In 2010, the US Navy undertook a tidal wetland restoration project at Crescent Harbor, Whidbey Island, Puget Sound, Washington.

An important element of the restoration project was to breach a previously strengthened barrier beach, carrying a highway. The US Navy constructed a bridge and opened up a lagoon to daily tidal inundation. As a result of the restoration project, tidal flux dramatically created expansion of the tidal inlet.

From 2010 to 2013, cbec hydrogeomorphic field crews monitored the evolution of the tidal inlet. Monitoring included the installation of multiple continuously recording stage (water level recorders) in the lagoon and the Bay, detailed bathymetric and topographic surveys of the tidal channel, lagoon and other critical infrastructure, and Acoustic Doppler Current Profiling (ADCP) of flows in the tidal channel and the lagoon. Data collected through these efforts assisted in tracking both tidal hydrodynamic modeling and the historic evolution of the channel and tidal prism, and helped predict the future trajectory of evolution of the channel over time. NAVFAC (US Navy) used these data for US Army Corps of Engineers permits and for the design of protection of critical infrastructure.