Beach renourishment is not sustainable
This year, Steve Higgins, a board member of the dredging lobbying group American Coastal Coalition and the beach management official for Broward County, Florida, declared that that area is about to have its last renourishment as the accessible and affordable offshore sand this requires is now depleted. Last year, a Corps' project engineer said that areas on its west coast also no longer have sand to mine. This means the most ardent supporters of renourishment are saying, in effect, it is not sustainable. Indirectly, they confirm that beach nourishment is not a benign process, is wastefully depleting the very material we must have to save our shorelines and is becoming too expensive to continue. It is both fiscally and physically unsustainable.
Offshore shoals protect the shore
Not being said is that offshore shoals, now strip-mined for this, provide a damping effect on wave energy striking the shore. With many shoals now removed or reduced, greater energy is reaching the shore creating more erosion and magnifying storm damage. A 2002 report by Minerals Management Service, the federal agency tasked with finding this sand, confirms this.
