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M17 Beach Renourishment · Two Tools, No Clue

• Jeidan and Anna: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Two Tools No Clue Podcast. I'm Anna. And I'm Jaden. And this is Junior for those watching on YouTube. For those not watching on YouTube, he's my childhood cat. He's 15 and he's orange and white. And he's in my lap. He's currently curled up like the cutest little kitty. We'll see how long he stays here for. Yeah, we'll see how long he stays. He seems pretty content right now. But on today's mini sode. We're going to be doing a beach renourishment investigation. Ooh. Because where does all that sand come from? you found out? Yes, I couldn't get over it. I'm so excited about learning about sand today. Like more excited than I should be, I feel like. It's actually pretty cool. Don't tell me they make it in a lab. No. Just like little bits of plastic. No, they don't. It's actually really cool. You're I think you're gonna be somewhat impressed. so as you know, last episode I freaked out about coastal erosion and spiraled out about where the sand comes from in the process of beach restoration called beach renourishment. Is it New Hampshire? No. Can you imagine? I briefly right. We were right all along. Stop taking our sand. That's not right. I briefly explained what the process was in the last episode, but for those of you who haven't listened yet, here it is defined by the US National Park Service. Beach nourishment is the process of placing additional sediment on a beach or in the near shore. A wider and higher beach can provide storm protection for coastal structures, create habitat, and enhance the beach for recreation. so when I was reading about coastal erosion, the process of beach renourishment kept coming up, and I briefly joked about where does the sand even come from? And today that is what we will be investigating. It doesn't come from the sand pits of New Hampshire though. I'm telling you guys that. I'm so sorry. I was convinced that it was coming from the sand pits of New Hampshire. And there are so many and I still need to know what we do with it all because like is it actually all just for winter? Construction maybe. Maybe. Why do you need sand? I don't know. Not for the beaches. Playgrounds? Which I feel better about because I don't think that sand is the sand on the beach is way different than Yeah. The sand you're digging up out of a mountain. Exactly, yeah. but yeah, so that's for another day. We still don't know what we do with it all, but I Now know that it's not quite the case, but sometimes they do still have to use inland sand. But it's vetted out in a very lengthy process. It has to be similar. So maybe that it does get a little labby up in there. But it's often not it often doesn't come from inland sand is what they call it. Inland ew It's not it's inferior. the sands of the ocean. Where does it come from then? Well, we're about to find out. I watched so many videos of this happening by the way and it was very satisfying and I'm very jealous of all the people that do live on these coastlines for a lot of reasons. But now Junior's getting grumpy. Junior I don't think he likes this position anymore. Is it hurting your back? You wanna get down? What's up, bubba He's like, Where the hell am I? I was petting his butt too. Yeah. Stevie agrees with that. Mama, leave our butts alone. So sand for beach renourishment is typically resourced through a process called dredging. And it sounds horrible. I've heard of that before. And it does sound horrible. But it's so cool. Dredging. Dredging. Dredging the sand. So you are probably wondering what the heck is that? Because I instantly was like, What yeah, what are you saying to me right now? Dredging? When I think of dredging, I think of like the oil. Yeah. What is that called? That's something similar. Fracking. Fracking. It's terrible. All terrible. That's what it sounds like to me. Are you fracking kidding me? That's all I ever think of. Anyway. so back at it again to help me define things is the US National Park Service. It is the removal of materials, including sand, silt, gravel, and other subaqueous Materials from waterways. It is often used to keep waterways and ports navigable for both recreational and commercial users. Dredging armored inlets is an unending task by removing sediment from the naturally accreting area, new sediment transported into the waterway will fill its space again. So it's kind of just an ongoing process. I'm confused. So basically, when Boats come in to like ports and stuff like that. They move around a lot of sand and sediment. Okay. And it naturally moves into places where it becomes difficult for them to navigate. For boats to able to actually move, like it needs to be moved back around. So they created this thing called dredging. And that's what it originally was made for. And it's like, I'm gonna show you some videos, don't worry. Or not videos, pictures. It's really freaking cool. Fracking cool. Yeah. So