Restoration and change on the Elwha River delta

 Another perspective on short-term change on the shoreline associated in part with restoration (like this post from June), again on the Elwha River delta (like this post from 2020).  This particular location is on the east side of the Elwha River delta, and was eroding rapidly between 2011 and 2015.  Here is what the site looked like in 2011:

May 2011 photo of the beach on the Elwha River delta, looking up the beach from the low tide line.  

By late 2013 the beach was heavily eroded, revealing large boulders on the beach, part of a failed defensive rip-rap structure built at some point in the past:

September 2013 photo

By Summer of 2016 sand associated with the removal of two dams on the Elwha River was moving through this area, but not in quantities adequate to re-bury those big rip rap boulders, or rebuild the beach to its 2011 position:

July 2016 photo

Later in the summer of 2016, though, those rip-rap boulders were removed as part of a restoration project, and the sediment from the dam removal kept pumping along the beach, so by 2018 the beach looked very different at this location:

July 2018 photo