Texas has no rocky shores. At Sargent beach and some other places, erosion has taken away much of the sand and brought the Gulf closer to the Intracoastal Waterway. The waves here are not crashing on some rockbound coast, but on the dense “gumbo” dark clay that is foundation to the salt marshes that are just inland from much of our shore. There was a grass fire some miles upwind that brought some smoke into the picture. Captions and Photo source: ©© Patrick Feller
Excerpts;
Beach erosion in Texas, as in numerous other U.S. locations, is a huge problem. Studies show that about 64 percent of the Texas coast is eroding at an average rate of 6 feet per year, but some areas are losing more than 25 feet per year. On average, the Texas coast is losing about 2.3 feet a year to erosion.
“We know Hurricane Ike removed 100 million cubic yards of sand,” Tim Dellapenna, associate professor of marine sciences who has studied Texas beaches for years points out, “and right now, sand is selling for about $25 per cubic yard. That’s $2.5 billion in lost sand alone,” he explains…
