The period 1960-64 represented the fifth stage. Beach intelligence ceased to be part of 

 the BEB. Research became the overriding activity. Although the seven-man Board remained 

 vital, the Board's staff had assumed an increasingly larger part of the agency's functions. The 

 State-Federal cooperative studies were ended, with the latter assuming all costs for Federal 

 coastal investigations. Federal assistance in the financing of shore protection construction 

 had increased to one-half project cost for public property, even higher in certain cases, and 

 private property could now receive Federal monetary aid. 



In this brief recapitulation, the following continuing trends are clearly discernible: 

 (a) The decreasing participation and involvement of local and State agencies directly with 

 the BEB; (b) the greater role of the Federal Government both in construction and in 

 research; (c) research, always a factor, becoming increasingly more important; (d) the spread 

 of interest in, and concern for, coastal problems among the engineering and academic 

 communities, both here and abroad; and (e) the altered relationship between the seven-man 

 Board and its staff. Thus, just as developments in the early years had laid the groundwork 

 for the BEB's establishment, at this later time the groundwork had also been laid for an 

 alteration in this very establishment. 



In early 1962, the Chief of Engineers appointed an ad hoc committee to study the 

 matter. The members of this committee were Richard O. Eaton, Chief Technical Advisor of 

 the BEB staff; Col. Carl H. Bronn, Resident Member of the BERH; Henry C. Weinkauff, of 

 tlie Office of the Chief of Engineers; and Lt. Col. Ira A. Hunt, Jr., of the Chief of Engineers' 

 Planning Unit. It was realized that the Board's examination of beach erosion control reports 

 was still important. By this time, however, knowledge of coastal engineering was far more 

 widespread than it had been in earlier years. As members of the BERH were now generally 

 equipped to mal^e the necessary decisions regarding coastal projects, tlie need for BEB 

 review was lessened. Moreover, the dual review which had resulted from the inclusion of the 

 hurricane work, as discussed previously, now contributed only cumber and inefficiency, as 

 well as repetition for those Corps officers who were serving simultaneously on both Boards. 



e. Public Law 172 (1963). After careful consideration of all the various aspects involved 

 in the matter, by both the above ad hoc committee as well as by others, it was decided that 

 an organizational change was needed. The plan that was finally approved by the Chief of 

 Engineers was to abolish the seven-member BEB and its staff, and to create a different form 

 of organization. 



Accordingly, the 88th Congress approved on November 7, 1963, Public Law 172, "Ah 

 Act to make certain changes in the functions of the Beach Erosion Board and the Board of 

 Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, and for otlier purposes." The BEB and its staff were 

 abolished. In its place there was estabhshed a new research agency which was to be known 

 as the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC). In essence, CERC was to consist of the 

 staff of the former BEB, and was to be, in fact and in theory, what the BEB staff had 

 become over the years— a center for research in coastal engineering. The office and 

 laboratory facilities of the new agency were to be those of its predecessor. 



93 



