Living on Bonowed Sand 



By C aria B . Burgess 



When you're at the beach, it's hard to 

 imagine a sand deficit. It seems to be 

 everywhere. It sears your bare feet in the 

 noonday sun, molds to your backside 

 beneath your towel, blows into ears and 

 eyelashes, and sticks to sheets 

 and sleeping bags. But nature 

 supplies these pearly grains 

 sparingly. Nudged by the 

 waves, sand oscillates gently 

 between dunes and offshore 

 sandbars, sloping and shaping 

 the beach in a protective 

 equilibrium. It also drifts 

 alongside the shoreline in the 

 parallel longshore current. 



Sand is becoming a 

 precious commodity on many 

 beaches, as the advancing 

 ocean nips at shoreline 

 development in the natural 

 process called erosion. Caused 

 by seasonal fluctuations and 

 extreme storms such as 

 hurricanes and northeasters, 

 erosion is only a problem when 

 it menaces manmade struc- 

 tures. Other factors, such as the 

 migration of tidal inlets 

 coupled with coastal construc- 

 tion and the accompanying 

 removal of sand from the 

 system, also contribute to 

 chronic erosion. A gradual rise 

 in sea level — as much as 6 

 inches in the past century — is 

 also heightening wave activity 

 on the coastline. Over time, the beach will 

 adapt by redistributing sand from the 

 dunes to deeper water, accelerating 

 shoreline retreat. 



To protect their property, many 

 coastal communities are turning to a 

 practice called beach nourishment to ease 



erosion woes. In nourishment, the beach is 

 replenished and reshaped using suitably 

 similar sand from somewhere else, such as 

 a navigational channel or offshore sand pit. 

 The objective is an additional buffer of 

 storm protection for oceanfront buildings 



Michael Halminski 



Outer Banks real estate. 



and a wider recreational beach. But that 

 recreational area wasn't always afforded 

 such a premium. 



"The initial efforts in erosion control 

 were not to protect the beach, but to protect 

 the development, the houses and the people 

 behind it," says Spencer Rogers, N.C. Sea 



Grant's coastal engineer. "Nobody was 

 particularly concerned about the beach." 



Until, eventually, it began to disap- 

 pear. 



In the late 1800s, some coastal 

 communities began using hard structures 

 such as seawalls, groins and 

 jetties to protect property and 

 fight erosion. This armoring of 

 the shoreline became more 

 widespread with the post- 1960s 

 coastal development boom. 

 Seawalls have succeeded in 

 protecting landward property. 

 But in the face of chronic 

 erosion, these inflexible 

 structures cause the beach to 

 disappear and can adversely 

 impact adjacent property. Groins 

 and jetties, walled structures 

 built perpendicular to the 

 shoreline, trap sediment for the 

 immediate beachfront but 

 interrupt the natural sand flow to 

 surrounding shores. North 

 Carolina banned the use of 

 hardened structures on its coast 

 in 1984. 



"We've learned by practice 

 that if we spend enough money, 

 we can build grand structures to 

 protect the development, but 

 what impact does that have on 

 why we're there?" says Rogers. 

 "In many cases, the use of the 

 beach is a critical part of why 

 we go to those coastal resorts. If 

 there's no beach, there's no 

 resort and there's no economy. 



"If the beaches are disappearing and 

 if buildings are being threatened, then 

 replenishing beaches is one option that can 

 protect both," he says. "Beach nourish- 

 ment always keeps the beach, which is a 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 19 



