The Beach

The beach at Tybee Island needs to be restored from time to time. The technical term is beach renourishment. The 10 million dollar contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company of Oak Brook, Illinois. Over the course of the next four months approximately 1.3 million cubic yards of sand will be added to three miles of the beach front. The area being renourished is from the North Beach near old Fort Screven to 18th Street south of the fishing peer. The work is being done to protect the community from waves generated by passing storms. The additional benefit is the enhancement of the public beach. The cost is divided between the federal, state and local governments. The federal share is 60.5% with 39.5% divided between the state and local government. Tybee Island estimates its share will be about 10% of the total cost. The beach restoration project began in 1974 with a 50 year projected project life. The last restoration took place in 2008. The project will end in 2024 when reevaluation and hopefully a new project will be put in place and funded.

How is this done? The project uses a dredge to pull up beach quality sand from a site about a mile off shore. The sand is pumped thorough a submerged steel pipeline to shore where workers using large construction equipment place and smooth the sand.

 This is the only photograph in the series that is not mine. This picture is from the 2008 beach restoration. I had to use a photo off the internet because they won't let me get this close.

This is the current project. This Tybee resident is glad to look out and see an Illinois company doing the work and using Caterpillar equipment made in Illinois to do the work.

The tower in the center of the picture is used to measure the depth of the sand added to the beach.

This is the incoming pipeline and the spray in the center of the picture is the sand being ejected onto the beach.

This is the pipeline that runs about a half mile along the beach at this time. It is about 18" in diameter and standing taking this picture I could hear the sand and water moving through.

This is where the pipeline turns and heads into the Atlantic Ocean. The dredge can be seen in the background about a mile off shore.

Aside from the machinery the beach was quiet. A few curious folks like me coming down to see what all the activity was about.