Strengthening the resilience of Washington’s coastal communities through collaboration, education, and knowledge exchange

Multiple projects initiated through the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge are now underway, advancing efforts in coastal adaptation and hazard mitigation.

The Washington Sea Grant Coastal Resilience Fellowship launches in summer 2025, bringing additional capacity to support resilience planning and implementation.

Further initiatives and collaborations will continue throughout the year.

NOAA announced a major new grant, the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (CRRC), aimed at supporting climate resiliency projects to protect Washington communities, infrastructure and habitats that are at risk.

The $73.6 million climate resiliency grant builds on more than 20 years of planning work by Ecology and a coalition of public agencies, Tribes, academic institutions and non-profit organizations. Together, they have investigated the steps needed to protect Washington’s coastal communities from climate-related hazards.

Washington State Department of Ecology started conducting rulemaking under the Shoreline Management Act. A major focus of this rulemaking is to establish a new requirement for cities and counties to address the impact of sea level rise and increased storm severity in their shoreline master programs.

The Department of Ecology requested funding to create the  Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team (COHORT), which was approved by the Washington State Legislature in 2023.  COHORT is an interagency team established to enhance the resilience of Washington’s coastal communities and Tribes.

The Graveyard Spit Dune Restoration and Community Resilience Project was fully funded in 2023. This project is an innovative nature-based dune and cobble dynamic revetment that will restore and protect Graveyard Spit, located on the northern shore of Willapa Bay in Washington State. Project construction and restoration is expected to occur in 2025-2026, followed by ongoing monitoring and adaptive management.

The project is fully funded through the following sources:

• In December 2022, the project received $9,980,730 in grant funding from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) 2023 National Coastal Resilience Fund to fund Phase 1 of the project’s construction and restoration.
• In April 2023, NOAA announced that they had awarded 3,976,788 in funding for the project through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support implementation and adaptive management as well as monitoring of endangered species and dune conditions. The funding source is NOAA’s Coastal Zone Management Habitat Protection and Restoration Grant Program.
• In August 2023, FEMA announced that the Graveyard Spit Project was selected to receive $12.87 million in funding via the 2022 Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program.

WCMAC staff and facilitators combine hazards and economic resilience recommendations into a final draft. WCMAC convened a series of three coastal resilience technical workgroup workshops to synthesize findings, refine recommendations, and prepare a draft decision package for full member consideration on June 16, 2021.

The Washington Coast Resilience Action Demonstration Project (RAD) finished a two-year (2019-2021) partnership between the Washington State Department of Ecology and Washington Sea Grant that provided multi-organizational hazards assistance to communities on the Pacific Coast of Washington and laid the groundwork for future coastal resilience efforts.

Funded by NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, the RAD was a direct response to urgent needs voiced by coastal communities and Tribes to help them build local capacity to address coastal hazards issues while strengthening the long-term social, economic, and ecological resilience of the Pacific Coast. The RAD demonstrated how the state can help rural communities access funding opportunities and also played a key role in informing the Washington Coastal Marine Advisory Council (WCMAC) coastal resilience recommendations to the Governor in June 2021.

WCMAC acknowledged the importance of the Ruckelshaus finding that the “well-being of communities and the coastal natural environment are intimately linked; therefore, it is important to consider the intersection of economic prosperity, community health, ecology, infrastructure, and governance when considering how to improve coastal resilience.” WCMAC decided to pursue economic resilience as an additional priority. In response, a WCMAC economic resilience workgroup was formed to begin preparing for an in-person workshop to build awareness, share knowledge and experiences, and discuss next steps for improving economic resilience on the coast. WCMAC had to pivot from their in-person workshop to an online webinar series due to the COVID_19 pandemic. WCMAC hosted a series of four webinars that invited key experts, presenters, stakeholders, and tribes to explore tourism industry, forestry industry, marine/coastal industries, and economic resilience.

