America’s beaches are in danger of disappearing.

There is a severe erosion problem in the United States. It is not that beaches have been totally ignored—there is actually a federal beach nourishment program dating back to the 1920s and 1930s—but there has been a general neglect of beaches.

Erosion is a natural process, and we should forswear fighting Mother Nature.

A good part of erosion is caused by human intervention. When people first settled here, they created ports. The more we have needed to expand ports, the more we have created navigation channels and intracoastal waterway systems. And every time you create one of those channels, you build hardened structures like docks, seawalls and jetties. These are supposed to prevent sand from silting up ports, but they also stop sand from flowing along the coast in a natural manner. As a result, nearby beach areas can become starved for sand. The beach in St. Augustine, Fla., suffered from a navigation channel put in there for a naval installation. A beautiful community was seeing its beach totally wiped out as a result of that channel.

Nothing says that a homeowners association cannot become a sponsor of a small federal beach restoration program.

The construction of homes and high-rise buildings along beachfronts exacerbates the problem.

The construction of beachfront homes by themselves causes no erosion. But beachfront homes are generally the most expensive ones in a given area. Once they are built, they create a need for people to try to lower property damage in case of erosion. But they do not contribute to erosion at all.

People who choose beachfront property should assume the risk that their property—and its future value—might ultimately be damaged by erosion.

They do. People always pay a premium for living near the beach. Housing prices along the coast are significantly higher, property taxes are higher and so are insurance rates. People are going to be attracted to the coast because of the overall environment. The house with the view is the house with the highest price. If the beach erodes, what do homeowners then start seeing? Water coming up dangerously close to their structures. Their natural reaction is to do whatever they can to get a hard structure up, like a seawall, to keep water away from their property. That structure will probably exacerbate the erosion.

Sand-dredging programs are inherently artificial and potentially dangerous to the environment.

Beach nourishment involves the engineered placement of sand on the beach and below the water level in a manner that best mimics the natural profile of a beach. The idea is to keep the sand within what is called the littoral, or coastal, system as long as possible. Sand naturally flows along coasts, and circulates in and out of littoral areas, its path dictated by the flow of water and by storms. Severe storms can push sand out of a system, and structures built along shores can prevent water and sand from flowing back to its natural destination. When we nourish a beach, we do not do anything to eliminate the navigation channels. Essentially, we gather sand from outside the littoral system and use a dredge pump to spread it along the shore and below the water line. Over the years, beaches require periodic renourishment. 

Federal funds spent on beaches are primarily benefiting the wealthy, who own homes—sometimes second or third homes—along the shore.

This is a dollar and cents issue for everybody in the affected area, and for the municipality—not just for property owners. The program is designed to do two things: prevent erosion and promote public recreation. Yes, it will help the folks along the beach, but they are also paying higher property taxes. When they are doing beach nourishment, many localities tax those who are living near the beach at a higher rate. But the issue is primarily that cities and states want to ensure that when we go to the beach, we can park our cars, get out, walk to the beach and go for a swim. We may be walking by a lovely house, but the fact is we are right in front of it seeing the same view—our beaches are public parks.

If a town’s beaches are not healthy, it will lose residents and tourists to someone’s beach that is healthy. And that loss translates into dollars. Beaches help produce a huge amount of local revenue, which in turn helps generate the taxes that power the schools and other local services. Much of the business activity associated with beaches and beachfronts funnels revenues to the federal government in the form of taxes on income and corporate profits. We worked on one project in Fort Pierce, Fla. By doing the project, the town was able to solve a severe erosion problem that was affecting its modest tourism industry.

Private citizens cannot be expected to pay higher taxes to remediate a beach damaged by government projects, such as naval bases.

Nobody is ever eager to pay higher taxes, but in every case I can think of, residents have been happy to come up with the money. Frequently, they do so by taxing the tourists who stay there. And if, for example, the erosion is caused by the presence of a naval base, the federal government increases its share of the cost.

The government already spends significant funds on preventing or dealing with beach erosion. With large deficits, we can no longer afford the additional investment.

We are not talking about any huge expense. The annual spending on the federal beach nourishment program ranges anywhere from $100 million to a maximum of $130 million in a good year—and 2005 will not be a good year. That $130 million equals the cost of two federal highway interchanges, and it is a tiny fraction of the government’s total water resource investments. The Army Corps of Engineers alone spends $4.5 billion on flood control, ports, inland waterways, you name it. We get between 2 and 3 percent of that total.

NOBODY IS ever eager to pay higher taxes, but in every case I can think of, residents have been happy to come up with the money.