historically, most dredged material was placed offshore as the most cost effective option, removing it entirely from the active sediment system and contributing to long-term shoreline erosion. And I was like, okay, so first of all, they made this genius concept to help waterway transportation, right? Yeah. And then the scientists were like, hello. Where you're moving this is making more erosion. Like this is not helpful in the long term scheme of things. So then they're like, Well, we still need to do this or we're not gonna be able to get to the ports, right? So they figured it out that instead of moving the sand out of its ecosystem, I guess is what we're calling it, they put it back on the shoreline. okay. So that the erosion is gonna happen, but they've already put something there for it's like recycled. Yeah. And I just think it's cool that for once in all of human history pretty much. That they weren't like, well, this just needs to happen anyway. They actually figured it out to be like, well actually if we put it over here, this works better. Because actually helps the cause. So I don't know. Imagine that. I thought that part was pretty cool. So how does the dredging actually work? Like is it a machine? Yes. So here is a diagram for a visual of the process typically done from a boat that's called a dredge. okay. So like it's just a type of boat. It's called a dredge. So if you everyone anyone's ever like, there's a dredge out there, like they are there's a dredge out basically. So this the first step is the operator goes out to the area where the sand needs to be like removed from. Okay. Mm-hmm. And they lower a thing called a boom. And it's basically like this huge thing that goes to the bottom of the ocean of the area. Yeah. I'll show it to you. There's the picture right there. It looks like a huge ass little shovel. Yes. a h a little shovel with huge ass handle it it basically is. It's like a till boat. It's like a till slash vacuum. Okay. Okay. So a rotating cutter bar then uses the teeth to loosen the settled material as the submersible pump removes the sediment from the bottom of the waterway. It sucks it up. The silt and debris are transported away for final processing. But sometimes it doesn't go anywhere. Sometimes it lo they literally just it just shoots out of it. What? It's ins I'm literally I'm like, I want that job. Like what am I doing here? Yep. What the hell? Yep. Somehow it's done. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, like I said, I think it is really cool that they figured out that the process of dredging was causing long term erosion and then they were like, gotta fix that, and they did figure it out. Why was it causing erosion? Because they were taking the sand away fully. They weren't just they weren't actually moving it in the same area, they were removing it from that area. So was less sand to be moved around. Because what were they doing with it? Just taking it out offshore, dumping it in the ocean. People are so dumb. I mean, they thought it was smart at first. And it wasn't working. They thought so because it was having they were having to move it. So I think they literally were like, We just need to put it out to sea. We didn't We just need to eject it into space. Yeah, well guess what? Then we have huge ass space trash asteroids. Like we're all gonna die from a trash falling to Earth. No big deal. And where did that come from? It's the same thing in my mind. my god. So okay, this one is pretty impressive. So like I was saying, sometimes it literally just shoots out of the dredge and that usually goes to like the near shores, right? So it's not going being like shot onto a beach that dramatically. Cause it literally like goes up. It sh reminds me of snow guns. Wow. Just like shooting sand into the eastern. Snowblowers. Yeah. I'll show you that picture. But then there's other ways that they do it where they connect like pipelines to it. And it ends up on shore. And that's what this picture is. So I got this picture from the article about dredging on National Park Service. And the picture shows all the sediment they pulled from the waterway for the barrier island restoration by placing sediment into the Camille Cut between East and West Ship Islands. that's on the Gulf Islands, between Florida and Mississippi. And it's basically a pipe and it looks like it's just depositing sludge. But that's sand, it's wet sand. Coming from the dredges offshore. That's wild. Yeah. But if they didn't do that, that cut would just get wider. And that's when like Is that pipe stationary? They move them. But they're very large. It's temporary, but it's solid still. It's like an actual pipe pipe. But they do move them around. I watched some videos of one of the restorations that I'm gonna show you in a l in a little bit. And just them hauling all that stuff alone like down that whole coastline was impressive. 