There’s been quite a bit of interest and subsequent questions re: my previous post, “Sucking It Up.”: https://leebythesea.me/2018/07/28/sucking-it-up/ So here’s a bit more.

First, the Oystercatcher nesters right next to the pounding pile driver weren’t driven away by the noise.

The Oystercatche chick has grown to the size of a Nerf football

That is incredible, I couldn’t stay near this pumping of timber:

Second, this from, “Faye” who said, ” I love your blog posts and this one is no exception. Can you explain to me what the big tripod looking thing does? It goes down to the water and comes back, what is its purpose? She’s also wondering about all the equipment. She said, “It boggles the mind!” Boggles my mind too, “Faye.” and thank you for loving my blog posts. So now my girlfriend, Cheryl has company in loving my work.

Actually this whole project is a display of mind-boggling efficiency. I’m not alone in describing the work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in this project as…”awesome.” Nobody is leaning on shovel scratching their butt on this project. The Corps maintains an ahead of schedule process.

The Crab, from Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co.

Now, the “tripod looking thing” is called a Crab. It’s an all wheel drive hydraulic amphibious survey vehicle and it’s approximately 30’x30’x30′. I’m told by one worker that when it creeps into the sea that it is reminiscent of some monster in an old sci-fi movie.

The Crab surveys the seabed near the shore to determine the changes that occur in the breadth and slope as the dredged slurry is pumped ashore. Our Long Beach shore is being moved Southward, just a tad, 200 to 300 feet, giving the beach a broader storm protecting surface.

The dredge is from Great Lakes Dredge and Dock company, (GLDD) a magnificent company that has been around since 1890. GLDD does national and international coastal protection, restoration dredging, deepening ports, protecting shorelines, creating barrier islands and land reclamations. Whew!

The particular dredge off our Long Beach shore is the Illinois:

The dredge, Illinois

The Illinois has been pumping slurry through 30″ diameter pipe that is over 20,000 feet long. The pressure at the dredge to push the slurry is anywhere from 150 to 200 psi. The slurry is, on average, seven parts water, one part sand. It takes the slurry 16 minutes to get from the dredge to where it’s pumped down onto the current site at the West End of Long Beach.

The sand slurry at the end of its 16 minute trip from the ocean floor, being pumped down last week

The seas were too high earlier in the week to dredge so work was halted. When it started again the dredge broke down. It is now in the yards for repair and should be back by week’s end.

Bulldozers await the return of pumping slurry

I’m told the gray sand from the seabed turns white in anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Note the gray color of dredged sand of the lifeguard mound. You’ll find the mound right under the blond lifeguard you’re looking at.

A lifeguard stands atop the mound of sea bed sand

The beaches of the West End of Long Beach are open except for where the dredge slurry is being deposited. Today the beach was very lightly populated but access to the shore was accommodated by a sand ramp passing over the dredge pipe.

Some of you might have focus to look under the crossing bather to view the access mound

The gray sand I saw deposited looked fine, no discernible debris was evident.

There is minimal screening of the slurry at the dredge to remove some of the shells etc. And although it is said that some in America’s history, “sleep with the fishes,” no parts of Jimmy Hoffa have turned up…so far.

So, the white strip of band-aid repair is continuing, here and around our globe, but little is being done to stop the climate change and sea rise.

To me, America’s position that climate change is a hoax is being shown to be a pants-on fire-lie, as evidenced by our West-on-fire homeland.

Perhaps one day the rising sea will prevent all fires…many, many miles within America’s shores.

Be well,

Leebythesea