Saving America's Beaches

The following sections are included:

• Preface Saving America's Beaches

• Contents

Sometime during the first week in July, on a steaming hot beach in America, 'Little Ray' Hogan is going to take a cup of ice water and creep up on his big sister Penny, while she sleeps in a beach chair, with about a dozen smirking relatives watching, and – you guessed it – dribble some of the ice-water on his big sister. And when Penny jumps up screaming "Raymond!" and he scampers away safely, the on-looking relatives will all laugh and hoot and holler and have a good time. A few of them have watched 'Little Ray' do this to his big sis for over 50 years! And when he does it now, the children, and grandchildren and nephews and nieces are part of the weeklong vacation. They come from different cities and states to gather together at the beach to talk, and eat, and fish, and golf, and surf, and visit the arcades, and do puzzles, and swim, and eat some more. But mainly they talk, about teenagers, and health, and old friends and loved ones. That is America. And it is part of the quality of life in America.

The surf was booming loudly as Bob and JoeAnn walked along the beach. They walked or ran on this beach everyday when the weather was pleasant. The sand, the surf, and the smell of the salt in the wind somehow always seemed fresh and different. But many of the same forces were working today as they have worked for years. The sandy beach is the product of thousands of years of geology influenced by decades of human impacts.

His adrenaline surged a bit as Chuck caught his first wave of the morning. He turned right along the wave face and got a 15-second ride with the sunrise just beginning to peak over the houses. What a way to start the day! Within two hours Chuck would be in his car creeping up Interstate 5 on his way to the office. But now he was part of the "dawn patrol," the thousands of men and women with "real jobs" that surf in the early mornings in Southern California. And for just a few seconds, his entire focus in life was on staying on that wave as he accelerated to over 25 miles per hour. Chuck would quit surfing if he ever stopped feeling that little surge of adrenaline.

Travis and Paige are getting desperate. For years, each storm has eaten a little more of the sandy beach away and the beach house they bought for retirement 20 years ago is now severely threatened by erosion. They don't want to build a seawall to protect the house but they can't move the house back either. Some folks tell them that all beaches erode and that they shouldn't try to live there in the first place. But they suspect the real cause of the erosion is the shipping and boating channel just down the coast. The channel, which has jetties and is dredged regularly, provides safe access to the sea for boats. While Paige and Travis have nothing against boating and shipping, they wonder why they have to lose the sandy beach in front of their home and maybe even their home for the benefit of those that use the channel. It's just not right.

The wide, sandy beach stretched out before Megan and Kate. It was covered with people for as far as they could see. Their weeklong family vacation had just begun and they had just raced to the beach as quickly as possible. The beach the youngsters looked at was spectacular. For the next week, this would be their kingdom to "lay out" in their new bikinis, ride waves on their boogie boards, build sandcastles with their cousins, and go on long walks to check out the boys. In short, it was paradise. And it was a nourished beach. The girls didn't know they were looking at a nourished beach and they didn't care. But without the beach nourishment, the girls would have been looking at a much different scene. They would have had little or no space to lay their towels or build their sandcastles. Even if they found a place, it would have been in the shadow of a seawall. Without the beach nourishment, they could not have walked along the beach except at low tide because of the water hitting the walls. The beach, as they knew it and loved it, had been saved by beach nourishment.

The following sections are included:

• Conclusion The Prescription for Saving America's Beaches

• To Learn More About Beaches

• The "Fine Print" — Acknowledgements, Photo Credits, References

• Index