Keeping the ocean away is hard, especially when it just keeps getting closer. One good idea to let Mother Nature help – hence, as NHPR reports, efforts on the Seacoast to plant beach grass to help build up and maintain barriers.
In places like Seabrook, many homes have a dune in between them and the ocean. But many don’t.
Eberhardt and other scientists with the New Hampshire Coastal Adaptation Workgroup, like Dave Burdick, are trying to change that.
“If you’re at risk, you want to capture that sand. You don’t want it to blow away. You don’t want it to blow in the street and have DPW come and take the sand away. You want to be able to capture that sand, because you want to protect your homes.”
One problem: natural barriers don’t always stay put.
That’s what worries him. If he starts planting beach grass now, in a few years he could have a dune tall enough to block his view of the Atlantic, and he fears, reduce his home’s value.
Of course, being inundated by the ocean would also reduce its value …
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