There's a lot you can do with string

Locals Tackle Beach Erosion with Two Sticks and a String

Text and photos by Tracey C. O’Neill

Matunuck - Carrying the most rudimentary of tools, a group of coastal residents and environmentalists gathered at South Kingstown Town Beach, in the coastal village of Matunuck on Wednesday to learn the science of beach profiling.

Two sticks and a string reveal the changing coastal environment. Using only rudimentary tools, coastal geologists are able to plot the changing beach environment.

Armed with just “two sticks and a string,” the contingent of 15 set out to tackle one of the biggest issues facing coastal Rhode Islanders – the ebb and flow of the state’s eroding barrier beaches.

“The reason we can hold this kind of workshop is that the technique we use to actually monitor, to create these (profiles) is with a very simple technique,” said Bryan Oakley, University of Rhode Island graduate and Asst. Professor of Environmental Earth Sciences at Eastern Connecticut State University. “We don’t have anything that costs more than $30 to build these sticks. It literally is as we call it two sticks and a string.’ ”

Sponsored by the Coastal Resources Management Council in collaboration with the Rhode Island Geological Survey at URI, the beach gathering was intended to encourage volunteers to actively participate in monitoring changes and collecting data on the state’s barrier beaches.

Spearheading the training was Dr. Jon Boothroyd, State Geologist and Research Professor Emeritus at URI’s Rhode Island Geological Survey.

“Things are about to happen here,” said Boothroyd. “They are already happening.”

Pointing to South Kingstown Town Beach, where Boothroyd established a profile in 1996, he said,

“This is a highly erodible place. It’s eroding at the same rate that some of the beaches are eroding and even more. And we think, we don’t know yet, and we hope the SAMP will shed some light on it, that there’s wave refraction around the shallower water out here. That’s a focus here.”

“The CRMC asked us to start a profile here in 1996,” said Boothroyd. “Because it was perceived – they built this part (pavilion) in 1992. And they built the shore parallel boardwalk in 1994. Almost as soon as it was built, people started noticing that the scarp and the bluff were approaching the boardwalk pilings.”

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