Environmental Impact
The Beach Recovery System™ (BRS) is a soft permanent solution that builds back the beach’s natural accretion. By working with nature in an environmentally friendly way, wave and current energy is reduced, thereby slowing the speed of flowing water. This results in continuous sand deposit back onto the beach. Other systems, like hard structures, cause sand to remain at the water’s bottom, reflecting the sand back to the sea.
The environmental footprint of our system is very small compared to the treatment area we serve. On uninterrupted stretches of beach, a single BRS approximately 650 feet in length can positively affect over 2 miles of shoreline depending upon design.
As sand builds, the BRS is quickly buried, leaving only naturally deposited sandy beaches. BRS technology provides a sand reserve that feeds both upstream and downstream on and around the installed locations. This constant supply of sand also supports onshore wind to rebuild the natural dunes and critical natural nesting areas. The sand reserve leads to the rebirth of habitat on land and new sandy protected bottoms for spooning beds. Fish will return to lay eggs and harvest the newly recovered near shore, increasing fish quantities for the bigger fish offshore eat at sea. This process will ultimately increase the overall volume of the fishing stock, eliminating many critical stock shortages that have restricted the fishing industry in recent years.
Once restored, near shore environments now offer further opportunities for subsequent restorative ecological efforts such as dune restoration, seeding of new clam beds, eel grass plantings, and spooning beds for fish.
Environmental Benefits are Substantial when a Healthy Beach is Restored:
• Creates natural shoreline defense buffer zone. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Reduces beach closures. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Protects inland fresh water table. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Protects marine life by creating wider buffer zones, decreasing nitrogen pollution. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Provides environmental/ecological benefits of enhanced wildlife habitat. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Improves aesthetic value of shoreline. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Revitalizes commercial and recreational fishing and healthier fish stocks. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
• Promotes flora and fauna and regenerates nurseries for fish, clams, crabs, oysters, lobsters, shore birds, etc. (Insert Photo or Graphic.)
Hard structures
For generations, hard structures such as sea walls, groins and jetties have been built to stop the force of the waves or to hold back land. In recent years, most states and countries have banned the construction of such structures since it is well documented that instead of solving the erosion problem, they only exacerbate erosion, creating unnatural changes in the sand carrying currents for miles along the shoreline. By stopping wave energy with a rock wall, the water flow is directed downward, undermining the structure and causing steeper bottoms which lead to more erosion. The “solution” to this is often a larger and deeper build of rock walls. These structures have been proven to cause downstream sand deficits over time by reflecting the sand back to the sea.
Beach Nourishment
In the process sometimes referred to as beach nourishment, sand is removed from a donor site or trucked in and dumped onto the beach. This expensive process provides only a temporary solution which must be repeated time and time again. Beach nourishment does not address the fundamental underlying causes of erosion at the site.
Manmade Changes
For hundreds of years, people have dredged and altered the river bottoms without realizing that the disturbances to the sea floor would have a significant impact on our environment. At the sand source sites, the seabed and associated communities have been disturbed. For some distance, suspended sediment may cause turbidity in water and increased sedimentation on the bottom.
Water Quality
Depending on the nature of the sand, borrowed material from the seabed may lead to changes in the chemical composition of the water. Many toxins such as heavy metals and organic contaminants tend to stick to matter and sink to the sediment. Some of these contaminants are very persistent in the sediment, and some may change their oxidation state during burial, which alters their solubility. If these sediments are disturbed, the contaminants can be released to the water column and affect marine life, further impacting the foods we eat.
Public Health
In addition to toxins, nutrient elements (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus which control the rate of marine plant growth) can also be released from sediments during the sand borrowing process, with a risk of triggering algal blooms. Many of the toxic algal species (which are a health risk for consumers of shellfish) have a resting stage (cyst) that lies in the sediment. If pulling sand from the bottoms disturbs these cysts when conditions are favorable, a bloom of toxic algae may be caused.
Another biological risk from pulling sand from the bottom involves the transport of species in the sand borrowing process from one port or even country to another. Exotic marine pests are now recognized as a major environmental concern, and steps must be taken to minimize their transport to new environments.