A lesson in moving sand

NJ.com has posted a helpful article about the beach replenishment that is necessary to get the Jersey Shore ready for summer. While it focuses on the current work in Avalon, it provides a quick lesson in a variety of practices and terms including back passing, scarping,and borrow and fill areas. 

 

Tabasco Sauce vs. Coastal Erosion

When I saw the headline "Tabasco Sauce Is in a Battle For Its Very Survival" I had to click through, since I've been to Avery Island where still they make Edmund McIlhenny's unique hot sauce.  I had suspected that it was going to be a story about trade wars or an unexpected increase in the cost of vinegar. Instead, it was a story about coastal erosion.

After the usual background about hurricanes and Louisiana losing several football fields of land every day, the article suggests that a new strategy is underway. Tabasco is putting together a team of landowners to fight against coastal erosion:

 “We were competing against each other for these multi million dollar coastal restoration projects to go on our own property,” Moertl explains. “So we came up with the idea of forming an alliance. Let’s erase our property boundaries, and let’s work together, pool our resources and our expertise, and see if we can’t go after this with a more regional approach.”
“The property boundaries are artificial,” says Osborn. “If your neighbor’s land starts eroding, so will yours.”

The story is absolutely worth a full read.

And if you ever get down there, tour the factory and the "island". The place should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[Mapped]

Mapping the oceans' debris

Sometimes students talk to me about mapping as if we've run out of spatial patterns to study. So I love seeing examples of new frontiers in mapping. What else is waiting to mapped?

A team from National Geographic has tackled questions about the debris (mostly plastic) floating around on the surface of the Earth's oceans. Their map reveals patterns previously unknown.

Sea Ranch revisited

The NYTimes Magazine has posted a feature looking back at Halprin's ideas behind Sea Ranch and linking that experience with its continued success today. Like almost any historical piece on Sea Ranch, it is worth reading, but I was taking aback by one comment.

The author, Alice Gregory, describes the remarkable blend of architecture and landscape architecture this way, "This is precisely the appeal of Sea Ranch houses, which contrive to give residents the juvenile thrill of being simultaneously inside and outdoors." Reducing the long tradition of exploring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors to a "juvenile thrill" misses the essential nature of what so many designers have explored at that seemingly inescapable boundary.

Vodka and planning

I don't remember ever reading about a town with Vodka money problems before.  Otherwise it seems like a classic rural development/gentrification conflict. But I think we will see more of these single investor gentrification issues in the future. #LonerGentrifiation

Stake in the Sand

Shortly before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida DEP, the NYTimes Sunday Magazine sent Andrew Rice down to Destin to talk to some of the impacted residents. Stake in the Sand is his look at the conflict without the knowledge of the resolution.

Nothing new left to see

A student, working on designs along the edges of a coastal zone, recently said to me that they felt like there were no new coastal projects left to see. Well, the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon by LDA Design seems like something new to me. If you haven't see this £1bn project yet, check out the links.

Remembering Peter Rona

The integrative nature of my work inserts me into projects with a wide variety of scientists and other academics. After all, we need expertise on soils and cultural landscapes, hydrology and plant science. So many different parts of the university seem

Still, as a deep sea scientist, Peter Rona seems like he might be working in a space that I wouldn't interact with. But a casual conversation with him 10 years ago led to one of his students taking a geomatics class. His project mapping the depths of Hudson Canyon was great because it pushed me into new analysis questions while helping him see new aspects of his own research. Since then, Rona's Engineering Geophysics program has given me a chance to remain connected to this remarkably different perspective on space and landscapes.

Peter Rona was a remarkable scientist and I am still amazed to see the breadth of the work that made up his life work. Pretty amazing. Dr. Rona will be greatly missed on the Cook Campus.

“When, Not If”

ULI's CEO, Patrick Phillips, writes that we are in a new era for waterfront development and we need to recognize that with a change in our approaches to planning and design of the waterfronts. Included in that was this recommendation:

"Jurisdictions should identify local land use typologies to realistically and accurately assess a region’s capacity for resiliency."

Sound familiar?

Tuckerton

This is a great weekend for a trip down to Tuckerton. It might be the biggest weekend of the year for this little town.

Dunes are coming

Christie has signed the executive order moving ahead with dune construction.

Build-a-dune

NatGeo writes about how to build a sand dune to protect from the next big storm. Their version is simple and cheap.

Yesterday's NY Times took a closer look at how neighbors are pressuring other neighbors at the shore to allow dunes to be built. Will the owners of duneless beachfront homes become pariahs? This story makes it seem like they already are.

Sandy made some beaches bigger

The Press of Atlantic City reports that Sandy actually helped replenish some beaches in New Jersey.  These are strong and complex forces.

