Major storms within the last year swept large swaths of beach and sand dunes away from some of Maine’s coastline.
And newly compiled data show just how bad the erosion was.
“With this one-two-three punch that we had in December and then the two storms in January, if you think about it, you had the beach that got eroded and then you had this dune area, that got eroded in the second storm where let’s say half the dune was lost here. Then in the third storm, the January 13 storm, that second half of the dune was lost,” Maine Geological Survey Marine Geologist Peter Slovinsky said.
The Maine Geological Survey noted several locations where dunes were heavily eroded.
“We did see some substantial erosion from these storms, up to and over 100 feet of dunes were lost in some areas like Popham Beach. Fifty feet of dunes were lost in Wells, 50 feet of dune in Goose Rocks Beach, over 50 feet at Reid State Park and those are pretty high numbers,” Slovinsky said.
One of the most significant ways the Maine Geological Survey helped restore the dunes this past year was by taking old Christmas trees and laying them along the beach.
“The idea is that the trees when they are oriented in a certain way will trap the sand and will help grow the dunes back up. We were able to regrow about 130 feet of dune that were eroded along sections of Popham Beach this past summer,” Slovinsky said.
The trees were put out starting in March in several different phases, which over time caught sand and helped regrow the dunes and dune grass.
Slovinsky says on average, the dunes take about two seasons to fully recover.
The Maine Geological Survey also conducted a survey of 42 beaches from Kittery to Bristol that showed major shifts in Maine’s coastline. In some cases, Maine’s monitored dunes receded an average of 26 feet, or up to 124 feet on Popham Beach.
Those data are now displayed in an online beach mapping viewer that shows dune changes over time, allowing users to search beach by beach.
