Coastal Services Center

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Beach Nourishment: It's a Good Investment - Critique

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Home > Perspective > Critique > Response > Conclusion

by Orrin H. Pilkey and Andy Coburn

In his paper, Mr. Marlowe states that beach nourishment is in the best interest of all Americans, that beaches are powerful economic engines, and that the federal government has an obligation to continue to spend federal tax dollars to nourish the nation's beaches. We feel that Mr. Marlowe's assertions regarding beach nourishment are based on speculative economic analyses, selective environmental assessmentsm and erroneous scientific assumptions. While we certainly agree with his claims that everyone loves the beach and that beaches are venues for Americans of every economic class, an examination of this paper reveals gaps, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions that are both misleading and factually incorrect.

Perhaps the most glaring omission in Mr. Marlowe's paper is his failure to acknowledge the most important issue facing beach nourishment and the future of our beaches: sea level rise. We certainly agree with Mr. Marlowe that the causes of beach erosion are complex and that humans have greatly influenced local shoreline retreat rates, usually in a negative way. But underlying the shoreline erosion problem is a rising sea level that, independent of anything man can do, will maintain a continuing state of erosion on our beaches that is almost certainly going to accelerate in coming generations.

During the 20th Century, sea level rose at an accelerated rate, relative to the last several thousand years, and this rate of rise is expected to increase because of the continuing accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. This rise in temperature will impact on rainfall, storminess, and the level of the sea, and will certainly make significant changes in our life patterns in coming decades. Some agricultural areas, for example, are expected to get drier, others wetter. Huge areas of marsh in the Mississippi delta, where 40 percent of America's wetlands currently reside, are expected to be lost.

On a global level, the societies of the world must plan their responses to the coming changes, many of which can be predicted in a general sort of way. Societies will always opt for the status quo if no one argues to the contrary, because the status quo means no one will lose. Farmers will continue to farm the same crops, even if it requires pumping irrigation water from the Great Lakes to affected regions many miles away. Fishermen, fur trappers, and even residents of the Mississippi Delta will continue their activities as always. The rising sea level will cause barrier island dwellers to protect beachfront houses, first with nourishment and, as shoreline erosion rates increase, with seawalls. Strong national leadership will be required to keep us from simply maintaining the status quo as the greenhouse effect rolls on.

Almost everyone agrees that an engineered response to the greenhouse effect will be an economic, and almost certainly environmental, disaster. Beach nourishment is a prime example of an engineering approach that attempts to maintain the status quo. Behind this engineering procedure is the absurd assumption that we can defeat nature at the shoreline in the long term. It simply is not going to happen. Nature will eventually win at the shoreline. We can't nourish all of our beaches, and we shouldn't nourish all of our beaches. As a society, we simply cannot respond to the cries of a few vulnerable beachfront property owners and assume we are responding to the needs and desires of the population as a whole. Coney Island and Miami Beach, near huge population centers, are one thing, but Wrightsville Beach, NC and Ocean City, MD are another.

Regarding the erosion problem, Mr. Marlowe is absolutely correct when he states that "if no buildings were along the shore, then no one would care if the beach eroded." In fact, this statement supports our long-standing contention that homes along the coast cause the erosion problem. And, contrary to what Mr. Marlowe says, the distinction between erosion and an erosion problem is clearly made. No houses, no problem.

Mr. Marlowe argues that erosion is due not to houses, but to federal navigation projects, and it is therefore appropriate for the federal government to pay for nourishment. This premise is not necessarily true, however, since erosion also occurs along natural seashores, far from any human-induced influences. Assuming it were true, navigation channels are often dredged to allow boats, many owned by the "greedy, rich snobs" who also own oceanfront property, to access the ocean. Therefore, based on Mr. Marlowe's logic, the very same people who are the power and money behind beach nourishment are responsible for the erosion problem in the first place.

Mr. Marlowe also believes that individuals in favor of shoreline retreat are "at least two hundred years behind the curve" because coastal development is a fact that has been with us for a long time. But the development that is causing the problems and creating the "need" for nourishment is almost all post-WW II. This development was started, and has continued, in the full light of shoreline erosion and the possibility of major storms. Only someone from Kazakhstan can claim to not know that shorelines are eroding and that storms damage beachfront property.

So what should be done about all the vulnerable buildings along our nation's coastlines? Mr. Marlowe states the only solution is beach nourishment and disregards alternative management strategies such as relocation, demolition, and retreat. His position that "it is far more costly to retreat from the erosion than it is to nourish the beach" is based entirely upon a faulty economic study of nourishment and retreat costs in Delaware. According to Mr. Marlowe, the study places the cost of retreat in Delaware at $291 million and the cost of beach nourishment over the next 50 years at $60 million. Several sources, as well as our own data, indicate that the cost of nourishing Delaware's beaches, over the same period, is between $800 and $900 million. These figures are in line with a proposed beach nourishment project on the Outer Banks of North Carolina anticipated to cost $1.66 billion dollars over 50 years – for only 14 miles of beach. Further, the US Army Corps of Engineers, in its Final Feasibility Report, estimates the cost of retreat/relocation in the Outer Banks project area to be $300-$400 million. It is clear that, if afforded proper consideration, relocation and retreat will prove to be viable and cost-effective alternatives to beach nourishment.

