NESTUCCA RIVER ESTUARY

Nestucca River
Nestucca River estuary

Nestucca River (Oregon Coastal Atlas)

The Nestucca Bay estuary is located on the Oregon coast at Pacific City. The estuary is approximately 1176 acres in area and has a watershed of approximately 322 square miles.

The Nestucca Bay estuary is designated as a Conservation estuary under the Oregon Estuary Classification system. The geomorphology of the area is that of a Drowned River Mouth estuary.

The Nestucca Bay estuary is located in Tillamook County. Principle industries of the county are agriculture, lumber, fishing, and recreation. The county seat of Tillamook is home to Tillamook Bay Community College, and bordered by the Tillamook State Forest. The 1997 population of Tillamook County of 23,800 represented an increase of 10.3% since 1990. By 2006, it had grown to 25,530, an increase of 18.4% over 1990, and 5.2% since 2000.

The estuary is the site of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is notable for hosting six subspecies of wintering Canada geese, including 10% of the world's population of dusky Canada geese, and for a rare sphagnum bog further south at Neskowin Marsh. The refuge is only open to the public during its annual open house in October and during the Pacific City Birding and Blues Festival in February.

The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries maintains a tsunami inundation map for the Nestucca Bay and Pacific City areas.

Sources

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Habitat Map of the Nestucca Estuary. Portland, OR: The Department. 1978.

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Tsunami Hazard Map of the Nestucca Bay Quadrangle, Tillamook County, Oregon. Portland, OR: The Department. 1995. Open File Report O-95-23.

Oregon Ocean-Coastal Management Program. Learn about Nestucca Bay Estuary in Oregon's Coastal Atlas. Salem, OR: Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. 2000.

Starr, Richard M. Natural Resources of Nestucca Estuary. Portland, OR: Research and Development Section, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. 1979.

Excerpts with permission from The Oregon Coastal Atlas, Compiled by Susan Gilmont, Staff, OSU Libraries (2007)