Newsletter #8 (4/7-4/13)

Welcome Sustainable Shorelines' Newsletter #8 (4/7-4/13) chronicling this past week's events on and about our coastlines.  Again, please excuse the tardiness of this edition and this week's edition.

Please also read the information on the Dare County, NC 50 year nourishment program.  It is encouraging (coercing?) its citizens to "donate" easements by denying certain options --granted not the best options-- to force what might otherwise be unacceptable agreements.  Also, where is the source for those 50 years of sand?  Areas of Florida's East Coast, on the receiving end of the Corps' river of sand theory, are already acknowledging they are out of offshore sand to mine after much fewer nourishment projects than those planned for the Outer Banks.  Such massive, oft repeated strip-mining of the offshore can cause the loss of vast areas of undersea habitat and, as a Minerals Mining Service report states, the removal of protective offshore shoals can lead to further erosion and storm damage.

As in every letter, I urge you to forward this e-mail to others concerned 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.

Due to the length of this newsletter, a description of Sustainable Shorelines' contribution and membership program will be sent to you as a separate message with short declaration of why many of us think we need this organization.

Jerry Berne Sustainable Shorelines, Inc.

Sustainable Shorelines is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to documenting current environmental events on our shorelines, identifying and seeking to change those coastal policies and practices which are harmful and advocating protecting our coastal habitats and the ecosystems these support with methods proven to be environmentally sound and sustainable.

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA
Please note that the NC Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) will discuss updated ocean-shoreline erosion rates at its meeting Wednesday and Thursday, April 23 and 24, at Atlantic Beach.  These determine distances for oceanfront construction setbacks (annual erosion rate x 30).  Based on 1998 aerial photographs of the 312-mile ocean coastline, these compared with shoreline photographs taken in the 1940s.  (Note that given the massive changes we have made to our harbors, inlets, etc. since that time --especially in recent decades, it seems these rates would be best guesses only.  It is also interesting to note that there is no provision for accretion.)

Also at this meeting, the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan (8:30 a.m. Thursday) concerning shell bottom and hard bottom will be presented covering threats to these habitats and possible approaches to dealing with those threats.

The NC Department of Coastal Management (DCM) just created a new "general permit" that streamlines the approval process for projects the CRC has deemed to be "routine construction." for sound side barrier island property owners.  This reduces time and costs of permitting.

NC Sea Grant hosted Indonesian officials gathering information to help establish a coastal program in the South Pacific nation. They chose North Carolina because of its "robust and dynamic" coastal programs.  One official received his doctorate in civil engineering from NC State University focusing on natural approaches for mitigating dune erosion.  The major topics on beach management included using setbacks and retreat methods.

Emerald Isle's slow response to the NC DCM fine for its dumping shell filled material on its beach during its recent renourishment was defended by the town as being so because of the associated cost of delays.  Weeks Marine's contract with the town allows the firm to claim $75,000 a day for relocation downtime.  The town claims only 11% of the total dredge spoils dumped on the beach exceeded the 42% max. shell content (some up to 71%).   To mitigate this, the town proposes removing the larger rocks delivered to the beach, monitoring the area for sand compaction every six months and tilling the beach.

The Corps is encouraging Beaufort to work with it in finding a new dredge spoil disposal site in the Bogue Sound.  The Corps enticements include the dredging of Peltier Creek and paying 90% of its $1 million cost.  The county must provide $15,000 for column settling tests as the dredged sediments too fine, not suitable for beach disposal and contain elevated levels of heavy metals.

Bald Head Island, NC is booming both in the increase in sales (40%) and the increase in value for its homes (143% since 2002).  So, it is just as well that the Corps now admits that the dredging of the Wilmington Harbor is causing "severe" erosion on the island.  The Corps had agreed in writing to mitigate any adverse shoreline impacts on Bald Head tied to the deepening project.  It is already doing this on Caswell Beach and Oak Island.  Unfortunately, the Corps is running out of money for the $440 million dredging project curtailing such work.  The project may be delayed until 2005.

Oak Island is already spending $225,000 to correct problems from its "poorly" designed Sea Turtle Habitat Restoration Project of its last renourishment.  This is in addition to the $283,000 spent to correct these same problems in 2001.  An additional $50000 is required to get rid of millions of "unsafe" rocks spewn on the beach during this two years ago.

Carteret County, NC is lobbying hard for $5 million in state funds to help with the Corps 933 nourishment project for the Bogue Banks.  It also will also urge state funding for dredging and waterway projects.

