Theda Houck doesn’t own waterfront property.
But, like most people, that’s never stopped her from falling in love with the bodies of water that have for so long defined this region’s identity.
“I have a strong connection to nature in general,” she said. “There is just something about the water.”
Houck was delighted when she first heard about the Beach Watchers program.
“I was instantly intrigued,” she said. “I wanted to learn about our natural resources and what I could do as an individual to help protect them.”
Indeed, that’s exactly what Houck, 54, did as part of the Snohomish County Beach Watchers’ first graduating class in 2006.
Today the program is going strong, with registration for the 2008 spring training open now.
Houck, in taking the 100-hour course over a two-month period, learned how to tread lightly on area beaches. She studied marine plants and animals. She gained a deeper understanding of the effects of humans, not just on the beaches, but on the entire water system.
Most important, however, she learned how to gently educate people with her newfound knowledge.
“It was an eye-opening experience for me,” Houck said. “I feel more of a sense of urgency to do what I can to help our water sources.”
Pollution, invading species and development, she learned, have taken quite a collective toll on local waters.
“I did not realize just how much trouble we’re in,” she said. “All of that affects the delicate balance of our ecosystem. Now we have global warming thrown in there.”
Houck also learned in the class that her gardening habits could have an impact on the Sound, even though she lives in Woodinville.
She graduated from the Washington State University Master Gardeners program in 2004, so she was familiar with sustainable gardening techniques.
But she learned even more through Beach Watchers.
“What I now know, is what I do this far inland has an impact, just a little bit,” she said. “When you put us all together, it’s quite a large impact.”
Like the Master Gardeners programs, Beach Watchers is an arm of WSU’s county extension offices. Students learn from practicing professionals and university experts who are well-versed in current science.
While there has been a successful Beach Watchers program in Island County since about 1990, Beach Watchers has only recently expanded to Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, San Juan, Clallam and Jefferson counties.
This growing brigade of “citizen scientists” — with more than 600 volunteers trained in seven counties now — study, research and help restore water-based ecosystems with the bigger environmental picture in mind, said Scott Chase, a Beach Watcher on Camano Island.
“It isn’t just Puget Sound that we’re interested in,” Chase said. “Beach Watchers training also involves classes on forestry. There is information about agriculture, the use of chemicals in our environment, global warming, beach processes and landslides.”
The WSU program also give students plenty of opportunities for practical, hands-on research, a facet of the training that definitely appealed to 23-year-old William Johnsen of Lake Stevens, who also graduated from the Snohomish County Beach Watchers in 2006.
During class — and the 100 hours of volunteer time required after the course — he did a variety of research projects, including a creosote log count on Hat Island.
“We got to take a ferry over there and walk the whole perimeter of the island,” Johnsen said. “They’re going to report the findings to the DNR (Department of Natural Resources).”
Beach Watchers actually helped nudge Johnsen, who has an art degree, down the path of research biology.
“It’s kind of shown me what I want to do,” Johnsen said. “You can be a citizen monitor and be effective at the same time.”
Beach Watchers also spend time walking area shores during special beach events for the public, especially in spring and summer, serving as naturalists, sharing their knowledge, pointing out plants, animals and facets of the beach ecosystems.
They don’t police beaches as some people have assumed.
“It is sharing knowledge,” Chase said. “We are not an enforcement group.”
Beach Watchers, during their volunteer time, are also allowed to create new programs to protect area shores.
“If you have a local beach that’s around you and there’s nothing going on there, you get a lot of knowledge in the classroom that you can apply to starting your own program,” Johnsen said. “There’s a bunch of opportunities.”
If the program has limitations, they might include the 200-hour total time commitment and the weekday timing of the classroom sessions, not ideal for the typical full-time work schedule.
Chase said many Beach Watchers are retired professionals who live near beaches or own beachfront property.
“There’s just a burning interest in the health of Puget Sound,” he said. “A lot of people look at Puget Sound and they see how beautiful it is and see how sparkling it is and assume that Puget Sound is quite healthy when, actually, it isn’t.”
Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037 or sjackson@heraldnet.com. Visit her blog at www.heraldnet.com/ecogeek.
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