'Cause it was a lot of coastline. and just like them having to move it all, I'm like, Wow. Good for you. And so okay, here is a picture of the sediment just literally shooting out of the boat to a coastline to assist with erosion. This is from the Trelliborg website and it's an example of how it's relocated from the waterway straight to the coastline. Trelloborg is a company that makes these boats and equipment. wow. It's a real deal. Yeah. Look at this. my god. Wow. Like if you came up on that, if you were on vacation, like you'd be alarmed. You'd be like, is that boat okay? for the listeners, it looks like this boat is just projectile shitting straight onto this little island. Yeah, you're right. This huge ass boat. In the pi in the picture, it the boat looks bigger than the island that it's putting sand on. Yeah. Really ridiculous picture. I love it. So I also have a YouTube video in the show notes for anyone interested in seeing a clip from the Myrtle Beach Renourishment Project. This project was a part of a larger project called the Grand Strand Renourishment Project, and that's the one I was talking about. Like they had to haul all this equipment down a very large coastline. all the way from North Myrtle Beach all the way down or up to Garden City near New Jersey. I think that's where that is. I just wanted to highlight this effort because it was recently finished. The project was led by the US Army Corps of Engineers in Charleston District. it partnered with local communities including North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and Garden City. And this project cost seventy two million dollars. And again was federally funded. So that was like what'd you say in the last episode? A hundred and fifty million that the government shells out. That's like half of it. Yeah. Right there. They're like, Well, we did this one big project. I mean, it was pretty intense. so it placed two million cubic yards of sand across twenty six miles of shoreline. Wow. So here is a picture of them beginning to dump sand from the dredges in the ocean through the huge pipes again. Doesn't look as intense, but in this picture you can actually see in the background the boat, the dredge. And you can see the the line going out to the ocean. And I thought that was pretty cool. It's just dumping sand. So that pipe is connected to the boat that's all the way out there? Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. There's a huge pipeline that's just And are there people on the other end like smoothing it out and Yes. Okay. You will see that next. So here is a picture of them moving the sand on the beach while it's being sprayed in from the ocean to drag. Yep. This picture was taken from the Myrtle Beach website I quoted earlier about the renourishment operation. Okay. In my mind it was like people with shovels. nononono This is much different. for listeners, it's a truck. Yeah, sanddozer. It's a sanddozer just plowing over a bunch of sand. And this is the impressive one. I think you'll like this one. So the next picture is from the beach pro-team blog. It shows the sand being shaped on the beach with the sand dozers. In the background you see the sand being sprayed onto the beach. It creates a channel of water because it's being siphoned from the ocean. So the dozers are moving the sand to build a protective barrier for the new sand being sprayed in so it doesn't just get washed back away. I mean that's one of the first things that they'll do when they start moving the actual sand on on the beach. Like it's really impressive. wow. very organized. Yeah, so the sand dozers are in are in between the ocean line, like the low tide, and basically like they're they're creating a mini dune because right right behind that is like a channel of water that's being sprayed in with all the like sediment from the dredge. And if they don't do that, it's just all for naught. Like they would get washed away. Interesting. Yeah. So they have to be very strategic about that. Yes. So like that's kind of step one. Step two. Step one is getting the sand. but yeah, I just thought that was pretty sweet. So if people are wondering why the hell did the US government give them $72 million, not your coastline. Yeah. The American way. Why didn't I get it? beach erosion caused by hurricanes Ian and in 2022 and Debbie in 2024 prompted a post-storm damage assessment, which concluded the beach renourishment was needed to maintain the coastline's integrity. And protect the Grand Strand's infrastructures, homes, and businesses. It continued that it quote, provides critical storm surge and erosion protection by building and widening the beach. Renourishment creates a natural barrier that observes the impact of hurricane-driven waves and storm surge. A healthy beach and dune system help helps keep floodwaters from reaching homes, businesses, and vital infrastructure like roads and utilities. In past storms, wider beaches have significantly reduced property damage, proving that renourishment is one of the most effective forms of hurricane protection. could you imagine what might have occurred during that storm