Port funds Beach Rangers program

EDMONDS – The starfish can thrive and the flowers can bloom for another year.

The Port of Edmonds will fund the Edmonds Beach Ranger program in 2003. The program has been funded entirely by the city since its inception in the early 1980s but was in danger of being cut back for next year because of the city’s budget crunch.

The amount that would have had to be cut, $19,880, was roughly equal to the amount that was proposed to be cut from the city’s flower basket program. Because the City Council was open to restoring one major item in the parks budget but not two, and because the port had agreed to fund the Beach Rangers, the city was able to fund the flower program for 2003.

The Beach Rangers are part of the city’s Discovery program, which provides classes, seminars and other events related to environmental education, particularly regarding the Edmonds shoreline. The Beach Rangers and their volunteers provide summertime beach patrols, lead events and staff the ranger station at the Fishing Pier.

Port commissioners Mary Lou Block and Fred Gouge spearheaded the possibility of the port funding the program and approached city parks director Arvilla Ohlde about the idea, Ohlde said. Ohlde then gave a presentation to the five-member Port Commission and the commissioners voted 4-1 on Dec. 9 to fund the amount for one year from the port’s property tax levy fund.

The port sees part of its mission as an “environmental steward of the waterfront,” Gouge told the City Council at its meeting Dec. 10. Because the beach is a tourist attraction, it also has a role in the city’s economy, Gouge said.

The Beach Rangers, which include trained ranger-naturalists and interpretive specialist, operate the Beach Ranger Station 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends from Memorial Day through Labor Day, manned by volunteers and supervised by a ranger-naturalist. On an average sunny summer day, the Beach Ranger Visitor Station attracts 150 to 200 visitors, Ohlde told the Port Commission.

Rangers patrol the beaches six hours a day weekdays and eight hours on weekends throughout the summer, Ohlde said. During extreme low tides, a second ranger-naturalist is scheduled due to the high number of visitors during these times and the large amount of area that needs to be patrolled, she said. Volunteers and junior beach rangers are managed by the staff to bring a full team to the waterfront.

Their duties include interacting with the visitors, answering questions, interpreting marine biology, offering minor first aid and monitoring the recreational uses of the shoreline, Ohlde said. Much of the patrol time is spent reiterating and clarifying regulations, including state fishing regulations, which get more complex every year, she said. Rangers talk with dog owners to clarify that dogs are allowed only at the south end of Marina Beach.

The Beach Rangers consist of the equivalent of four-part time positions whose time is split unevenly depending on the time of year and events that are planned, said Sally Lider, the city’s environmental education coordinator. If the program had not been funded, about two-and-a-half of the positions would have been cut.

The Beach Rangers and the parks department also stage numerous free events every year that would have been cut. In 2002, these included 12 educational public beach walks; the Moonlight Beach Adventure, an interpretive event attended by 100 people that included divers bringing up live specimens; the Watershed Fun Fair, an event aimed at watershed education, attended by about 200 people, and a Yost Park Earth Day walk.

Most other Discovery programs, such as classroom presentations, the spring break Discovery Days Daycamp, and spring-summer marine education programs for groups, are fee supported and generally pay for themselves, Ohlde said. The total budget for Discovery is about $72,000.

Block, who was elected to the Port Commission in 2001 when it was expanded to five members from three, served as the city’s planning director in the 1980s when the Beach Ranger program was started. She recalled that the program won an award from the Cousteau Society, which recognizes programs worldwide that help protect marine life. Jacques Cousteau’s nephew came to Edmonds to present the award, she said.

“He said it was efforts such as this that were so desperately needed worldwide,” Block said.

Block related this story in advocating the port’s funding of the program.

“It just illustrates how important the program is,” she said. “This is one I think is a real plus for the community and one I think deserves support.”