A group of University of New England students will be keeping a keen eye on the beach at Biddeford Pool, not just this winter but perhaps years after they graduate.
They are scholars of environmental control, experimenting with ways to retard erosion of Maine’s sandy dunes.
The students from UNE Assistant Professor Will Kochtitzky’s Geographic Information System class earlier this year planted 20,000 stalks of dune grass along the beach.
The students two years ago had begun the erosion-control efforts by planting 12,000 stalks.
The dune grass is being used as a natural way to help rebuild the dunes.
Once planted, the stalks can grow while sand collects around them.
The dunes along the Maine coast, fighting a daily battle for survival, were hit especially hard two years ago.
A number of storms caused an estimated $90 million in damage across the state’s coastline.
The storms also washed away dunes at Biddeford Pool beach, prompting the local conservation trust and university to discuss ways to restore the damaged area.
The students’ work caught the eye of the world news desk of The Times of India, which recently featured their efforts saving the Atlantic coast.
The dune-grass planting project is similar to that done decades ago on nearby Old Orchard Beach, where the stalks have grown wild, trapping beach sand as they are designed to do.
Where were the HIGH SCHOOL KIDS?
But the school day is to short!
I see that we’re out of cash as well as grass.
Please don’t tell me next that we paid ten dollars per stalk .
Wow. Nice grASS!!!
YUP, here for the bikinis 👙