Hopefully the morons in charge of beach replenishment will finally understand that no amount of dredged sand poured on the beaches will stick around in the even of major storms. Its a complete waste of tax dollars. What needs to be done is to use those giant sandbag tubes and create an artificial barrier reef like 200- 300 yards off the existing coastline. Its been proven to work elsewere, and the beaches will replenish the sand naturally. And it will give us a great reef break far enough out that swimmers wont get near the breaks resulting in no more surf beaches, but totally unregulated breaks all year. However, this will never happen because the powers that be are too short sighted and impatient for this system to be implemented. They will be soon be bringing in the bulldozers and barges to pump dredged sand up onto the beaches, creating our famous "break neck" shore break again. They are more concerned in how many fat assed tourists they can jam onto the summer beaches and could care less about how to actually attempt to fix the errosion problem. So soon the sand band-aid will be appliend with millions of our tax dollars only to be washed out to sea again with the next seasons hurricanes/nor easters.
Apparently there was something like this done, with old tires, off of assateague in the 70's. Whatever they do, they should really think it though a bit more than replenishment or tying tires together. While I agree with the attitude you have towards the replenishment and the people that are doing it, complaining will do nothing here unless you have more constructive attitude. http://www.mdcoastdispatch.com/arti...-Is-Considerable-Damage#.UJKhclvvQuI.facebook
Great idea you never see assateague getting replenished and the beach is beautiful and has surf rather than Delaware maybe 1 spot left to surf. sandy did take away alot of beach in rehoboth so its somewhat surfable in that area now.
Would be nice to set up some triangular shaped concrete slabs 200 yards off the beach to break waves out further. If they were big enough I don't think thy would shift. The natural reefs around the world protect many small islands just not sure how they would duplicate that up here. May have to do it with the contours of the land, but this last storm had such a tilde surge that no reef would have mattered.
I mostly go off road at AI, so what happens in town doesnt really effect me too much. Ironically they dont do any replenishment there, and it seems to weather the storms just fine. So if some people on this site know anyone in charge of the replenishment project, maybe put a bug in their ear about a real alternative. I dont live in Worcester county so Im not sure how much, if any of my tax dollars would go to the dredging project. But if I lived in that county or in OC itself Id certainly be emailing suggestions to someone. For at least the last five or six years they dredge and pump sand all winter and then have it vanish the next fall from either a hurricane or Nor'easter.
In 1998, Assateague Island was practially cut in two north of the State Beach by a storm in February. The overwash went completely from the ocean into the bay. The Army Corps did a large beach fill project to fix all of the damage. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-02-28/news/1998059039_1_assateague-island-sand-park-service
The jetties at the OC Inlet have starved AINS and the VA Capes to the South. The overwash is worsening every year.
Agree....The north end of Assateague is pretty much in a state of failure due to the effects of the OC jetties and will either be routinely nourished with sand, or will gradually deteriorate into a bunch of inlets over the next few decades. The sediment supply to the island has been completely disrupted by the inlet, similar to what Indian River Inlet has done to the barrier island to the north of the inlet up in Delaware.
why cant the Corp Of Engineers do something like this all up and down the coast, just guessing, it couldnt cost as much as replentishing a beach a few times every couple of years...very doable...what do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGYuj-Ow1rk&feature=related
I wouldn't put so much (misplaced) faith in the Army Corps of Engineers....they do tend to fock up almost as many projects as they "fix". A good example would be the Wedge in SoCal. While it looks like a great novelty wave, it's really nothing more than a gigantic closeout shorebreak. The other side of Newport Harbor, in Corona Del Mar, is basically a surfing joke. Before the existence of the harbor, a huge long perfect summertime peak existed and was one of the places where California surfing was born. Artificial reefs have proven to be somewhat hit-or-miss....for whatever reason, science doesn't seem to have a complete grip on the concept yet. While there is at least one excellent example of a successful artificial reef in Australia (Narrowneck), there are more examples of total failures (Pratte's in California and the whole tire reef fiasco in Florida). Bathymetry is a beeyotch. I assume there will be hope in the near future, if the money is available. Surfing as a kid in the 70's and 80's, a surfer had to be a pretty good amateur meteorologist to get a grip on the next day's surfing conditions at any given spot. With today's informational systems, surfers are able to almost dial in any number of spots on any given day, up to an hour or so. Maybe in the next 20 years, scientists will be able to unlock the secrets of dumping crap in the ocean to create perfect waves.
great article on the subject http://www.surfscience.com/topics/waves-and-weather/wind-and-weather/artificial-surfing-reefs