Mr. Marlowe suggests that beaches are "coastal parks" and that eroded beaches do not have the same recreational and environmental benefits as nourished beaches. He goes on to discuss, at length, the economic benefits of beaches and the income produced by beaches. While eroded beaches typically do not provide the same recreational opportunities or amenities as eroded beaches, Mr. Marlowe's figures appear to include coastal tourism and tax revenue derived from within the entire coastal zone, and we know of no peer-reviewed economic study to definitively determine the exact "worth" of the beach. Virtually any well-managed system, whether nourishment or retreat, will help maintain the economic value and tax base, and the idea that if we don't nourish we will have an economic catastrophe, is nonsense.

Mr. Marlowe states that "living along the beach is no more dangerous than living in most other areas of the country." This is absolutely incorrect. There certainly is a difference between living on a beach and living inland. The bottom line is that there simply is no natural system on earth more dynamic or with a higher probability of causing damage to structures from natural processes (erosion and storms). And, this damage potential could be dramatically reduced by moving structures to the backside of an island. Mr. Marlowe does, however, make a valid point regarding the storm protection benefits of a wide beach. There is no argument that nourished beaches, as long as they are in good shape, do provide important storm damage reduction benefits. The study referenced by Mr. Marlowe regarding the impacts of Hurricane Fran on North Carolina, however, compares islands that got a direct hit to those that didn't, and, as a result, may have overestimated the benefits attributed to nourishment. Also, even though a wide beach does afford an additional degree of storm protection, it does nothing to reduce the impacts of wind.

Interestingly, Mr. Marlowe states that, each year, the government spends $2.5 billion fighting and preventing forest fires that occur mainly in sparsely populated rural areas, and there has not been a major outcry against what he refers to as a "subsidy." While it is irrelevant to compare beach nourishment with fighting forest fires, the analogy to forest fires is very interesting. The first author of this document was once a smoke jumper in Montana, where he was frequently told that he was "some kind of hero" for saving the forest. As it turns out, fighting the fires was actually destroying the forest in the long term because it allowed brush to accumulate, finally resulting in the massive fires we see today. The same can be said for beach nourishment. We strongly argue that beach nourishment, in three or four generations, will lead to the seawalling and ultimately the destruction of the beach. In the long term, nourishment will become too expensive, and islands, now lined with high-rises, will resort to beach-destroying seawalls while the rest of society is protecting Manhattan, Boston, and other coastal cities.

Mr. Marlowe believes all Americans are well served by a beach nourishment policy that will "continue to protect and restore our nation's beautiful beaches" and holds up our urban beaches as examples where nourishment is particularly useful to the local people. Further, Mr. Marlowe states that only beaches with public access are eligible for federal nourishment and, therefore, the beach is open for everyone to use. While we certainly agree that beach nourishment in Venice Beach, CA and Rockaway and Coney Island Beaches in NY can be justified because of intense use by people from adjacent cities, Mr. Marlowe surely must know that most American beaches are not urban beaches and nourishment, therefore, certainly can not be justified.

Just because a beach has "public access" does not necessarily mean it is accessible to the public. Some federally-nourished beaches in northern New Jersey, for example, lack adequate parking facilities which severely restricts the ability of the general public to visit the beach it paid to construct. In Hilton Head, SC, public parking is limited and public access to the beach severely restricted by gated plantations and exclusive resorts. In Westhampton Dunes, along the south shore of Long Island, oceanfront property owners are now suing to prohibit public access to the nourished beach. In Pine Knoll Shores, NC, where the beach was recently nourished with funds provided by the US Department of Agriculture, there is no public beach access.

Mr. Marlowe claims that beach nourishment is in no way harmful to the environment and, in fact, is beneficial to the environment in many ways. But these claims are also based on the results of a single study, coordinated and funded by the Army Corps of Engineers, whose authors freely admit is not applicable to other areas of the country. While we may not be able to quantify the cumulative or secondary environmental impacts of beach nourishment, we can certainly document nourishment projects that have killed endangered marine mammals and that have dumped large quantities of rock, mud, and shell on beaches that are vital sea turtle nesting habitats. One such beach, Oak Island in North Carolina, nourished by the Corps for the sole purpose of restoring sea turtle nesting habitat, commonly has scarps in excess of four feet, layers of cemented sediment exposed in the scarp face (and likely throughout the beach), huge mounds of marl in the surf zone, and a "moat" perpetually filled with four to five inches of stagnant, putrid water. Considering the "environmental benefits" afforded by the Oak Island project and the impacts of other recent projects, nourishment clearly is a significant threat to the quality and long-term sustainability of our nation's coastal environment.

This brings us to the question of whether the nation should work to restore the environmental functions of our degraded beaches. If we, as a society, decided we should, then the responsibility for such an important job should not fall to the Corps, the agency Mr. Marlowe identifies as the primary cause of this degradation.

To say that a nourished beach is a healthy beach is ludicrous. A beach, by its very nature of being nourished, is an unhealthy beach. A truly healthy beach is one that migrates naturally. One that moves freely with the ebb and flow of the waves, winds, and currents. One teeming with meiofauna and other critters. One that all middle- and lower-income Americans can freely visit. While we share Mr. Marlowe's view that the beaches are for everyone, the reality is that many remain inaccessible because of, as Mr. Marlowe so eloquently put it, the "greedy rich snobs who want the beach entirely to themselves." We would like very much to see proponents of nourishment address the long-term question, for a change, and acknowledge beach nourishment for what it really is, a short-term way to protect buildings.

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