Re: rocks off the beach

Posted by Daveed Hope on October 19, 2012, 2:01 am, in reply to "Re: rocks off the beach"
75.208.162.178

I start this by asking that you all not yell and at little old me for trying to assist. Yes the beach did get much more rocky after the last big winter and yes it is a natural occurrence and last year many folks took it upon themselves to hire Junior to scoop up the beach buildup of rocks and dump them back into the Ocean. Mostly they all came back very soon within days. Hence the reason they are thinking this time they will truck them off. I had the previlege of working with the best scientist on this process Professor Gary Griggs UCSC. He is the expert but i did learn by 25 years of trying to work on this issue. Simply stated ....high surf in the winter is a time big has a net effect of moving the sand moved out away from the shore from a few yards to hundreds of yards or more depending on the winter. And in the summer the wave action slowly returns the sand. In average years the beach sands are replaced equally to removal, so we have our usual sandy beach that we recognize. And everyone is right the big winter sent lots of rocks out of the river and the big surf also took away more than the average amount of sand. So we have the "problem". For the town leaders....they hear from the boat owners and tourists that it is hard to launch and they have excessive damage to there boats yada yada, and the beach goers complain it is hard walk and looks bad yada yada. So they are looking to fix the problem and with last years knowledge of rocks returning they are onto a better system. Even though "Success" is possible with lots of work and some luck it can just as easily fail. Is it an environmental problem no ...is it like pissing into a wave .....well almost. Should we let them operate as they wish in their own country... Yes and with any advise they may feel like taking....aaaand they hopefully will learn some valuable lessons after each attempt and that may help in the future. But there is no fix that does not require maintainence. (Yearly repeated efforts) with lessons learned making improvements in timing and equipment. Regarding Barra, there is a big difference between the two beaches in sand dynamics. They (are a steep sand bar and we are a gently sloping sea lad interface. But what is clear is that when you build too close to the water the give and take of sand is altered by the structure and the pace of sand removal greatly increases due to the interruption of the removal in big storms and the increased rush back created by wave and structure interactions. Well more when Daniel has a sunset hour in early December

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