Newsletter #9 (4/14-4/20)

Welcome Sustainable Shorelines' Newsletter #9 (4/14-4/20) chronicling this past week's events on and about our coastlines.  Like Ross Perot's crazy ol' aunt in the attic, this has been hanging around for some time.

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 it 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.

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

Oak Island may spend $50,000 for a rock-picking machineto allow barefooters on the beach again.  Its intended to get rid of millions of rocks from its nourishment project two years ago. Emerald Isle's similar problem with shells reminds a New Jersey native of its beaches rather than the Isle's natural white, sandy beaches. The shells will wash away in a few years or can be raked.

Surf City and Topsail Island, NC are getting county funds to begin a 4-year, $3.5 million study of the environmental and economic impact of dumping sand on 3 miles of the eroded shoreline.  (It is assumed the actual nourishment project, if approved, will take considerable more funds.)

SC's offshore artificial fishing reefs provide an additional $20 million each year for the state's recreational fishing industry.  In the 1980s, the state began dumping subway cars, tanks, concrete blocks, old bridges, etc. carefully arranged rows and piles to build these.  Such items are still being used along with "Reef Balls", specialty concrete structures for this. SC's State of the Beaches report states that SC beaches are in good shape.  The report noted areas at high-risk of erosion including the southeast end of Fripp Island, all of Hunting Island, the northeast end of Harbor Island, the north half of Edisto Beach, including the state park, the central portion of Seabrook Island, which is "protected" by a rock revetment, the park on Folly Beach and the northeastern end of Sullivans Island at Breach Inlet, the southern end of Debidue Beach, the south end of Pawleys Island, Garden City Beach and the Cherry Grove section of North Myrtle Beach.  According to Bill Eiser of the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, several of these are priority areas for beach nourishment projects. Because of its beach nourishment fund --funded by tourism taxes, Hilton Head is one of the few towns that can fully fund its own beach nourishment projects.  Its 1997, $8.9 million project was paid for entirely by this.  This may help its 2004 project contain costs as dredging equipment does not have to sit idle awaiting for funding.  Such a delay can add hundreds of thousands or, in extreme cases, millions to the cost of a project according to a coastal engineer.

FLORIDA AND GEORGIA

Santa Rosa Island Authority officials and lifeguards say beachgoers should beware of an unusually sharp drop-off near shore.  This after several people have drowned following the area's ongoing $20 million renourishment.  Last week the head of the Authority said there was no relationship between the drownings and the renourishment. Gordon Pass in Naples, FL is being deepened from its roughly seven to eight feet deep, to 15 to 20 feet deep.  It continues to shoal and in some places is now just three feet deep.  This massive dredging project is fully funded by the Corps.  The sand being dredged out of the pass will be sent through pipes to nearby Keywadin Island to "prevent" further erosion there. Marco Island's Hideaway Beach T-groins and beach renourishment design is under way.  Even so, county commissioneers still want to renegoiate a 24 year old beach access agreement to give county and island residents more access to Marco's beaches.  Unless some agreement can be made, the $4-5 million nourishment project may be in jeopardy.

MID-ATLANTIC

At Sandbridge, VA, Weeks Marine is into a $10 million beach nouuishment project.  This is the second since 1998 and 35% of it is being paid for by a special tax on the residents.  The council believes it has no alternative:  since the 1998, $8 million project, beach-front homes routinely undermined and condemned and street repairs have cost the city $1 million annually.  Though almost all of the 1998 sand is gone, the Corps project manager says,  "I expect it will happen again, but not as bad as before."  An offshore shoal is being mined for this sand.  Also dredged up are fish, boulders and spent shells from a military firing range.

The Chesapeake Bay Program set a new goal of 185,000 acres of underwater grasses by 2010.  These currently cover about 85,000 acres of bay bottom.  Grasses produce oxygen, absorb nutrients, provide nursery areas, shelter for fish and shellfish, trap sediment that flows into the water and reduce wave action that contributes to shoreline erosion.  This is part of the over all paln to clean up the Bay including reducing sediment and non-point source pollutants flowing into the bay.  The South Bethany Town Council contracted for a maintenance dredging feasibility study for $33,900.  Council also passed a resolution supporting the dredging of the Assawoman Canal. Three Dorchester County, MD islands are top sites for dredged material from the Chesapeake's shipping channels according to the Maryland Port Administration.  The Department of Interior also is allowing dredge spoils on Barren Island in the Blackwater National Wildife Refuge.  The MPA is creating an environmental impact study for the project.  It must find a new site as this will become critical in the next several years.

