MAVILLETTE, DIGBY COUNTY, NS – Sand may move through an hourglass, but it is moving too much at Mavillette Beach Provincial Park?
Some residents think it's time the situation gets a closer look.
A few years ago, a 70-year-old bridge was replaced on the John Doucette Road at the north end of Mavillette Beach Provincial Park. The span on the original bridge over the river flowing from the marsh to the east measured 4.5 metres. The new bridge has a span of 29 metres.
Since then, however, residents have noticed the buildup of sand along the river's edges, choking the flow. They attribute this to the ocean having more room to push tons of sand upriver during high tide events.
The sandy terrain on the ocean side is being replaced with rocks and gravel.
Artist Jennie Morrow has lived near Mavillette Beach for 17 years. She says as an artist, the beauty of Mavillette Beach was the initial attraction soon followed by the less dramatic, but equally vital, beauty of wildlife in the marsh.
She’s become deeply concerned over changes that have taken place in recent years.
“In fact, the deterioration of both areas has become the topic of conversation among many of the local residents,” she says.
Morrow has noticed that the river’s outflowing current is very sluggish, practically non-existent and heavy rains result in water backing up at her end of the marsh.
Cows that graze in the field on the opposite side of the river from her home stopped drinking from the river after the new bridge was built.
Noticing changes
“It seems likely that the water has become too salty,” Morrow says. “The bushes and some trees along the edge of the marsh have died. There have always been five or six heron fishing in the marsh. Now there are none."
This is the first year she hasn’t had the pleasure of watching ducklings and baby geese parade back and forth opposite her deck. She believes that’s probably another consequence of the change of salinity in the water.
She adds the loss of sand to the marsh has exposed gravel in a way residents – some of whom have lived near the beach for 50 or 60 years – have never seen before.
“Erosion on the south side of the bridge has collapsed the steps to the beach. Fortunately, overall, the beach is still sandy, but the direction things are going in is worrisome," Morrow says. "As the sand decreases, so do our property values.”
Other residents are noticing changes.
Resident Yvette Maillet says her well had the best drinking water around, but she contends it was ruined after the bridge was built.
She had her well cleaned several times and eventually spent $1,200 to $1,500 to set up a filtering system.
“I’ve been here 59 years and I had the best water around, no chemicals, nothing in my water,” she says.
Now, her lower lawn floods at high tide, whereas it didn’t before the bridge was replaced.
Loss of sand
Louise Burridge Doucette has lived near the beach and marsh for 55 years and has observed the changes.
She’s noticed the loss of sand on the beachside. Doucette says it is all going up the marsh and narrowing the river.
“That’s our major concern, that we are losing our beach, a provincial park, to save a marsh," she says. "People are actually using the side of the river for sunbathing now… which was never the case."
Doucette says there used to be a simple breakwater of rocks that, in her opinion, stopped the sand from going up the marsh. Workers removed that when they built the bridge.
Her husband walked the beach the other day and had to put his shoes on because of the rocks. Before, there always used to be sand, she says. She added that the first parking lot in the park has been lost due to erosion.
“They may blame climate change, and maybe some of it is that, but it has been happening since the bridge was installed,” she says.
As a longtime beachgoer, Municipality of Clare tourism manager Larry Peach says he too has noticed changes to the sand distribution on Mavillette Beach.
“There appears to have been some dune erosion, and more sand migrating towards the breakwater, and more recently, more sand moving up into the marsh,” he says.
“This summer, we’ve had to change the route for a running event as one of the three public access points to the beach has been closed due to erosion," Peach says.
"The geography in question is complicated and there is also the issue of climate change and sea-level rise affecting the Nova Scotia coastline. We have confidence that our federal and provincial partners will continue to monitor changes and explore mitigation options if needed.”
Built to standards
So is the bridge and its installation to blame?
Bridge engineer Tristan Richardson-Prager worked on the design of the new John Doucette Road bridge, which he says is a standard, traditional, single-span, concrete-girder bridge.
New codes and standards were followed for the construction of the replacement.
Richardson-Prager says the span was a combination of practicality and constructability for the site. It dealt with the alignment and the type of structure used and the flood capacity.
“You have to design the bridge to the current standards of the flood conditions and the current code. The site was also a salt marsh restoration project, so by increasing the span, we needed to do it to meet the code standards for the flood conditions. But it also allowed for a large salt marsh restoration project, which is being monitored by Public Works as well.”
Public Works environmental analyst Dr. Bob Pett says there is definitely more sand being pushed up the river.
“However… most of the local residents, you could say, have a short memory,” he says.
“We’ve looked at historical aerial photos back nearly 100 years and what’s there now is much closer to what it used to be before we made lots of changes to the habitat in that area.”
He added that diversity should be increasing significantly.
Dr. Pett says that Public Works sees nothing wrong with the project, that things are proceeding as they should, that more wildlife will reappear and that the sand being pushed up the river is normal and desirable.
“The marsh is a large (130 hectares), healthy marsh.,” he says, adding, “We’re doing a comparative study in Salmon River nearby."
What's happening to Mavillette Beach? Deterioration of sandy area a hot topic | Saltwire - SaltWire Network
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