The Grays Harbor Estuary is the point of confluence between fresh and salt water ecosystems in the Chehalis River Basin, discharging water through numerous rivers, creeks, and sloughs into open water, marshland, and tidal mudflats. As one segment of the much larger Washington State-sponsored Chehalis Basin Aquatic Species Restoration Plan (ASRP), the Grays Harbor Estuary features a history of multiple water-related industries (some current, some now past), many overlapping but distinct stakeholders, communities traditionally included and excluded in its shared outdoors, and above all, a lack of centralized information regarding water quality and habitat. For these reasons, understanding effective baselines and starting points for ASRP projects is very difficult; moreover, community participation in the natural resources of Grays Harbor is complicated by the relative dearth of sustained engagement between government land managers and community members or groups.

Purpose

With this context in mind, the Coastal Interpretive Center has developed a staff-led college internship program that seeks to offer opportunities for local college students to begin building a vital water quality and habitat data set that the CIC will utilize in restoration planning and community engagement efforts. While a primary focus will be on developing intern skills, equally important will be creating the data that the CIC and partners can use in future ASRP project planning.

The Intern will fulfill three programmatic objectives during Summer, 2026: (1) Conduct basic science and monitoring at tidal locations across Grays Harbor, (2) Teach community members how and why their work is important, (3) Prepare a community exhibition (explanatory poster) about their summer experience for display at the CIC museum.

Who's this position for?

In the second year of this internship, the CIC believes that this position will be a good fit for college students with at least a couple years of school and at least one other internship under their belt. Interns must enjoy being outside and must be able to work independently. Interns will have the ability to interact directly with CIC agency partners at the federal, tribal, and state levels, so if you're interested in a particular type of field science that isn't covered directly by this internship (for example: snowy plover research), there's opportunities to dig into your particular interests.