level rise and storm surge put low-lying downtown blocks back in the flood zone.
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