Road closure limits public access, environmental research at this Whatcom County beach
Public access is being limited to an isolated Georgia Strait stretch of beach west of Ferndale, after the County Council recently allowed a nearby landowner to install a gate closing Gulf Road to cars south of Henry Road.
Council members voted unanimously Feb. 8 to allow the road closure after the owner, Pacific International Holdings, cited “illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, alcohol and drug use, the discharging of firearms, unauthorized fires, destruction of private property and trespass along Whatcom County rights-of-way and onto private property occur in this area,” according to a memo from the Whatcom County Department of Public Works.
Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters will have a key to the gate, said Jim Karcher of Public Works.
“It will actually allow the police and fire not to respond to as many malicious calls as they get down there,” Karcher told the council.
But Eleanor Hines, a scientist at the environmental advocacy group RE Sources for Sustainable Communities and North Sound Baykeeper, told The Bellingham Herald that restricted access could hamper research and volunteer beach cleanups.
“It would definitely make our monitoring projects more challenging,” Hines said.
“It seems like things have been getting better there,” she said. “At the beach cleanups we used to get stuff like couches and it seemed like a dumping ground.”
The waterfront was nearly deserted on a recent weekday, as waves lapped at the pebbly beach topped with piles of driftwood where an abandoned conveyor stretches into the sound — and there were no junked cars or trash.
Hines said the beach is one of only a few places that the public can access the state’s Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve, which consists of 3,000 acres preserving critical habitat for bull kelp, Pacific herring, salmon, surf smelt, orcas and surf scoters.
“I would love to find a way to maintain public access, as well as maintain public safety at the same time,” she said.
Closing of the road was described in the ordinance as “temporary,” but it allows the road to remain closed “in perpetuity” unless the County Council votes to rescind the closure.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
