The shot above captures the Saturday night scene along the Galveston seawall southwest of Stewart Beach, where bulldozers were pushing around the gush of sand and water being piped in as part of the latest round of beach building on the island. The crews were still at it around 9 pm; the shot below shows the Pleasure Pier over-water amusement park still lit up in the distance to the west:
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Heres a closer shot of the theme park’s evening getup, facing east from the other side:
The beachmaking should eventually extend all the way to 61th St.; that means about 6 and a half miles of pipe, Harvey Rice notes.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Crews Now Pumping Replacement Beach Sand Along Galveston Shoreline;Â A Seawall in Canada Takes a Different Approach to Combating Coastal Erosion
Images: Swamplot inbox
Seawall Spread
fascinating history of the island being raised between 8-17ft with sand slurry after the 1900 storm. Those pipes reminded me of the pictures I have seen. A 90+ year old native galvestonian I spoke with who grew up next to the bishop’s palace told me he remembers building sand castles under houses in the neighborhood because it was all sand underneath. A pretty remarkable accomplishment to raise an entire island using sand slurry.
https://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/
@turning-basin: yes, an impressive accomplishment, but it wasn’t nearly the whole island that was raised. Instead, it was the Gulf side for three miles (that length was extended in the 1960s).
Wonder if they have a Super Bowl deadline?
The sand is from the contaminated ship channel. Dioxins an PCBs. So the ship channel got a free dredge and the taxpayer ($20 million) footed the bill? Wouldn’t want my kids playing in this stuff…
Is no one paying attention to “This four-mile stretch of beach will be replenished with up to 1 million cubic yards of beach quality sand dredged from the Galveston Ship Channel”
This the most toxic sands? WTF? why is nobody saying anything about this?
source http://www.galveston.com/blog/381/195m-galveston-beach-expansion-to-begin-this-fall/
Good point Houstonreader dated 24 Jan 2017. The island was not “raised” at all. Instead said beach was manufactured to be longer. All inhabitants are still subject to storm surge. Only a pier design system will survive future storms…..