A new project by the Port of Port Townsend is erupting with life, despite being sunk underwater.
After removing the old rock from the north jetty as part of the ongoing replacement, those stones …
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A new project by the Port of Port Townsend is erupting with life, despite being sunk underwater.
After removing the old rock from the north jetty as part of the ongoing replacement, those stones were not left unturned.
Roughly 1,500 tons of the cleanest and liveliest basalt rock were taken out and dropped down not far from the breakwater to create a rock nursery to house the aquatic life that had been previously living in the jetty.
“The primo rock was the rock that still had crustaceans, barnacles living on it, micro-algae. It was still alive,” said Eron Berg, executive director for the port.
The idea for the new rock nursery originated from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“It came from WDFW as a way to provide some habitat and then we’ve just built on it,” Berg said.
Though a host of wildlife has already moved into the nursery constructed from the north jetty, more neighbors will be moving in soon.
While rock from the south jetty will not be repurposed in the same way, its residents will receive help relocating.
“We had a permit to demolish the south breakwater which would necessarily mean probably squishing whoever lives in it. We had to get a different permit that would allow us to pick the creatures up and move them to their new home, and we got that last week,” Berg said.
Over the summer, a team of volunteer divers will do the heavy lifting of the sea creatures from their current abode in order to offer them what will hopefully be a long term, sustainable future in the new nursery.
There are even some divers who have already been out exploring the habitat. A video of a dive in November of last year, just two weeks after the structure was installed, shows a variety of species thriving amongst the rocks with plenty of perch, throngs of rockfish, scores of sea stars, and a slew of giant sea cucumbers sharing their new neighborhood like old friends.
For those who want to explore deeper, the video of that dive can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=lTZn2NnNv-w.
