March 7, 2008

Report Details

By the first of the year much of the sand accumulated over the summer had left the beach and shortly thereafter rock started moving in, a lot of it relatively small. The sand eventually was removed down to the underlaying mudstone some of which froze in January, then separated into inch or so thick sheets on thawing. For a while now the large amount of rock that came to the beach has moved towards the bluff and in some places is piled 5 feet high against the wall. This rock won't leave the beach until we have a heavy surf capable of moving it. Beach gradients: North end 10 feet in 40 yards due to the large amount of rock piled against the bluff. South end 6 feet in 40 yards. There were 2 places of significant bluff erosion near the middle of the mile. One was due to water coming down a creek bed washing out underneath the sandstone leading to its collapse. The other was failure to properly handle surface water runoff resulting in the bluff under the back yard of a house enlarging the cave in the sandstone under the back yard. This has been some time in forming. The owner doesn't live there and may not know what is happening. I told the builder about it but no change has occurred.