A Sisyphean Day at the Beach

My toddler son sat covered in sand working hard to stop the incoming tide of the Gulf of Mexico from eradicating his sandcastle. His efforts were in vain as the waves began lapping, then engulfing, the substructure of his multi-tiered fortress. Distraught and teary eyed, he shoveled sand furiously along the rapidly crumbling walls. Sadly, despite his best efforts, the sea took back what was hers and my son's castle slowly disappeared into the waves. I watched in fascination and awe at the Sisyphean efforts Parker placed into the chore that was obviously a losing battle. His relentless effort reminds me of the challenges facing beach management, or what passes for it. As storms increase in intensity and possibly number, as sea level rapidly rises, our beaches, in response, try to migrate landward. But they are caught between an ineluctable forces of nature, and another powerful force-coastal development.

Trying to save an eroding beach is not a new concept. Since the early twentieth century, peoples' desire to live near the sea has driven multi-billion dollar development and tourism. Early modes to protect our investments saw breakwaters built to eliminate wave action, sea walls to stop the creeping ocean rise, and perpendicular groins that attempted to slow the erosion created by wave and current action. When these structures proved to either make the problem worse or shift it along the coast, an unholy cabal of engineers and coastal developers thought to dredge up and pump in sediment usually stripmined from the continental shelf. By building on top of the dunes they created more demand for the practice and in turn the practice encourages more unsustainable development. But cleverly, they spun this practice as "beach nourishment," "beach renourishment," or "beach replenishment." A diverse cast of environmental activists, sportsmen and independent scientists decry these phrases as false advertising. If we were honest, they say, we'd call these projects massive dredge-and-fill operations, or land reclamation.

A number of coastal "management" companies are taking advantage of local communities and creating environmental nightmares for ecosystems that are already suffering from myriad global and local stressors, which often synergize negatively. For anyone who pays taxes, it is malefic tax dollar spending. For local businesses that rely on anglers, divers, and a general tourism trade, nourishment hurts their revenues. For local hardbottom communities that in some places include coral and living reefs such as worm reef and other unique ecosystems, dredge-and-fill projects bury them in non-indigenous sands and worse, block the sunrays that allow photosynthesis.

Bulldozing sediment on a beach is a lot like my son Parker's attempt to save his sandcastle-except far more costly and destructive. Local communities pay exorbitant fees to engineering and dredging firms that specialize in to truck in, or ship in, huge loads of sand to thwart natural beach erosion by piling the new sand on top of the existing beach. Communities rely on the health of their beaches, water quality and reefs and subsequent economies on the scientific data supplied by the engineering firm they elect to take on their project. What a conflict of interests! In 2005, an extensive review of biological monitoring studies done for beachfill projects showed that the emperor has no cloths. Not surprisingly, the data supplied by engineering firms often fail to meet standards of scientific rigor and their conclusions are based assumption rather than scientific fact.

Dr. Orrin Pilkey, who is renowned marine geologist and professor emeritus at Duke, is a vocal critic of the Army Corps of Engineers and the beach nourishment cabal, calls Florida "the outlaw state." Florida is the scene of the most aggressive beachfill programs in the United States. One proposed project has elevated the conflict between coastal watermen and women, and concerned tax payers, against the cabal like no other in history. Florida's Lake Worth Pier, home to one of the best fishing areas and oldest surfing communities in the US, is threatened by a massive, $15-18 million project that will add more beach to a stable beach for a few privileged condo owners.

"The Reach 8 project is one of the most heinous and unfair coastal management decisions I have witnessed in ten years of my conservation writing career," said Terry Gibson, fishing editor of Outdoor Life. "The project will bury at least seven acres of nearshore tropical reefs with what probably is mud. It will smother the crabs and surf clams that are vital to the survival of foraging surf fishes and shorebirds. It will change the bottom around the pier and screw up the surf. And it will interfere with sea turtle nesting." The Surfrider Foundation of Florida has joined forces with citizens like Gibson to educate the public on alternative ways to seek a means to slow beach erosion. Florida Regional Manager, Ericka Davanzo says, "The Surfrider Foundation's major concern is to help educate local town officials on project repercussions so their communities are not thrust into another renourishment boondoggle." Davanzo openly refered to a 2004 St. Lucie nourishment project that went woefully awry. Coastal Planning & Engineering (CP&E), the same firm that designed the Reach 8 project, watched as mud trucked in and bulldozed on the second or third most important turtle nesting beach in North America, which is lined with nearshore reefs. Much of it quickly washed onto the reefs; the remaining mud became as hard a concrete. The project had to be redone-at the taxpayers' expense. There were apparently zero consequences, except bad press for CP&E.

Determined to stop another St. Lucie-esque disaster Reach 8, concerned groups like Surfrider, the Snook Foundation, and concerned citizens sued the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for issuing the permit that will allow the project to go forward. The City Council of Lake Worth voted unanimously to join the lawsuit.

Gibson points out that, "The project is going forward to give a few privileged dune top residents an illusion of shore protection," and that this constitutes an egregious instance of taxation without representation. In 2007, the citizens of Palm Beach voted no on a referendum to fund the Reach 8 project in December of 2007. However, Palm Beach City Councilman David Rosow defends the cities decision to move forward without the popular support of his constituents. "No rational person wants to waste money. Remember, there isn't a Department of Human Protection or Department of Common Sense, just agencies that spend their days protecting marine life and the environment. However, the town has a responsibility to act - not continue to study, yell, criticize, and certainly not cast disparaging remarks." He says.

But the experts working with Surfrider on this case are sure that this course of action is as wasteful as it is destructive. Scientists at Duke University have gathered decades' worth of independent data showing that typically beach-fill nourishment sand erode two to 10 times faster than natural beaches, mostly because sediment used for the projects is too fine or shaped wrongly to stay in such a dynamic environment. The material slated for fill on Reach 8 is much finer than the native beach sand, and large surf relative to the rest of the state routinely pounds the beach.

Engineers rely on a "principle" called the Dean overfill quotient, which basically suggests that if for example you can only find sand half the grain size of the native material, you just pump twice as much onto the beach. (Keep in mind the dredger gets paid by the square yard.) But using incompatible fill leads to a number of environmental problems.

Somewhere, Sisyphus is still rolling his stone up the hill. Here, my son learned the ocean tides return to reclaim what is hers to reclaim. Mr. Rosow is right, the town, in this case the global village, has a responsibility to act. We need to find viable, cost-efficient ways to help beaches respond optimally to rapid sea level rise, instead of throwing good money after bad, damaging our most important economic engines-our coastal resources-and setting neighbor against neighbor.