Like St. Joseph City Commissioners, the Berrien County Board of Commissioners is thinking about how to better protect the Lake Michigan shoreline around the city of St. Joseph.
The county board on Thursday heard from Edgewater President Greg Wykamp about a grant-funded shoreline softening study that’s been conducted to consider how to maintain beaches and prevent erosion. Wykamp said the traditional way that the beaches have been maintained is through replenishment — that is, pumping sand that’s been dredged out of the harbor to the beach. He said it’s especially necessary south of the St. Joseph Piers because of how sand naturally moves out in the lake.
“As the flow and the currents move down, the sand gets drawn off the shoreline and it creates the sort of flow,” Wykamp said. “And it will continue south until it hits an obstacle like a navigational pier. And that’s why you can see on the north side, we always have — if you look at Google sometime — you’ll always see that the beach is bigger on the north side of the river, the navigation structure is on the south side.”
Wykamp said that’s why Lions Park Beach often needs more attention than Silver Beach. There’s still enough sand moving around the piers to naturally replenish Silver Beach, but it sort of peters out before reaching Lions Park.
Wykamp is proposing the construction of a series of breakwaters to catch and hold sand.
“You’re used to seeing big, long, continuous breakwaters. The strategy we’re moving towards now is what we call segmented breakwaters or detached breakwaters.”
Wykamp said this strategy has been used in other states like Florida. He showed graphics of the breakwaters, which are strategically placed piles of rocks off the shore. He said a side benefit of them is they provide habitat for wildlife.
Wykamp said pursuing a project like this would require permits and a large investment, which he believes could be obtained through grants. Commissioners took the presentation under advisement.
