Sand Beach seeing wicked erosion
BAR HARBOR — Sand Beach looks a little different than it did a few months ago, largely in part to conditions brought by Winter Storm Elliott.
“On Dec. 23, we had the big storm. We got very high winds and a lot of rain here,” said Rebecca Cole-Will, Chief of Resource Management for Acadia National Park.
The wind and rain from the storm caused a lot of erosion to the beach, so much so that you can see the remnants walking along the shore.
“The wind and the event eroded the berm behind us on this dune behind the beach and washed away a lot of the sand that is typically here on the beach and deposited very large boulders at the base of the stairs and along the edges of the beach,” said Cole-Will.
According to National Parks Service Management assistant John Kelly, the organization has not seen this level of erosion at sand beach since 2007.
These changes will not only affect the beach itself but the wildlife that lives in the area.
“We have dune grasses and habitat for nesting birds and for insects that we don’t have a habitat for in Acadia,” said Cole-Will.
Despite the drastic changes to the beach, Cole-Will says this kind of erosion is normal.
“We see these kinds of events wash away the sand over the tide cycle, and over the next cycle or season, the sand will come back,” said Cole-Will.
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