Saturday, January 22, 2005

Current beach nourishment project on OB

I went out yesterday to check out the current beach nourishment happenings on the beach at Nags Head. It was very cold and windy, so the shots are from the truck-pardon the quality. The "sand" is being hauled in by the dumptruck load from a borrow pit in upper Currituck. It is really mostly clay, definitely not pretty white sand, as it does not come from a beach! I have read the rationale is to use the heavier clay based material to keep it there longer. Good luck! The trucks transit thru the parking area of the little cottages south of Jeanette's Pier and back out onto the beach over a clay packed road. They dump their load there and this bulldozer pushes it up into this temporary mountain. Then 4 wheel drive vehicles come to the mountain and get loaded up then transit down the beach to the current working area and deposit their load next in line. The method seems to include being a "dune" area about 15 feet high and about that wide, then sloping in out to the existing beach, or what's left of it.
We are in for some heavy winds this weekend and next as well. I guess time will tell if this stop gap measure has any meaning. Personally I don't care for it. Although it does provide some bit of protection for those structures in danger of upending into the sea, it IS ugly, and nasty. I don't really think I'd want to spend my vacation hiking over such a dune to the tiny little natural beach that may or may not be there on the other side. It remains to be seen if the visting public will vote with their pocketbooks and move to another area for rentals after seeing this mess this summer.


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