Dare County received $500,000 from Congress to begin its three-phase initial $72 million berm construction to be followed by 50 years of beach renourishment every three years.  Total cost to the federal, state and local governments to be $1.6 billion over 50 years.  These first funds carry the project from studies to initial construction.  Private property owners are expected to "donate" property to the effort now that it has begun and other methods of shoreline protection, like bulkheading, sandbagging and jettying are banned.  With these available, more people resisted giving up any of their property for sand nourishment purposes.  The first beach to be built in November 2004 will be between 100 and 150 feet and is projected to diminish, without a bad storm, to fifty feet by the next nourishment in three years. 

A new postage stamp may help fund raising to save the 127-year-old Morris Island light at the south end of Charleston Harbor which stands in 10 feet of water at low tide. When built, it stood 1,200 feet from shore on high ground. Morris Island eroded after the Charleston Harbor jetties were built in the late 19th century and now stands 1600 feet offshore.  Likewise, Folly Beach was accreting until this and now is the most erosional of the highly developed SC islands.

Hilton Head Island's beach mat program is declared a success after a six-month pilot project to improve access for people using wheelchairs.   The rigid mats are made of a woven polyester material by Deschamps of La Couronne, France.  On the other side of the island, the South Island Dredging Association's plan to dump dredge spoils in Calibogue Sound by passing a law carefully tailored for its benefit is dead in the SC legislature for this year.

FLORIDA AND GEORGIA
While Florida cuts money for schools, the elderly, wetlands, etc., both the Senate and the House set aside millions for statewide beach renourishment projects.  Palm Beach County is happy its Boca Raton and other projects are in line for some of this funding.

Longboat Key, FL  has started an ambitious $2.26 million project to dredge sand and silt from more than 50 canals.  The non-beach quality spoils are to be dumped in a landfill.  Local officials say the cleaning is needed for safe boating and to increase. adjacent property values.

Another person has drowned in a Santa Rosa Island rip current.  This is the second in two weeks. The island authority insists this is not related to the recent nourishment, though other nourishment projects have been plagued by such drownings.  (In an April 20 article, however, the authority says beachgoers should beware of an unusually sharp drop-off near shore until the sands stabilize.)

Little Hickory Island's, near Bonita Beach, FL,  $2.5 million beach renourishment project is expecting its permit in June.  This after Bonita and Lee county officials struck a compromise with a state biologist concerned over nesting sea turtles.   The state biologist was concerned that the project would create scarps, or sharp cliffs, formed by waves crashing against the added sand.  Five-foot cliffs built up after the last Hickory Island beach renourishment in 1995.  The new project has an experimental portion of 1,000 feet of more gradual slope to study whether the this prevents scarping and is beneficial for nesting turtles.

New Smyrna Beach is reviewing the size of houses built on the beach.  Though property owners cannot build on the protected dunes, they can utilize the total area of the property eastward to the high tide line to increase buildable area ratios.  This allows bigger houses.

Against Vero Beach's wishes, the  Quail Valley River Club plans to modify its marina including increasing the number of boat slips, the a 60-foot access pier, reconfiguration of the existing piers, relocation of the existing navigation channel and dredging of the access channel.  The private company has applied for Corps permits for the work.  Vero Beach has already denied its expansion in the past. The port at Fort Pierce is facing a $5000 fine for failing to cease dredging operations as ordered by the city.  Concerns were over whether dumping sludge within city limits is permissible.  The completed dredging is for an 80-foot, 29 feet deep turning basin at the Indian River Terminals.

The Naval Air Station Key West will invest close to $150 million in upgrading and improving Navy facilities in the Lower Keys.  Truman Harbor pier upgrades accounts for $15 million to $18 million, while another $25 million will go toward dredging the harbor.

Near the St. Lucie Inlet, shoaling in the channel at the "Crossroads" is impeding navigation.  A maintenance dredging contract is pending with a full-fledged dredging coming this year.  An emergency dredging was done there this past August.

MID-ATLANTIC
PCB-laden dredge spoils from a New York site would be disposed of at golf course under development in Bayonne, NJ, instead of being dumped at sea.  Originally, US Gypsum sought a permit from the Corps to dispose of 107,000 tons of dredge spoils six miles off Sandy Hook, a site informally known as the Mud Dump. PCB levels in these were 128 parts per billion.  The site is now closed to material with concentrations exceeding 113 parts per billion.  The golf course plan is a compromise with EPA and USG to prevent the ocean dumping.

Cape May Point, NJ, has experimented with tubes filled with sand, Christmas trees, jetties, snow fencing, dunes, plastic netting, groins, granite boulders, dune grass, bulkheading, burlap bags and concrete breakwaters to combat erosion.  In 2000, it received a $2 million Corps Section 227 National Shoreline Erosion Control Development and Demonstration Program project for an artificial underwater reef designed to break the energy of incoming storm waves and trap sand.  It has four experimental concrete reefs of several different configurations including  trapezoid-shaped concrete blocks dubbed "enclosure sills".  Since then, it has had to continue to renourish its beaches.  Now it is ready to award a $745,500 contract to build a rock revetment until a massive Corps beach-fill project in a few years.  The Corps, however, want more nourishment and offshore reefs.  (See West category below.)

