Newsletter #3

Welcome Sustainable Shorelines' Newsletter #3 chronicling this past week's events on and about our coastlines.  Please excuse the tardiness --and editing-- of this issue.

As in every letter, I urge you to forward this e-mail to others concerend for our coasts.  To those friends without e-mail, please print this and give/mail to them.  The more people who know and the more they know about what is happening on our coastlines, the more likely we can influence this for the better.

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA
Atlantic Beach, NC, has flatly refused to participate in a Corps' Section 933 sand sharing project for the Bogue Banks.  The mayor sent a letter to the Corps, county, beach commission and state and federal legislators to emphasize any reduction in sand to its beaches is not acceptable.

In Beaufort, the county is concerned about where to put dredge spoils from Peltier Creek and is delaying its dredging after 5 years of considering this.  Sponsoring such dredging projects is a function of a coastal county according to Commissioner Doug Brady.

Cape Hatteras has a new coastkeeper.  Jan DeBlieu, a longtime environmental activist and local author, will start work next week as the Cape Hatteras coastkeeper.  DeBlieu has been hired by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a private nonprofit group established in 1982 that advocates protection and stewardship of the environment.  is licensed by the Waterkeepers Alliance, a New York-based water quality preservation organization.  She joins Cape Lookout coastkeeper Frank Tursi, who was hired last year, and Cape Fear's Ted Wilgis.

In the Oregon Inlet, a 74 foot trawler ran aground in the inlet channel and its crew was rescued by the Coast Guard.  The Corps planned to send a dredge to clear the channel March 9.

At Charleston's Aquarium, scientists highlighted the dangers to Lowcountry of doing nothing to stop climate change.  Seas may rise 2 feet by 2100.  The Gulf Stream may actually reverse destroying fisheries and making SC's climate more like PA's or the UK.  Dikes as in the Netherlands may appear along the coast.  The major doable option to prevent this:  "strive for sustainability", conserve.

Georgetown County officials announced that the long battle to protect this area of Garden City Beach is over; the groin work on the south end and the beach renourishment are done.  In mid-summer 2002, high tides and strong winds from a storm washed away a lot of the sand that was put onshore at Garden City Beach as part of a dredging and renourishment project.  The new groins are sunk 29 feet into the ground and are built of aluminum, concrete and gravel that will last for at least 50 years.  They supposedly will not cause erosion on other parts of the beach because they slope toward the ocean at a natural angle.  The beach already is starting to rebuild.

At Hilton Head, the town is setting aside 2 percent of its accommodations tax for beach renourishment. That means the island's primary asset will always be available to tourists.

Also on the island, dredging should be finished in Harbour Town by the end of this week, South Island Dredging Association (SIDA) officials say.   The state gave the association an extension on the original dredging permit.  The 195,000 cubic yards of spoil expected to be dredged is being barged to an offshore site near the mouth of Port Royal Sound. But the dredging association, to save it money, has asked the Town of Hilton Head Island if it can put some of the beach quality sand on South Beach.  The association will pay for the $2.5 million project.  State Senator Scott Richardson took his name off a bill which would have allowed SIDA to dump spoils in the the Calibogue Sound when he learned of its harm to area water quality.

North Mrytle Beach city council is planning to focus on further beach renourishment and beach maintenance projects. 

GREAT LAKES
Lakes Michigan and Huron -- essentially the same lake but pinched to a narrow channel by Michigan's peninsulas -- have dropped 3 1/2 feet. Their February level was 576.64 feet above the Great Lakes "datum," a measuring stick that starts in the lakes' outlet in the St. Lawrence River.  The current shoreline is just fine for many property owners who battled erosion during high-water years of the 1990s.  The low water has given rise to new spawning areas, however.

Apostle Island National Scenic Lakeshore, WI, is spending $1.6 million to push ahead with protection of the historic lighthouse complex on Outer Island.  "We need to handle the erosion problem at the base of the bluff, where wave action gets at it, and at the top, where rain is causing problems," said Jim Nepstad, chief of planning and resource management.

MIDATLANTIC
The state Assembly on Monday unanimously approved a bill that would limit the toxicity of dredge spoils dumped in the ocean off the New Jersey coast.  Supporters of the measure say a state standard is needed to stop the disposal of toxic sediment at the Historic Area Remediation Site, or HARS, off Sandy Hook.  The EPA in October proposed a rule to make 113 ppb of PCB's the standard for ocean dumping.

FLORIDA AND GEORGIA
The Sidney Lanier Bridge in Brunswick, GA is opening this month.  It is it is the first of 2  projects to allow larger ships to enter the Port.  This summer, the Army Corps of Engineers begins deepening the channel and harbor from 30' to 36' to allow these to call on the Port of Brunswick.  Sea Island Company (The Cloisters Resort) officials tell me the island is not concerned about the erosion caused by this because it annually pumps accummulated sand from the south end to the north end to mitigate the continuing erosion of the island.