if some of those projects hadn't happened? The nor'easter that we just had would have most likely taken out a lot more land. On the Myrtle Beach website, it stated that beach nourishment was necessary every 10 years. And the last time the area had any was in 2019. So like not quite a decade, but the storms for the past few years caused coastal erosion obviously in need of repair. Right. and so like I just think of all those pictures that we were looking at in last episode, and it's just like that could have been a lot worse. Yeah. those projects I just want you guys to know. One of them did finish right before in August. and I And it held up? No, it it all got oh But that's the purpose of it. That's the purpose of it. If that wasn't there, those would it would have been homes instead. Gotcha. You know what I mean? Because the beach wouldn't have been widened out. Like they widen out the beach so that when the waves do come in, it's just beach that's getting washed out, not the homes behind it, you know? Yeah. so like, yeah, all those dunes got taken out, but what if those dunes hadn't been there to begin with? So I just I don't know. Just very like I like, wow, okay, this makes sense why they do that. But also seventy six million dollars, yeah, just saved a bunch of people, but it just got complete in this past year and then that nor'easter was pretty damaging. So I don't know. It's kinda Kinda shitty, but I don't think so at the same time. So Although it is possible. on the coastlines of New Hampshire. That somewhere on some beach there might be sand pit sand. My investigation did find really? That it's just not the case all around. So I thought you were gonna say that. Yeah, I thought I was really excited. I thought you were gonna say that you found one. It is still more likely the process started in the ocean and landed back on the beaches. That makes way more sense. I know. I honestly feel really good about the investigation that I did. And I was like not looking forward to it. I was like, Anna said no more dooms day, like really gotta stay away from it. And then I was like, this is actually really cool. And I really, really recommend that you guys watch that video. The Army Corps video is really impressive. This lady is just you can tell she's just stoked, right? And in the background, there's just all the sand everywhere. Just like crazy stuff is happening behind her. And you're like, wow, you have a serious job. Like the things that you just don't know that people do. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. And the the project was incredible and definitely saved lives. Like you can a hundred percent say with certainty. They saved homes, they saved lives just from moving all that sand around. Yeah. who would think? I don't know. And we just full-time job. Yeah, it it is. On and on and on and on. You know, like job security to the highest degree. But I bet they see some crazy stuff. yeah. Cause like just moving those pipes alone. Like, my God. I I complained about being tired at the end of my day. I would be like Anna just Everyone leave me alone. Yeah. Like you don't know what I did today in the Can you imagine the shit that they dig up in the sand too? Yeah. Like all the trash. So something cool that I learned about this is the Myrtle Beach page, they try to make it light and make it fun, right? 'Cause they're like frequently asked questions Is my beach day gonna be ruined because of this? Because of this vital project. Just beachgoers being like they're not allowed. It's dangerous. It's so dangerous. Like they close down sections of the beach. Like you are just not allowed. Like even being in the ocean is dangerous. they have federal regulations for like sea turtles. So if a sea turtle comes into the dredging area, they have to stop. Good. There's environmentalists out on the dredges. That's amazing. They have to stop production completely. my goodness. Until the turtle is relocated out of the area so that it's not vacuumed into the system. If you yeah, what about fish and shit? I don't think they care as much as about the fish because they're not like How are they not just like throwing fish onto the beach? They might be. No, it's it's it's a it's they can't fit in. But like the turtles, they get vacuumed in somehow. I don't know. And so if your project ends up taking the lives of more than ten is the cap. Wow. You get shut down, stopped. And there was one in the Outer Banks that just happened right after that big storm. It finished in like October third. They actually had to finish production early because that's what was happening. Because with like the storms and stuff, like there was just a lot more sea turtles in the area and they got to ten and they were they were like that's all the sand you can take from this area. Wow. I thought that was really ten. Yeah. That's a low number. I was like, good for you. And it's obviously not them. Like it's a regulation. And some third party being like, Absolutely not. Yeah. Do not but the