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I was wondering about this after a recent beach trip I took. I won't name where I was, but I noticed a considerable improvement in sand quality on the beaches i

I was wondering about this after a recent beach trip I took. I won't name where I was, but I noticed a considerable improvement in sand quality on the beaches in front of the nice hotels. It was a quality difference that went beyond normal beach cleanup. Perhaps the sand was sourced locally, and beach improvement surely pales in volume to construction use of sand, but still it was the first time I'd wondered about sand mining/theft.

throwup238 3y ago
Regions that depend on tourism spend a lot of money on their beach sand. Even San Diego, CA where tourism is probably not even top 10 of industries by revenue, they replenish the sand that gets eroded every few decades. The process just started on the northern beaches: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/long-awaited-sand-replenishment-project-begins-in-solana-beach/3410437/ https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/long-awaited-sand-rep... They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite something to watch.
- latchkey 3y ago
  Due to a recent storm in San Diego, large swaths of Mission/Pacific Beach houses and the boardwalk were left with tons of sand all over them. The city scoops up the sand off the boardwalk and loads it into trucks which take it a few miles away to Fiesta Island. Why? Apparently it is contaminated badly enough by whatever is on the boardwalk, that they don't want to just push it back onto the beach (and back into the water).
- bombcar 3y ago
  It's $14 billion a year for San Diego County, that's not chicken feed.
- everybodyknows 3y ago
  > They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite something to watch. Not shipped in, pumped in: The source is less than a mile offshore, overlying a reef that supported lots of marine life, much of which is now being picked over by seagulls. The hope is that friction and inertia will prevail for a few years against wave action and gravity. But, the project has its nose in the trough provided by the national and state taxpayers, and local politicians go along. > tourism spend a lot of money on their beach sand Not a factor in Solana Beach, the Chamber of Commerce is utterly supine on public policy issues. Rather, it's the owners of houses on the bluff top, where prices start in the high 7 digits, who drive beach policy: they all have, or want to construct, concrete armored seawalls. Like these: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9963108,-117.276439,3a,75y,80.67h,90.47t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNHb4fVQeGVmAvm97Xc2HXohoLJsG0du-6arOIc!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNHb4fVQeGVmAvm97Xc2HXohoLJsG0du-6arOIc%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya353.3041-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9963108,-117.276439,3a,75y,8... With an effectively unlimited legal budget to invent ways around the law and litigate against the Coastal Commission, and willingness to mob City Council meetings, incumbents keep their mouths shut. Local resistance has collapsed down to a few die-hards at environmentalist groups, e.g. https://sandiego.surfrider.org https://sandiego.surfrider.org, fighting what amounts to a retreating action.
  - bboygravity 3y ago
    Error error, cannot compute (I'm Dutch).
  - pests 3y ago
    What are the negatives to the concrete seawalls?
bmelton 3y ago
Sargassum Seaweed is usually what washes up to shores and makes beaches ugly. Resorts in the Mexico and Caribbean regions get a lot of it ashore, but there are now industries that use the seaweed as a building material. Sargablocks[1] are one of the companies that are turning sargassum into cheap building materials [1] - https://fortomorrow.org/explore-solutions/sargablock https://fortomorrow.org/explore-solutions/sargablock
demondemidi 3y ago
Playa del Carmen replenishes its beaches every few years. If you go at the wrong time, the beaches are like 7 meters wide, come back six months later and they are 30 meters wide.

throwup238 3y ago

Regions that depend on tourism spend a lot of money on their beach sand. Even San Diego, CA where tourism is probably not even top 10 of industries by revenue, they replenish the sand that gets eroded every few decades. The process just started on the northern beaches: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/long-awaited-sand-replenishment-project-begins-in-solana-beach/3410437/ https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/long-awaited-sand-rep... They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite something to watch.

latchkey 3y ago
Due to a recent storm in San Diego, large swaths of Mission/Pacific Beach houses and the boardwalk were left with tons of sand all over them. The city scoops up the sand off the boardwalk and loads it into trucks which take it a few miles away to Fiesta Island. Why? Apparently it is contaminated badly enough by whatever is on the boardwalk, that they don't want to just push it back onto the beach (and back into the water).
bombcar 3y ago
It's $14 billion a year for San Diego County, that's not chicken feed.
everybodyknows 3y ago
> They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite something to watch. Not shipped in, pumped in: The source is less than a mile offshore, overlying a reef that supported lots of marine life, much of which is now being picked over by seagulls. The hope is that friction and inertia will prevail for a few years against wave action and gravity. But, the project has its nose in the trough provided by the national and state taxpayers, and local politicians go along. > tourism spend a lot of money on their beach sand Not a factor in Solana Beach, the Chamber of Commerce is utterly supine on public policy issues. Rather, it's the owners of houses on the bluff top, where prices start in the high 7 digits, who drive beach policy: they all have, or want to construct, concrete armored seawalls. Like these: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9963108,-117.276439,3a,75y,80.67h,90.47t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNHb4fVQeGVmAvm97Xc2HXohoLJsG0du-6arOIc!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNHb4fVQeGVmAvm97Xc2HXohoLJsG0du-6arOIc%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya353.3041-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9963108,-117.276439,3a,75y,8... With an effectively unlimited legal budget to invent ways around the law and litigate against the Coastal Commission, and willingness to mob City Council meetings, incumbents keep their mouths shut. Local resistance has collapsed down to a few die-hards at environmentalist groups, e.g. https://sandiego.surfrider.org https://sandiego.surfrider.org, fighting what amounts to a retreating action.
- bboygravity 3y ago
  Error error, cannot compute (I'm Dutch).
- pests 3y ago
  What are the negatives to the concrete seawalls?

bmelton 3y ago

Sargassum Seaweed is usually what washes up to shores and makes beaches ugly. Resorts in the Mexico and Caribbean regions get a lot of it ashore, but there are now industries that use the seaweed as a building material. Sargablocks[1] are one of the companies that are turning sargassum into cheap building materials [1] - https://fortomorrow.org/explore-solutions/sargablock https://fortomorrow.org/explore-solutions/sargablock

demondemidi 3y ago

Playa del Carmen replenishes its beaches every few years. If you go at the wrong time, the beaches are like 7 meters wide, come back six months later and they are 30 meters wide.