September 5, 2025

By Sydney Fishman, WSG Coastal Management Specialist

The Lower Willapa River, including the cities of Raymond and South Bend, is beloved by its residents for its access to nature, sense of community, and small-town charm. The Willapa River and nearby Pacific coastline support a variety of commercial and recreational activities. Yet there are tradeoffs to living in this low-lying part of Washington state. While waterfront challenges like flooding and erosion have always been a fact of life here, residents describe experiencing those hazards at greater frequency and severity in recent years. These hazards have damaged property, disrupted businesses, and degraded habitats—with impacts felt throughout Raymond, South Bend, and beyond.

In response to community needs, Washington Sea Grant (WSG) has partnered with Pacific Conservation District, engineers and oceanographers at the University of Washington, community advocates at Pacific County Immigrant Support (PCIS), and the state Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team (COHORT) on a three-year project called “Life Along the Lower Willapa River.” This work is modeled after a similar project for Baker Bay and Grays Bay that WSG completed last year, also in partnership with Pacific Conservation District and the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership. The goal of the project is to work alongside the community to identify and create conceptual designs for on-the-ground projects aimed at addressing coastal hazards, improving habitats, and providing multiple community benefits in the Lower Willapa area. At the conclusion of the three-year effort, the communities of Raymond and South Bend will be well positioned to move these projects forward.

“These kinds of projects, that couple technical expertise and intensive community engagement and are based on a rigorous process for identifying and acting on local priorities, are incredibly valuable for coming up with ways to protect communities from hazards, improve habitat conditions, and prepare Washington’s coastal communities to thrive into the future” explains Ian Miller, WSG coastal hazards specialist and a contributor to both projects. 

Intensive, locally-led community engagement has been built into the project from the beginning. Throughout the project, the team has partnered with local leaders to engage residents through a series of interactive workshops. The area has a significant Spanish-speaking population, and members of this community have not historically been able to engage in discussions around coastal hazards. Working with PCIS, the Life Along the Lower Willapa River workshops take place in English and Spanish, with materials translated into Spanish and live translators facilitating discussions. 

“The value of this is that they can communicate,” says Veronica Silva, a secretary and promotora for PCIS who has provided translation services. “Most people, they can understand what’s being said, but have a hard time communicating what they want to say. So that was a big one, where they can not just understand but also share their points of view on what’s happening.”

Hosted in March 2025 in South Bend, the project’s first workshop asked residents to share the places and things they love about the area, identify locations where hazards like flooding and erosion pose the greatest challenges, and share the impacts of those hazards to them and their communities. “The workshops are a space to gather the community, with an intentional focus on listening to and hearing from them as the local experts, rather than simply sharing what we think should be done about the flooding,” says Chandler Countryman, WSG resilience and adaptation specialist and workshop facilitator.

With this input, the project team identified eight priority locations across Raymond and South Bend. Two months later, at the second workshop in Raymond, the project team focused on these eight locations, asking participants to think about how they have changed over time and will continue to change into the future. Participants were asked to share ideas for how the locations could respond and adapt to change while preserving the key functions—like business activity, outdoor recreation, or transportation—that residents love and rely upon.

Using these ideas for adaptation, the project team will work with the design firm Mithun, with support from Environmental Science Associates, to create a suite of on-the-ground project ideas for community input. Future workshops will refine these ideas and solicit additional considerations from residents. 

“It’s clear that people here love their community, and they are well aware of the challenges posed by flooding and other hazards. They see the problems and they’re ready to take action,” says Countryman.

What’s next for the project? The team will host Workshop 3 on October 21 and Workshop 4 in January/February 2026. If you live, work, or recreate in the South Bend or Raymond areas, we want to hear from you! Please visit the Life Along the Lower Willapa River project website to learn more, RSVP for an upcoming workshop, or share your input via an online survey.

For inquiries, please contact Chandler Countryman, Resilience and Adaptation Specialist at Washington Sea Grant: ccount@uw.edu. 

Project funding info

This project is primarily funded by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s 2022 National Coastal Resilience Fund through support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Additional staffing support is provided by COHORT through Washington’s Climate Commitment Act.

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Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington, helps people and marine life thrive through research, technical expertise and education supporting the responsible use and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Washington Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.

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