Hawaii bill to restore Waikiki Beach

Despite being one of Hawaii’s most iconic beaches, many visitors don’t know Waikiki Beach is actually an engineered beach that has been filled with imported sand. Waikiki has been facing erosion problems for years, and Hawaii lawmakers are pushing a bill to restore it…again. The state estimates that approximately 300,000 cubic yards of sand have been imported to Waikiki beaches over the past 75 years, often mined from other beaches in the state.

Is there enough sand to go around?

The sand we spread our towels on in visits to the Delaware beach towns was once at the bottom of the sea, before engineers pumped it onto the shoreline in a wave of beach replenishment projects.

Fairhope continues to fight beach erosion, AL

After a major beach replenishment effort in 2014, the city of Fairhope continues to fight erosion problems. The beach near the Pier Street boat ramp is losing about 10 percent of its sand each year. For the second year in a row, tons of sand have been lost at the public beach south of Pier Street. It’s an ongoing battle with Mother Nature.

Coastal erosion needs our attention

65 acres of Massachusetts coastline is carried away every year by raging storms and rising seas. That’s not a problem unless we build a house on the beach. Today, 40 percent of the commonwealth’s 1,500-mile shoreline is residentially occupied.

Beach work: The billion-dollar question for New Jersey

Restoring eroded beaches was a billion-dollar problem in New Jersey even before Sandy. Towns have added sand to beaches for generations, yet sand drifts. So if a town manages to keep a beach in place on one block, chances are the beach on another block will erode twice as quickly.

Save beach from renourishment

If we really value our beach and what it means to our economy, we should do more to protect it. With so-called beach renourishment (pumping offshore sand onto beach for protection) and the current Coastal Construction Line (development setback line), we are just toying with protection.

Economy Winner, Environment Loser in Renourishment

“One thing that locks you into renourishment is to continue beach construction and development as usual,” Young says as he stares at the five yellow CAT machines “The long-range or long-term solution is to have greater setbacks and to allow the beach to renourish itself naturally.”

Could We Run Out of Sand for Eroded Beaches?

With king tides, persistent winds and large waves from Tropical Storm Erika and Hurricane Joaquin making erosion particularly bad this year, the demand for sand is high – but is it possible we could run out?