A property owner in Paulsboro, NJ thinks he can make millions from just storing dredge spoils on his wetlands property.  Although the deepening of the Delaware is stalled, there is plenty of "maintenance dredging" on going.  He sees this as "... income in perpetuity".  He is fighting to prevent the community from redesignating the property for redevelopment into a business park.  The Mayor says having a "fetid" spoil site would kill the upward development of the area.

Tayloe Murphy, Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources, has been long interested in conservation and environmental causes. Murphy spent 18 years in the Virginia House of Delegates where sponsored key environmental legislation.  He was instrumental in getting both the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and the Virginia Water Quality Improvement Act passed.  At his home, historic King Copsico Farm sited on a low bluff overlooking the 7-mile-wide Potomac River, he constructed "state-of-the art" erosion control along the riverbank --great chunks of granite in a chevron design.  He simply says, "We wanted to keep our beach."  (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, the largest marsh area in the Chesapeake Bay is eroding at a frightening rate.  The Refuge are 8,000 acres smaller than they were only thirty years ago, for many reasons - "natural" erosion, the rise of sea levels, and human land development. Volunteers are planting grass to help save the marsh land. The roots will help hold the land.

NORTHEAST
The Union River is being dredged again in Ellsworth, ME.  The Corps is concerned about the work, however, saying it is "unsatisfactory dredging operation going on in violation of permit conditions and good construction practices."   The problems mainly is poor working conditions, equipment maintenance and allowing some of the spoils to spill back into the river.

The Maine Natural Resources Committee concluded that sand dune regulations need not be established by law, but should be examined by the Legislature before taking effect.  This after a public hearing on a controversial bill, written by the Maine Audubon Society, to ban any reconstruction of beachfront properties destroyed by ocean storms.  A compromise by the Board of Environmental Protection would allow some homes to be reconstructed.  While the Society believes these homes contribute to erosion, the economic situation is that 47 percent - about $4.8 million - of just one town's (Wells) property taxes are paid by the coastal community.

A $1.4 million project that will repair the seawall, a pedestrian walkway, railings, and stairs at North Scituate Beach, MA, will go ahead with or without state money.  Erosion has impacted more than the seawall. There are concerns that local roadways are also being compromised.

On Long Island, NY, the Atlantic is close to swallowing the TWA Flight 800 memorial completed last year at a cost of $1.5 million.  The Island has had a series of nor'easters halving the distance (50') from the sea to the memorial.  The Atlantic has historically washed away about 3 feet of sand per year.  The Corps is discussing how to save the memorial. In the short term, its considering trucking in 200,000 CY of sand, dredged from a nearby inlet, costing $1.5 million.

At Providence, RI, Great Lakes Dredge and Drydock Inc. to begin dredging the Providence River's 7 miles of channel to a width of 600 feet and a depth of 40 feet for the first time in more than three decades.  The $43-million project's economic value of the project has been subject to long debate. Dredging has been justified more on predictions about how much worse conditions would get at the Port of Providence if it isn't done rather than any immediate benefits.  The Corps has spent more than $8 million on environmental impact assessments for the dredging.  Many of the sediments in the upper river are contaminated with heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic materials.

GREAT LAKES
The Fox River's (WI) $400 million removal the majority of contaminated sediments from a 39-mile stretch of river is the largest environmental dredging project ever proposed.  The decision to go forward comes after more than 15 years of studies and a 4 1/2--year process of feasibility studies, proposed plans and public comment.  The Record of Decision should be formally released by year's end. 

GULF Redfish Island, TX, in Galveston Bay opens again following a partial restoration effort to return birds, oysters and boaters to the area.  The restoration developed by the Beneficial Uses Group (uses for dredge spoils), a coalition of local, state and federal agencies. The Port of Houston Authority and the Corps are contributing through the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel Expansion Project.  The island's bottom is now covered in limestone and 3,000 tons of shell and shell hash cover the edges of the island.  The $9 million project was part of an effort to get rid of 160 million cubic yards of dredge material and an additional 160 million cubic yards of material removed during maintenance (of the ship channel.).

