Shore Protection Guidelines Updated

This summer, the Detroit District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asked UW Sea Grant to help determine the content of a new booklet about shore protection for coastal property owners. 

The Corps' “Help Yourself” booklet, written in the late 1960s, has been rendered obsolete by changing attitudes and experience among coastal engineers and governments. The principal message of the new booklet will be to build where flooding and erosion will not threaten new coastal construction. 

One common hazard not recognized in the 1960s is lakebed erosion, which undermines most types of shore protection structures. Many structures built of armor stone deteriorate rapidly because of freeze-thaw action within hairline cracks and rock joints. Building shore protection structures is suggested only as a last resort. 

UW Sea Grant Advisory Services Coastal Engineering Specialist Phil Keillor has been leading the work to determine content, with the help of graduate student Hayet Sellami and a review group of 21 people drawn from the corps and from agencies in every Great Lakes state and Ontario, plus a few consulting engineers and a shore property owner. A framework report of recommended content was provided to the corps at the end of September.

Last updated 25 October 2000 by Karl
All contents copyright 2000 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute

http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/Communications/news/LDstories/2000/ShoreGuidelines.html