Washington Coastal Resiliency Funding
Goal: Provide essential funding for enhanced shoreline monitoring, state agency coordination to identify and address coastal resiliency needs, and establish a mechanism for getting important projects accomplished in our coastal communities.
Washington faces severe and costly damage to life and property from climate change. For coastal populations, there is an increased risk from worsening coastal hazards, such as flooding, erosion, and sea level rise. At Governor Inslee’s request, the Washington Coastal Marine Advisory Council developed a set of coastal resilience recommendations in 2021, focused on building the organizational infrastructure for a sustained partnership between state agencies and coastal communities to help them address the challenging issues of the present, and shape a prosperous future. Ecology requests funding and staff capacity needed to implement three of these priority recommendations (1) expand data analysis to assess site scale vulnerabilities within coastal communities, (2) deliver coordinated statelevel technical assistance, and (3) increase local capacity to design and implement effective on the ground projects.