Mobile Bay's estuary and river contributaries are threatened by boat wakes. Natural shorelines of are eroding at an unprecedented rate, according to coastal engineers. The erosion is damaging Mobile Bay's scarce nursery habitat. Property owners are using bulkheads which results in more erosion and renders areas uninhabitable for sealife.  The natural sandy shores and rush grasses are now replaced with miles of bulkheads and are buried beneath heaps of stones and broken concrete.  Even so, scientists say that the rivers would still be in serious trouble if all bulkheads were removed, because boat wakes have so changed the natural order of things that even the unarmored shorelines cannot function the way they used to.  New, powerful recreational craft have converted these from "low energy environments to high energy environments."  While studies have shown rip-rap to be better for fish habitat than bulkheads, scientists say that rip rap can radically change or ruin the intertidal zone.  Experiments in breaking wave energy before it strikes the shore are underway as well as improved methods for rip rap habitats.

Louisiana's new Wetland Conservation and Restoration Fund requires any money from legal settlements the state makes in disputes with companies over its share of oil, gas and other mineral royalties.  This commitment is considered a crucial first step in getting the federal government to spend billions of dollars to save Louisiana's coast.  The state loses 25 to 30 square miles of coastal land a year wiping out communities, the fishing industry, and the infrastructure supporting vital oil and gas drilling, shipyards, fabrication yards and chemical plants.

A fisherman's path through the sea grass at Padre Island National Seashore cost him over $11,000.  The fine was to mitigate damage done by one small boat's prop.   Sea grass helps fish populations, is a crucial tool in preventing coastal erosion and provides habitat for a variety of birds, crabs and fish.

WEST
Miles of diked ponds and earthen levees in the southern tip of the San Franciso Bay, formerly  salt pond owned by Cargill, will gradually be transformed to tidal marsh.  It is being called a second chance to erase 150 years of environmental mistakes.  16,500 acres will eventual be returned to marshland.  Nearer to the City, a small marsh is being recreated at the new Crissy Field waterfront park.  Engineers sculpted a new structure to hold the tidal waters and form sloping grades and uplands and used clean sand for new plants.  The engineers then cut a channel through to the bay.   A sandbar was expected to form offshore in the bay while not silting up the channel.  The trend is toward gradual siltation, however, and, after a big storm, it would have to be dug open. The sand bar formed, causing a buildup of the beach to the west of the channel and erosion to the east which destroyed a popular windsurfing beach. Scientists say the beach may recover somewhat.

The Port of Oakland is widening the Inner Harbor Channel by about 300 feet and deepening the estuary by 8 feet to create a wider turning basin for the new generation of longer, deeper ships that enter the narrow estuary to unload at the docks. 

A new $4 million seawall is being planned by the San Diego County Redevelopment and Planning Department and the Corps for Pleasure Point near Santa Cruz, CA.

The Corps awarded preliminary design contracts to Carlsbad, Encinitas and a location in Ventura County for a $2 million artificial reef from its Section 227 National Shoreline Erosion Control Development and Demonstration Program. The Corps pays to build the reef and the city where it is built have to pay for removal and maintenance.  Two California engineering firms have been awarded contracts to design artificial reefs that would act as underwater "speed bumps" to slow the flow of sand along the coast.  These engineering firms have worked closely together even though their cities are technically competing to win the demonstration project. The goal is to determine whether artificial reefs can help keep beach sand from washing down the coast and eventually into an underwater ocean trench off La Jolla. (See Point May, NJ above.)

The Corps has released a new report by the US Army Corps of Engineers says the 103-mile project — to deepen the shipping channel an additional 3 feet from Portland to the Pacific Ocean — would cost $20 million less than previously estimated and return 17 percent more in economic benefits."  Critics say the $134 million project could still harm one of the region's few healthy fisheries (the Corps acknowledges a short-term impact on aquatic species) and suggest the corps overestimated the economic benefits and underestimated the effect on nature.  Others question the project's basic assumptions based on an ocean port more than 100 miles inland. 

Kailua Beach Park, HI, has a sand problem:  too much of it.  Drifting sand has regularly covers the grass and parking lot. Snow fences and naupaka bushes hold off the drifts, but a more permanent solution is being sought.

INTERNATIONAL
Australia's Gold Coast beaches are getting a small shot of sand for a river bypass project.  Next year a submerged artificial reef is planned (See Mid-Atlantic and West categories above).

Dubai is surveying its offshore sand sources for replenishment of its eroding shoreline.  Additionally, a number of conceptual designs for coastal protection structures have been proposed and are under consideration using sophisticated physical and numerical modeling approaches.  This was initiated because of beach erosion and uncontrolled coastal development resulting in the lose beach amenities and the collapse of coastal structures.

Bimini Bay, a $100 million development in the Bahamas, has been stop because serious environmental and ecological damage to the island.  Local fishermen believe dredging for the project is causing a serious decline in conch, lobster and crawfish.