Correspondence
Living Shorelines Give Us the Best of Both Worlds
Dear Bay Weekly:
While I certainly appreciate the amount of work that the Holland Point community and Woody Young had to put into preserving their eroding shoreline, I think that Bonnie Lefkowitz leaves readers [Between a Rock and a Hard Place: May 31] with the impression that there is an inherent tension between doing the right thing by the Bay and protecting private property.
A number of local communities with several miles of fetch across the Bay, including Bay Ridge, Beverly-Triton Beach and most recently, my community, Franklin Manor, have installed large living shoreline projects in high energy systems. The Bay Ridge and Beverly-Triton Beach projects have been in place and have performed well for years. Our project was just finished this spring, but went underwater three times during the winter and was no worse for the wear.
Hardening our Bay-frontage, our rivers and, in some cases, even our creeks, has severely restricted the amount of inter-tidal habitat available for organisms like horseshoe crabs, terrapins, various fish species and shorebirds. We know enough now and have the engineering capacity to implement solutions that give us the best of both worlds, that when that time comes to remove a failing bulkhead, we should really be looking at dynamic, living solutions, rather than just swapping one form of armoring for another.
There will be a living shoreline discussion at the London Town Community Hall, Sunday, June 13, from 1 to 5pm for those wanting to learn more.
–Erik Michelsen: Chair, Shoreline Protection Committee,