On her walk Thursday, photographer Julia Wiese approached the sea wall area at Brackett’s Landing, watching as three people struggled to move a concrete block to the sea wall’s base.
She walked down to where more blocks were staged and spoke to a woman named Judy, whose husband and daughter use the Edmonds Underwater Dive Park at Brackett’s Landing. “She told me they were going to float the blocks out to the underwater park and they will be used for fish habitat,” Wiese said.
“Bruce Higgins, curator of the Edmonds underwater park year round and one of those moving the blocks, told me the blocks weigh 700 pounds but once floating they weigh about 500 pounds. The blocks were surplussed from Olympic Beach because they were never installed as part of the seawall there. They sat in storage,” Wiese explained. “They stage by the wall at low tide. Inflatable flotation devices will be attached at a higher tide, then they will be placed near the blue Lopez pontoon (the pontoon is originally from the Lopez Island ferry terminal).
Bruce Higgins is amazing. He works tirelessly volunteering hundreds of days a year to keep the Underwater Park a vibrant ecosystem that draws over 25,000 visitors to Edmonds annually—and Bruce doesn’t even live here! He does so with neither support nor coordination from our city. The/Bruce park are ignored by the Parks Dept and Waterfront Planners. And yet he carries on. I hate to think what will happen when he is too old to continue what he has done for a half century. The city named the park after him—the least they can do is seek his input and coordinate with him. So sad…
Bob is correct about this. Our administrations, past and present, don’t exactly welcome citizen scientists and environmental activist volunteers with open arms. It’s more like they are some sort of enemy and annoyance to the City Parks Dept. to be banned and constrained from interfering in city business.
Thank you, Julia, for the good reporting and bringing the tireless volunteer work of Bruce Higgins, and others, to my attention. It’s easy to take the Underwater Park for granted when one knows it’s there but doesn’t participate in all it has to offer under the surface of the sound. What those four were doing to support fish habitat looks like hard work! A big thank you to all.
Great coverage of the Underwater Park and especially the people who keep it a vibrant refuge for hundreds of species of marine plants and animals…all within the City of Edmonds. Thanks to Bruce Higgins and the volunteers, many speies, including endangered rockfsih, have one of the few refuges in Puget Sound. These dedicated people are saving a number of species from extinction in Puget Sound. The citizens of Edmonds need to know more about the City’s absolutely unique nearshore environment and what the City is doing (or not!) to protect it. No other xity in Washington has such a unique ecosystem. I hope MEN will continue to highlight our marine ecosystems (including Edmonds Marsh and our creeks!) and the people who are working to save and improve our unique ecology.