Building more dunes ain't easy

A privileged class of Shore homeowners, a NJ Supreme Court case and Governor Christie's policies are all contributing to ongoing conflicts over sand dune reconstruction at the Jersey Shore, just months after hurricane Sandy's devastation. NJ Spotlightgives a brief overview in a new article called, "What's the Going Price for a Dune on the Jersey Shore?"

NewsWorksNJ says it pits neighbor against neighbor.  Long Beach has posted a list of the names of homeowners fighting against dunes.

But these issues aren't terribly new. The NY Times had a piece on a fairly similar disagreement in Destin, Florida a few years ago. That unneighborly dispute required a US Supreme Court decision to resolve things. (It is worth noting that the details appear different on a few substantive points, so attorneys can probably fairly claim that the law is not completely clear on these disputes. Of course, the law is never completely clear, or the judicial system could downsize.)

UPDATE: The Star-Ledger has an update on the NJ Supreme Court's hearing.

Public safety vs. Private property rights

After Hurricane Sandy, there was a period of time during which New Jerseyans set aside political and personal differences to better their battered communities. But a story in the Star-Ledger suggests that is waning down in Toms River.

Shortly after the storm (11/18/12), the Star-Ledger's MaryAnn Spoto reported on a fairly clear correlation: areas with healthy coastal dune systems suffered limited damage while those with weak dunes experienced greater damage. Both scientists and politicians acknowledged this relationship, with Spoto offering this notable piece of evidence:

"If you look at the towns that have had engineered beaches, up and down the state, those are the towns whose damage was minimal," Gov. Chris Christie said during a visit to Monmouth County last week. "Other towns that didn’t, the damage was much greater. I think that’s a lesson for us as we move forward." 

 She also singled out one spot as being among the clearest for these issues:

By contrast, the Ortley Beach section of Toms River had the lowest and thinnest dunes — 10 to 12 feet high and less than 50 feet wide — and it sustained the most damage on the coast, Farrell said.

But now (1/5/12) Spoto reports that some Toms River property owners are keeping the municipality from building new post-storm dunes. With just 2 or 3 exceptions, the owners are refusing to sign over an easement along the shorefront, preventing the town from building the protective dunes. Not only does a delay leave open the possibility of new damage from a Nor'Easter, but it might also cause the town to miss its chance at Federal clean up funds.

The complaint, according to the article, isn't that this is an out-of control government taking their private property without justification. Instead, it seems focused on concerns about turning private beach into public. Spoto got this explanation:

Patricia Suriani, a member of one of the homeowners association boards that hasn’t signed, says a majority of the residents voted against giving the easement because they don’t want the private beach open to the public. She said the easement request, seeking the strip of property "in perpetuity," is vague and doesn’t give residents any assurance that they won’t be required to build public bathrooms or a boardwalk.

This isn't the first such case. A few years ago the NY Times Magazine ran a feature on the US Supreme Court case, STOP THE BEACH RENOURISHMENT, INC. v . FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION et al. The story weighed the State's concerns about beach erosion and storm damage against the hypothetical potential for the public beach being used for hot dog carts and spring break parties.

Barry Chalofsky recently suggested that we start evaluating whether some beach communities should be very gradually depopulated. The next few months should bring more conflicts, but it will be especially interesting to see which way the public sentiment goes.

Restoration Project Coordinator

JOB OPPORTUNITY

American Littoral Society www.littoralsociety.org

Location
American Littoral Society
Northeast Chapter Headquarters
Queens, NY

Title
Restoration Project Coordinator

Reports to
Habitat Restoration Program Director in Highlands, NJ

More after the jump...

News from the shore

As a potentially significant storm season looms, it may not be a good sign that competition for beach replenishment work is down.  Meanwhile, the Cape May Herald reports that Avalon has just reopened it beach after an emergency replenishment.

Another useful GIS application

The reach of GI Science continues to amaze me.  You probably heard reports this weekend of the Tsunami alert in Hawaii as a result of the absolutely terrible earthquake in Chile.  But you might not have thought about how that wave energy is transmitted across the Pacific and how complex the spatial patterns are that NOAA was modeling.  The map, above, really captures the potential reach of this thing and you can see why Hawaii was wary.  With all of the other stories and photos of damage you may not realize it, but there were severe Tsunami impacts in Chile - see photos 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41 from The Big Picture.

More Stop the Beach Renourishment

Pruned has a link and fun photo for that pending SCOTUS case, Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  I am starting to think it is going to be a high profile decision, and it is going to be treated as one of the leading indicators for a post-sea-level-rise legal environment.