fact that I don't know. It's in this day and age. Yeah. Yeah. Like It's hard for people to take shit seriously anymore because there are rules set up and our fucking president is just saying, Fuck you to those rules and nobody's doing anything about it. And so what's it to these people who are making money off of this to say, we killed ten. Who who cares? Let's just keep going. I thought I thought it was really cool. I got sidetracked by that. What I actually wanted to tell you, because I remember you saying like I bet they dig up weird stuff. One of the things that the Myrtle Beach site said was it's actually a really cool discovery time because the sediment that's being pulled up, you'll find like shark teeth and like all this stuff because it's coming from the ocean beds. Yeah. So it's not the low it's not it's local sand, but not sand that you would ever have in your reach until they do these projects and it's pulled from the the ocean floor. So you actually find a lot of cool stuff. People actually they're like, Yeah, come see it. Like right after, you're gonna love the things that you find. Like it'll be really educational for you and your family. Definitely they always also state that it's usually not as fine it gets worn down as the tides come in and out. okay. so like you will find like more fossily things like shark teeth and just whatever you see in the ocean, like shells and stuff like that. So I don't know, I thought that was really cool. That was really cool. Something that you don't think about. Yeah. They probably find gross things too. So it's like after they comb out the beach and are done, they're like, Come look at the at what you can find in the sand type thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That was pretty sweet. Just like raining on them. And they're like, Look out for shark teeth. Bring an umbrella. You can go watch, but you can't be like right there. it's definitely like you're far away. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure it's still a sight to see. I couldn't imagine being in those houses behind. yeah, getting to sit on your porch and just watch that shit. Yeah, it locked me out, but I was done I think anyway. Okay, on to the farmer's almanac. And I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret. Usually I prepare and write down what the farmer's almanac says on one piece of paper because I use two different pages and I don't wanna have to flip back and forth, but I forgot to do that today, so bear with me as I have to flip back and forth. Episode one vibes. Yeah, literally. Like, what does this say? So today Is October 15th. The moon runs low today. And see when I prepare ahead of time, I can look up what that means, but I didn't, so I don't know what that means. Junior doesn't agree with that. It's low. Sugar pine cone measuring 22.9 inches set record in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 2002. That is a big pine cone. That's almost two feet. Imagine getting hit in the head with that thing. You can be out. my god, the squirrels throw that one at you. wow, took him out. And today is the best day. To straighten your hair. Go camping. would be a nice day to go camping. Yeah, it would be a nice day for camping. A little rainy, but I like fall camping better than summer camping. Prune to encourage growth. And that's all. Wow. So get your hair did and go prune something, y'all. While you're camping. Yeah, while you're camping. Get it all done today. Get it here. Get it now. Junior needs to be let out. He's very upset. He got grumpy after I pet his butt. Yeah. I was just mindlessly Playing with his hair and he did not like it. He's been told the tales from Stevie. Don't you let her scratch your butt. Stevie gets mats in her butt and I can't help myself when they're all tufty and just ready to be plucked out. She lets me scratch her butt. She loves it. But if Anna looks at her butt, she's like, get away from me. Satan! I've I've scarred her for life. Yeah. Anyway, if you want to be scarred for life, you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok @TwoToolsNoCluePodcast. Or you can subscribe to our Patreon at Patreon.com/twotoolsnoclue. Or you can email us. I checked it, by the way. For the first time ever. And guess what? There wasn't a No one emailed me, so Whatever. But you can email me if you want at twotoolsnocluepodcast@gmail.com. I'm really nice, I swear. Never trust a person who says they're a nice person. You're so rude. Okay. Well We love you guys. Yeah, we do love you guys. Thanks for listening. Always and forever. Who's here to say goodbye? Junior. He's like, let me start it, Mr. Junior. Junior, you got any final thoughts, bud? He said, Don't touch my butt. He's so cute. I'm glad you were able to come on to our little minisode today, Junior. You did a great job, even though you were just yelling. the door for the last two minutes. Well, Junior says bye and thanks for hanging out with us all this week. We'll see ya next week, everybody. Bye bye. Bye bye.