So, what does the swellinfo community think of this project, granted its in the bay, yet will it creep to a surf beach near you? Good or bad and why? http://www.scapestudio.com/projects/living-breakwaters/ http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/project/living-growing-breakwaters-staten-island-and-raritan-bay/
SI has the locale and potential to be a beautiful island, minus the industrial waste being dumped on it. I say start by cleaning up the Arthur kill ship graveyard that's oozing with all kinds of pleasantries into the channel My 0.02.... Ya hear they're raising tolls and fares again? :/
The links and such were a bit sketchy on this one. Basically the architectural landscape firm "Scapes Studio" received $60 million and a Bucky Fullminster award to redo Staten Island"s waterfront with an oyster bed, acting as a reef, this creates a calm water tidal pool, in front of the beach with breakers farther out. This is in response to Hurricane Sandy and her destruction. I'm asking if this continues and these breakwater reefs show up at ur local beach break, how will u respond? Do u feel surfing will survive, be improved or cast aside? And thanks Swelldeck for ur, input SI does have potential.
Check this out: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/71702.html There's a bunch of them already in place. Yet we still get swell out on rockaways and LI. Didn't help much with sandy either...
Yuppies will stop at nothing to maintain their ocean views. I have a better solution; stop building on glorified sandbars.
I did not see what the substrate was. Is it piles of oyster shell that are seeded to establish these reefs? (That's what they do in the Chesapeake bay.)
They're too deep to have any significant effect on storm waves... but they do provide habitat, and may alter the flow of sediments. I think the living breakwaters are a big step in the right direction, specifically the fact that their design is site-specific. I think the use of the breakwaters have their place, and should be reserved for highly sensitive areas. But the reef structures are a welcomed change in the mindset of shoreline stabilization and sustainability.
Nobody wants NY to have a Caribbean quality shoreline and waters more than me, I just thought something was mentioned about hurricane impact, which I have my doubts about. Thank you Chesapeake bay for your oysters and craw fish btw.
that it would be an adequate barrier against something big. I'm only basing this on the man made reefs that are currently offshore and 30-60ft deep (according to DEC NY). In no way do I claim knowledge in shore reinforcement, so correct me if I'm wrong. Either way, SI is fairly well protected by surrounding land. I'd start with getting the city approval and budget to remove the plethora of ships rotting away on the island's jersey side. That must be oozing with all kinds of pleasantries into our water. Just a proposition. Before beginning to develop marine ecosystems perhaps it's a good idea to give them a fighting chance. Of course it's not the only issue at hand, but it's one of those that can be seen from Google maps.
The only thing that would stop that would be a fairly sophisticated system of sea gates and dikes, like they've been using successfully in the Netherlands for years. And something like that has actually been proposed... but I doubt it will ever happen in our lifetimes. Now they're doing something in addition to that, which is similar to what's being done here with the most recent replenishments... strategic pumping to create "feeder beaches." They call it a Sand Engine approach. The principal is if they put sand in strategic places, and let nature move it around, it will counteract erosion by the same processes that removed the sand to begin with. So if you use a combination of these technologies... living artificial reefs engineered into multi-reef SYSTEMS that are designed site-specific... AND you use a sand engine or strategic pumping approach, you'll get the best shot at a sustainable system of shoreline stabilization AND resource conservation and enhancement. Reef size, depth, and orientation could be engineered for each specific site up and down the coast, so that strategically pumped sand can move through the system at a very slow rate, reducing the frequency of pumping, while creating/maintaining recreational resources (surfing and fishing) and actually increasing and enhancing biodiversity and the health of the marine ecosystem.
