On August 31st I received an email from Dr.
Woodall with a link to an article about beach driving and soft sand in Volusia
County. Click here to view the article
After reading the article, I gave Volusia County Beach Patrol a call and spoke with Brian Dean, a beach patrol representative.
What makes soft sand on the beach?
• The tide comes up generally around the same tide line
• Wave height, small waves = less tide, bigger waves = more tide/erosion
• Currents erode/deposit sediment
• Storms pull sediment from sandbars and deposit it on the beach (Hurricane Cristobal)
• When sand has time to dry it becomes soft
• Driving churns the sand up (tractors, ATVs, etc.)
What can Volusia County do about soft sand?
• Scrape beach ramps
• Move traffic lanes
Volusia County is no longer allowed to rake the beach (with
a vehicle) because of seaweed (sargassum). This seaweed gets caught in the
raking process, which is not good, because this seaweed provides food/habitat
for many animals. It should be noted, raking/smoothing the sand in front of a
sea turtle nest is allowed. This makes things easier for the baby sea turtles
on their first journey to the sea.
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| This is similar to the old Volusia County setup. Goodbye seaweed! |
After the interview with Brian, I walked down to the local
driving beach to investigate. I came
across a patch of soft sand right away and witnessed several cars struggle
through the soft sand.
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| Notice the tide line in the foreground |
This patch of soft sand covered an area of about 20ft. x
10ft. and was about 1ft. deep, at the deepest point. Observing the rest of the
beach, I noticed a lot of soft sand.
 |
The same spot but up-close
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Here are a few more pictures from that day:
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More soft sand, here we go again!
|
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| The aftermath |
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| The location |
Overall, I gathered some useful information about beach
driving.
Great post! I like that you provided the link to your article--good thinking! Also a question--who said that raking the beach makes life easier for baby sea turtles venturing out for their first time? I'm just thinking here but--I would think that in the natural world, baby sea turtles have to make due with all sorts of environments and I would also wonder if the sargassum offers them a sort of protection from predators (?)
ReplyDeleteOther questions...is this soft sand problem seasonal? i.e., are tides/wave action generally higher in the winter than summer?
After completing your first post--what do you think your interest is leading you on this topic?
Did you use any kind of tools to measure the 20ft by 10ft and 1ft deep or did you estimate these numbers? If you estimated these measurements, what kind of tools would you need to get accurate numbers if you continue this research?
ReplyDelete