On St. Simons, however, two commissioners want to bail out of beach nourishment project due to its expense.  The permitted 5,600 feet project proposes 450,000 cubic yards of sand be dredged from a sandbar or shoal adjacent to the outer bar ship channel.  The permit comes with 32 conditions from the GA DNR including sand monitoring and endangered-wildlife mitigation..

At Deerfield Beach, FL, vandals are uprooting sea oats and damaging sprinkler systems on artificial dunes built by Ocean Plaza as a city requirement for its garage construction permit.

Fernandina Beach says Congress has appropriated $400,000 for planning, engineering and design of the beach erosion control project in this fiscal year, a $12 million beach renourishment project along 4.3 miles of Fernandina Beach.

At Marco Island, FL, permits for beach renourishment issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection require that beach tilling be done. Each beach segment that has been renourished becomes compacted and is required to be tilled down to about 20 to 30 inches to loosen and aerate the sand, thus enhancing the sea turtle nesting habitat.

In New Smyrna Beach, Taylor Engineering, a coastal engineering firm, is at the midpoint of a $253,000 study on how and why Southeast Volusia beaches,  south of the heavily dredged  and jettied Ponce De Leon Inlet, became eroded. The study is needed for the county to get a chunk of $30 million that the state allocates for beach renourishment projects every year.  Bruce Taylor, president of the company, said the final recommendation will likely include a large-scale beach renourishment project and other ways of fixing and stabilizing natural dunes.  Joe Nolin, manager of the Ponce de Leon Inlet and Port District, said bringing massive amounts of sand to the beaches is the best solution and that residents should lobby for the county to sponsor a separate study to explore building sea walls.

Pelikan Island NWR celebrates is 100th anniversary March 14.  Authorized by Theodore Roosevelt, it is the first NWR.  It also faces serious erosion problems mostly from boat wakes in the Intracoastal Waterway.  The Corps plans to shore up the island with the bottom material it dredges up from the Waterway.  The NWS is, however, concerned about using this method.

GULF
In Plaquemines Parish, LA, the Corps continues to turn delta bayous into widened, straight-line drainage ditches facilitating further erosion.

On Padre Island,TX, the city is making a $1.25 million payment to the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program in addition to the $31.8 million cost of its Pakery Canal dredging. The Corps requires this to compensate for the environmental impact of the dredging. The Corps study says this could temporarily displace birds living in dunes and grasslands, remove critical feeding habitat for the endangered piping plover and reshape the underwater landscape that is home to a variety of fish, crabs and shrimp.  The mitigation process could include adding about 1,000 feet to an existing wall near Shamrock Island to break waves which destroy marshy areas and planting sea grasses to prevent continuing erosion on Shamrock Island.

Near Port Lavaca, TX, a $2 million project aims to stop erosion threatening a roadway along about a mile of coastline. The first 1,000 feet will be a sand-filled beach followed by 2,500 feet of cellular concrete matting. The remaining 1,400 feet will consist of rock groins that will cut down on the wave action and a sand-filled beach extending outwards 75 feet.

NORTHEAST
Hampton-Seabrook, NH harbor dredging funds have dried up.  The Pease Development Authority is expending up to $60,600 for processing a NH DES wetlands permit for the dredging, but the PDA does not have funding from the state to pay for the dredging itself.  Silt build-up is also changing the course of the Blackwater River threatening homes along the waterfront.  The harbor taks force is studying the Corps past practices of putting in jetties
and seawalls.

WEST
In Delmar, CA, homeowners are going to court over the $65 million San Dieguito River lagoon restoration project.  This permanent dredging project threatens to erode the adjacent beaches.  The CCC is not willing to accept responsibility for this and will not agree to repair this damage by placing the dredged sand on the adjacent beach.

Gleason Beach, CA homeowners are concerned with efforts to keep Highway 1 open along a stretch crumbling bluffs.  Caltrans officials have met with the homeowners to discuss plans to stabilize the area. Homeowners are planning expensive fixes to sea walls and the bluffs.  An engineering geologist with a seawall company suggested retreating across the highway.

Imperial Beach, Ca, is to be nourished with dredge spoils from San Diego Bay which are usually dumped at sea.  First these must be shown to be free heavy metals and contaminates.

The Columbia River dredging project is delayed as the Corps gives the states more time to review the project.  Oregon thinks elements of it are not consistent with the CZMA in its disposal of dredged spoils for habitat restoration.  (Interestingly, probably additional erosion along the coasts does not seem to be an area of concern.)