 WCMAC decided that a priority should be placed on implementing the recommendation to “Establish a Coast-Wide Resilience Initiative to Enhance and Integrate Efforts.”  The Center recommended the formation of a “Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team” (COHORT). The COHORT effort is building on the experiences and lessons learned from past efforts, most notably the Governor convened Southwest Coast Erosion Task Force (1999) and the Flood Hazard Reduction Projects and Agency Coordination (funded by SB 3110 in 1998). The support from and collaboration among multiple agencies; the State support for a community-led initiative; and the fact that this effort is envisioned from the outset as a long-term initiative sets it apart.

WCMAC launched a partnership with Ecology and Washington Sea Grant acquired grant funding from NOAA to pilot the Ruckelshaus Center’s recommendation of establishing a COHORT to enhance and integrate coast-wide resilience efforts. The 18-month (2020-2021) pilot program was a proof of concept which tested the logistics of the interagency COHORT model and identified strategies for improving and better coordinating agencies’ hazards assistance to Washington’s coastal communities

In a letter dated March 28, 2018, Governor Inslee expressed his full support for WCMAC’s desire to build on the work recently completed by the Ruckelshaus Center’s “Washington State Coast Resilience Assessment,” and requested that WCMAC help to “identify high priority needs and actions to carry out the recommendations from the assessment regarding coastal hazards.”

At the beginning stages of the GHRC, staff from U.S. Rep. Kilmer’s office and Ecology contacted the William D. Ruckelshaus Center seeking independent facilitation services to meet the group’s objectives. Through a series of conversations, the Center suggested that while the GHRC may decide to continue pursuing a short-term budget request specific to Grays Harbor County, there also appears to interest in and an opportunity for multiple coastal communities to work together on a more durable coast-wide approach to hazards resilience. With support from the GHRC, Ecology and U.S. Rep. Kilmer’s office contracted with the Ruckelshaus Center to complete the “Washington State Coast Resilience Assessment.”

The Washington Coastal Marine Advisory Council (WCMAC) invited guest speakers to member meetings to better understand the issues and existing community efforts, and began discussions to determine how to best support the growing hazards resilience initiative on the coast.

WCMAC created a coastal resilience technical work group and asked that they prepare a working definition that aligns with the Council’s role and identify priorities to help members determine how to advance resilience goals and objectives. During the December meeting, members discussed the following items:

1. An inclusive working definition of resilience that recognizes economic well-being as critical aspect of community resilience.
2. A prioritized list of Ruckelshaus recommendations WCMAC could help assist with implementation.
3. A prioritized list of Ruckelshaus recommendations WCMAC should advocate for/recommend financing or otherwise support.

An alliance of local, tribal, state and federal partners formed the Grays Harbor Resilience Coalition (GHRC) to address both immediate and future natural hazards through collaborative research, planning, and investment in capital projects. The effort was spearheaded by Ocean Shores Mayor Crystal Dingler, with ongoing support from the state Department of Ecology (Ecology) and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer. With the additional support of State Rep. Steve Tharinger, the Washington Legislature included $200,000 in the state’s 2016-17 supplemental capital budget to support the GHRC effort. Ecology received an additional $25,000 from FEMA to support the GHRC.

After a severe winter in 2015, coastal entities in Grays Harbor County, in partnership with the office of U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer’s Office, and the Washington State Department of Ecology, convened a coast-wide event focused on strengthening regional partnerships to overcome the chronic crisis of disasters caused by natural hazards.

The Coastal Hazards Resilience Network was established in 2013 in response to a clear and growing need among Washington’s coastal communities and practitioners for a coordinated, peer-driven network focused on coastal hazards and climate resilience. Before CHRN’s formation, there was no formal space for individuals and organizations working in this field to regularly connect, share resources, exchange lessons learned, or build collaborative relationships. Local governments, Tribal representatives, researchers, nonprofit leaders, and agency staff alike expressed a need for stronger cross-sector communication and coordination.

CHRN was created to meet this need. Its mission is to strengthen the resilience of Washington’s coastal communities through collaboration, education, and the exchange of knowledge and best practices.

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