January 23, 2003
Sea Grant agent stays involved with coastal action
Vacationers on Washington’s Pacific Ocean coast may get the impression that all is blissfully quiet at the water’s edge.
But if they’d spend a day with Washington Sea Grant Program’s Marine Field Agent Steve Harbell, they’d quickly realize that the coast is bustling with activity.
“Much of the action is difficult for people in Seattle, Tacoma or other big cities to track,” Harbell explains.
“Our coastal communities are more rural than their Puget Sound counterparts,” Harbell says. “Commercial fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing and marine recreation are all very important to their well-being. That’s quite different than Puget Sound, where manufacturing, shipping and service sectors dominate.”
Harbell opened WSGP’s coastal office in Montesano nearly 25 years ago. It was a logical career move for the former Peace Corps worker with an advanced degree from the UW’s College of Fisheries (now the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences). After exploring aquaculture issues as an employee of the WSU Cooperative Extension in Kitsap County, Harbell was ready to share his world view and expertise with Washington’s all-too-often ignored coastal constituents.
Over the past two decades, his office has moved to its current locale in South Bend, with a second center in Elma, on the road to Grays Harbor. And Harbell has established himself as an important source of information and assistance with coastal and marine issues.
“It takes time to establish trust with people in coastal communities,” he says. “It’s fairly common to be dismissed as a well-intentioned outsider — someone who doesn’t really know the ropes but is eager to get things done their way.”
The nature of Harbell’s job has evolved with the changes in the local economy.
“In the time that I’ve been working on the coast, there’s been a shift from a salmon-dominated fishing industry to one led by Dungeness crab, Pacific pink shrimp and other high-value shellfish.”
Although lucrative, the crab fishery is one of the most dangerous in the country, Harbell points out. Safety training has become increasingly important for vessel operators and their crews.
Assisted by WSGP’s Sarah Fisken, Eric Olsson and others, Harbell has offered US Coast Guard-certified courses and workshops on fishing vessel safety and survival, as well as programs on marine weather and marine technology. These programs have attracted nearly 600 participants locally, and over 1,200 participants throughout western Washington. Even more noteworthy, at least two crew members’ lives and nearly $800,000 in vessel and equipment costs have been saved as a result of these classes and workshops.
In his “free” time, Harbell coordinates the outreach activities of the Pacific Northwest Coastal Ecosystem Regional Study (PNCERS). He’s hosted several public forums to share the preliminary findings of PNCERS scientists with local marine resource users. A pair of presentations on economic analyses of coastal communities were particularly well received by coastal business owners.
When coastal residents are not seeing Harbell in person, they’re likely to be hearing him on the airwaves. His daily radio program is broadcast every weekday on KSWW Radio in Aberdeen, extolling the virtues of items such as windsailor jellyfish, bull kelp, ocean currents and marine weather. Each program reaches about 10,000 people in Pacific County, Grays Harbor County and portions of Thurston County.