NORTHEAST

The Corps is beginning to dredge RI's Providence River. The  $43 million project  involves dredging more than six million cubic yards of material in a seven-mile stretch, 40 feet deep by 600 feet wide.  Four local entities --Rhode Island Yacht Club, Pettis Boatyard and Marina Realty, Inc., Apponaug Harbor Marina and Patuxet Cove-- want to piggyback onto the project and to dispose of their sediments in the river's Confined Aquatic Disposal (CAD) cells. The Pawtuxet Cove, due to the high level of industrial contaminants in the Pawtuxet River, may not be placed in these.  Further,  the Corps is studying  what the disruption of such sediments will do to cove ecology.

Efforts to save the TWA Flight 800 Memorial on Long Island, NY continue with Congressman Timothy Bishop promising funds during budget work this summer.  The Corp is studying long-term solutions as well as those to protect more than 80 miles of seashore from Fire Island to Montauk Point.  These are to be completed sometime in 2005.

Also on Long Island, Robert Moses State Park is losing its beach to erosion.  The state may have to modify is renourishment schedule.

In Nantucket Sound the question is, " What right does a private citizen have to build a profit-making enterprise on land he doesn't own?"  The issue is the Corps authority to grant Cape Wind Power permits to build a massive wind farm in the Sound.  Environmentalists are on both sides of the issue given its renewable energy potential; most are concerned about the essential giveaway of public lands for private profits.  

GREAT LAKES

The Michigan House recently passed a bill allowing coastal wetlands to be plowed without a permit from the MDEQ.  If it becomes law, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency threatens to cancel $3 million in funding for the state.  Current landowners can undertake "beach maintenance activities" -- mowing, leveling sand, and removing vegetation -- with a permit.  The MDEQ says overgrooming causes the shore to erode faster and destroys wetland habitat necessary for fish and waterfowl.  Advocates for the new law say the regulation requiring a permit is a recent fabrication by the DEQ and do not preclude maintenance, "These restrictions don't actually exist".

GULF

Louisiana's congressional delegation is again trying to obtain more funds from federal oil and gas royalties from offshore production.  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee  approved a provision in the energy bill giving producing states 12.5 percent of the royalties.  Louisiana produces the most offshore oil and gas and would get the biggest share: $267 million next year and as much as $358 million in the future.  LA's Coast 2050 plan includes more than 80 projects such as rebuilding barrier islands and diverting fresh water into coastal marshes to prevent coastal erosion.  Currently, the legislature is looking to end-of-the-year budget surpluses, state mineral revenue settlements and other one-time windfalls to match federal funds.

WEST

At Goleta Beach, the Surfrider Foundation is concerned with the environmental impact of a proposed extension of the rock revetment wall. Many people want this project to slow the beach's erosion, however. Surfrider has hired the Environmental Defense Center to ensure a proper environmental review on the project costs.

INTERNATIONAL

In Taipei, environmentalists are cirticizing Taipower's  reluctance to review mistakes in an environmental impact assessment for the project.  The erosion of the nearby Fulung Beach is  attributed to construction of the wharf at its nuclear plant.

The Port of Uppalam, India, agreed to a legislative inquiry on the dredging of sand for beaches by deepening the estuary.  There currently is no method to measure the quanity of sand mined. Former Chief Minister, V. Vaithilingam said the practice there was to dump boulders to prevent sea erosion and is now concerned with the system permitting the dredging of the beach sand.

At Male, Maldives, a land reclamation project has been temporary halted to allow dmage it is causing to the coral reefs to abate.  Sediment on the reefs blocked oxygen supplies killing coral colonies.  Further, nearby island beaches were at risk from the massive land mass created blocking current flows.

In Suffolk, UK, £34 million is on to be spent on removing the groines and building-up the beaches with imported sand to protect the sea walls on the Essex coastline.  Additionally, 13 rock breakwaters will be built offshore to prevent the sand from being swept away.  This is to prevent an estimated £69.9 million worth of damage to buildings, amenities and infrastructure.

At Bunbury, Austrialia, an engineer and member of the coastal and foreshore management advisory committee recommends an offshore island rather than the propsed $2 million seawall to protect Back Beach from ongoing erosion.  He says the method is similar to the Indonesian government's island/headland project for the eroded Sanur Beach.  The community does not want the originally proposed groins.