PART II: REPORT INTRODUCTION 



Background 



7. This report discusses the equipment and techniques that are used in 

 coastal marine and lacustrine environments to locate and characterize poten- 

 tial borrow sources of beach fill material for use in beach nourishment proj - 

 ects. Beach nourishment is a process in which suitable sand from an outside 

 source is placed on beach and dune areas to mitigate erosion, maintain desired 

 width, or increase beach and dune dimensions to protect inland areas against 

 storm flooding and wave attack. 



8. Beach fill operations have been conducted since the early part of 

 this century but many early projects failed because the fill material used was 

 unstable in the beach environment and rapidly washed away. More recently, 

 methods for specifying fill material based on the grain size distribution of 

 the native beach material have improved project performance, and fill opera- 

 tions have become a preferred method of shore protection because they are usu- 

 ally a more economical and environmentally acceptable method than construction 

 of hard structures. With the emphasis on using carefully selected fill, find- 

 ing suitable borrow sources has become a more difficult and expensive under- 

 taking, albeit well justified by improved project performance. 



9. Between 1964 and 1981, the Corps of Engineers carried out a general 

 exploration program to assess the resources of potential beach fill material 

 on the inner continental shelf areas off the coasts of the United States. 

 This program was known as the Inner Continental Shelf Sediments Study (ICONS) 

 and was conducted by the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC) . ICONS 

 studies were completed for the following areas: 



Area CERC Report No. 



Maine No formal report 



New Hampshire No formal report 



Massachusetts Bay TP 76-3 



Long Island, NY TP 76-2 



Long Island Sound TP 81-3 



New York Bight TM-45 



Cape May Region, NJ MR 80-4 



(Continued) 



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