We all can enjoy nice wide sandy beaches, but the projects of building these, when they are not just a natural occurrence often ends up destroying the natural reefs that actually would protect the naturally present beach.
In order to build out beaches, sand is often dredged from further out at sea and then brought to the beach where it is bull-dozed out over the area until the desired new sand beach area has been established.
The problem is that the sand that is dredged and transported to the beach is of a different structure than the sand that naturally occurs on a beach is and it is in fact much more migratory.
So over time – sometimes shorter rather than longer – some of the sand starts migrating and is carried out to sea again. As it travels with the current and moved with storm and other weather occurrence it often finds its way to the natural reefs and now covers the natural living corals. An often unfortunate effect is that the corals suffer greatly and ultimately some die of, meaning the natural reefs die off.
What’s even further underlining this tragedy is the fact that the natural reefs actually protects the beaches, but if the natural reefs disappears then this protection also disappears.
It’s one more of the examples of wanting to do some good that just has some very unfortunate repercussions.
A very clear example of the effects can be clearly viewed in this video below which has been on Project Baseline Gulfstream’s Youtube channel for just over a year now. The video is from Suzanne’s Ledge which is one more of the Project Baseline Gulfstream’s designated monitoring sites.