The European Community, in a given year, will spend $3.5 billion on its beaches. And we have more beaches than the European Community does. Furthermore, we are generating more money from our beaches than it is. The beach is the biggest attraction of the national tourism industry. In addition, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of the coastline, and the proportion is growing every day.

Cities and states should expect the federal government to pick up the entire cost of beach-improvement projects.

The process requires local action first. If a community is going to request assistance from Congress and a study is authorized, the Corps of Engineers will become involved. Costs are divided on a 50-50 basis between the Corps and the local government during the study phase, which takes several years. The government has to determine there is a federal interest in doing the project. It won’t get involved in something where there is no or inadequate public access. No resorts. There must be a real erosion problem, and there must be a threat to structures. When it begins construction, the placement of sand on the beach is contracted out to private dredging companies. For the initial nourishment of a beach, the federal government pays 65 percent; the non-federal entity funds 35 percent. For periodic renourishment, the costs are divided 50-50.

It is difficult to convince people there is a problem until it is too late.

Communities must realize that it takes a long time to start a beach nourishment project. From start to finish, it takes a minimum of eight years to get sand on the beach. We started working in this field in the early 1980s. One day somebody told me that Venice, Fla., a small city south of Sarasota, was having trouble getting funding for its beach project, and asked if I could help. We realized after a few months that there were other cities in Florida that needed assistance, and it grew from there. Venice finally got constructed in 1992, and now it is coming up for its first renourishment.

Many people do not ask for help until the problem is critical; very often they cannot wait eight years. One of our jobs is to come up with a solution that provides some short-term protection. We are working with Carteret County in North Carolina, near Morehead City. While we are doing the study, we are getting sand dredged from the Morehead City harbor up onto the beaches, so we will have enough sand there to hold for a period of time until the study is completed.

But itis important for people not to wait too long. When they see issues, they need to get their fellow property owners and businesspeople to raise the issues to a high level of importance in the local community. And they need to contact their member of Congress directly.

Individuals with resources can take matters into their own hands.

They can, but it is a short-term fix. I have seen dredging done in front of individual properties, but it will not work for very long. That money would probably be better spent trying to organize at least a regional homeowners association. There is nothing that says a homeowners association cannot become a sponsor of a small federal beach nourishment program. The law certainly permits that. It can also create its own taxing district. But you have to make sure it is done in a well-engineered fashion. One of the dangers of a small group of folks acting is that they will do something that will adversely affect property owners adjacent to them. Obviously that is not their intention, but that could be one of the results.

The best thing people with resources can do is leverage their contacts. In any project, it is important to make sure that the business community—real estate agents, hoteliers, restaurateurs—gets involved, along with property owners and government officials. This is a great opportunity for people to use their resources. And many people who have financial resources also have political contacts. They need to make use of those contacts and speak up. Government responds to those who speak out and speak out effectively.

This federal program primarily benefits areas in Florida and the East Coast.

New Jersey and Florida took the lead in the federal program. Both states have dedicated significant moneys of their own to supply the non-federal funds, which they get from taking a portion of the funds derived from a tax on the transfer of property.

Beach nourishment does not succeed in the long term.

It is important for people to know that beach nourishment works. The most obvious example is Miami Beach. Not only was the beach devastated by erosion in the 1960s and early 1970s, but the community had slipped into clear economic decline. The beach nourishment program there brought the community back, and created an economic boom that is still going on. It is a project that has lasted, and created increased property values. Every time we go through a beach nourishment project, property values increase. And they increase not just for people who have the first row along the beach, they increase for the whole community by an equal proportion. Without beach nourishment, you will lose both the resources and the money it generates, and you will expose the property to severe damage.

Years of hard and expensive work can be undone by a single storm.

Beaches are definitely damaged by hurricanes. But what we view as being lost from a storm is not necessarily lost at all. A good portion of the sand that was driven out to sea will come back. In the recent hurricanes in Florida, we estimate that 65 percent of the sand that was lost will return to the beach in one year. Does that mean the other 35 percent is lost? We do not have the data yet. But a large part of what appears to be lost comes back naturally. The rest is going to have to be replaced.

We should regard investment in beach nourishment as similar to the maintenance investments we make in any kind of infrastructure. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars to repave roads; in this case it is an equally worthwhile investment. On average, for every dollar we spend to put sand on the beach, the federal government gets at least $5 back in storm-loss-reduction benefits. Ultimately, it is about prevention. I guarantee when they do the studies on these hurricanes in Florida, you will find that those communities that did beach nourishment will have fared better than those that did not.