Beach Brutality

Pipeline from shore to barge where beach is reclaimed

We went to check out the turtles at Pass-A-Grille beach (more on that in an upcoming post), and got side-lined into watching the beach nourishment programme at night.  What is a beach nourishment programme you ask? 



Sand pumping machine

Well, hurricanes and tropical storms have washed away much of the sand at Pass-A-Grille, with very little beach left at high tide and the water about to encroach on the snack bar - 40 feet of beach have been lost in recent years.

Beach erosion  gives the turtles very little space for nesting.  So in order to keep the locals happy, the tourists coming, and the loggerhead turtles nesting, the beach needs to be replenished or rebuilt. Reclamation I think it is called in other places.



Watch those bulldozers!

 

This is done by putting a pumping barge out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico alongside a pipeline to bring in offshore sand.

 

Sounds very civilised until you see it in action - the pipeline spews out large amounts of sandy water and the caterpillar trackers drive the beach/waterline in a crazed fashion making and then attacking large piles of sand without regard for the possibility of flipping themselves over.  This is done 24/7 so we actually saw them working under large mobile spotlights.

All in all it's a $16.2 million  project over 3 months backed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

What Mother Nature does, man is sure to try and rectify!  But ...

right in the middle of all this activity was a turtle nest "protected" by four stakes, a bit of tape and some signage!  The nest did hatch and we were there for the post-hatch nest inventory . . . as explained in my next blog post.