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David Raymond Amos‏ @DavidRayAmos
Replying to @DavidRayAmos @alllibertynews and 49 others
Too Too Funny

"The political will to stop this isn't there"

Methinks Mother Nature must laugh at our nonsense all day long N'esy Pas?



https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2020/07/vanishing-beach-retaining-walls-reason.html



 #nbpoli #cdnpoli



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-vanishing-beach-retaining-walls-lost-shore-1.5654800

Vanishing beach: Retaining walls reason for lost shore, say cottage owners

Some cottage owners in Caissie Cape say they can no longer access the beach during high tides

Maeve McFadden · CBC News · Posted: Jul 20, 2020 5:00 AM AT




While the beach was accessible at high tide during a 2014 storm there is no beach to access during a high tide in July. (Danielle Faubert/Submitted and Maeve McFadden/CBC)

Kathy Foster's family has been enjoying cottage living for 40 years in Caissie Cape, on New Brunswick's eastern coast.

Her parents bought their first cottage in that area in 1980 and now Foster enjoys spending her summers there with her children and grandchildren.

They are just a short walk away from the beach using their deeded right-of-way.

The problem is they can no longer access the beach during a high tide because the water comes right up onto their path.

In order to get to dry sand, Foster has to walk through water that can be waist deep. That's not so easy, especially when her young grandchildren are with her.

"It's difficult because you've got a child in your arms and you've got towels and all their toys and things," she said. "It's a problem and it's getting worse."

"It seems to be progressing very rapidly."


A sandy beach that was accessible even during a high tide during a 2014 storm, left now has to be accessed by walking through the water at high tide six years later, right. (Danielle Faubert/Submitted and Maeve McFadden/CBC)

Danielle Faubert has been observing that rapid progression as well.

She and her family have access to the beach using the same right-of-way access as Foster. She said she's noticed a big change in the shoreline over the past five years.

"The rate of that beach shrinking has been much more noticeable," she said. "I would say in the past four to five years, we've lost 40 feet of dry beach, easily."

Faubert argues part of the reason they have lost that dry beach is because of retaining walls built by owners of the waterfront cottages.

Just don't build it that close to the water.

- Danielle Faubert

The properties on either side of her right-of-way have retaining walls. These walls are made with layers of large rocks in an attempt to protect the waterfront property from erosion.

Faubert said it's one of the reasons they say they can no longer access the beach during high tides.

"The retaining walls are large and very high," said Faubert. "You couldn't climb over them. So you really have to go out into the water and walk around the retaining walls to access the beach."


Cottage owners in Caisse Cape, on the Northumberland Strait, want to see stricter controls on waterfront development. 2:51

Faubert wants to see an end to the construction of these retaining walls because she worries they are speeding up the rate of erosion.

"I would like to see a moratorium preventing people from continuing to build new walls and adding to their existing walls," said Faubert. "What I would really love to see is for them to have to remove those walls and replace them with something that is more environmentally friendly."

Faubert would even take that moratorium one step further. She wants to see an end to waterfront construction because erosion is inevitable.

"Continuing to allow people to build brand new cottages or homes so close to the water is inevitably going to push them to construct some type of retaining wall." she said.

With more storms and flooding along the coast line, Faubert said protecting property becomes more difficult and the cost of repairs after a major storm can be significant.

"There's no flood insurance that close to the water."

Faubert said property owners often turn to the government for financial aid when their insurance companies won't cover the cost of damage done during a storm.

"It's the taxpayers dollars going into those relief funds," she said. "It's New Brunswick taxpayer's dollars including people who can't afford vacation homes or second homes."

"I really think the solution is just don't build that close to the water."


Danielle Faubert and Kathy Foster use this right-of-way to access the beach during an ordinary high tide in July. (Maeve McFadden/CBC)

The Kent Regional Service Commission is the body responsible for issuing building permits in the area that includes Caissie Cape.

According to Jean Goguen, the commission's planning director, those permits are issued following the National Building Code of Canada.

New Brunswick provincial building regulations allow waterfront property owners to build three metres from the rear lot line which, for some property owners in Caissie Cape, can be the Northumberland Strait.

Goguen says there are exceptions to these regulations to protect wetlands and low-lying salt marshes.

"We make sure property owners are following the rules and regulations set out by the province of New Brunswick," said Goguen.

KRSC inspectors warn property owners of the damage caused by storms, hurricanes and floods to homes or cottages built close to the water's edge. They can recommend they build further back from the water's edge but, ultimately, those owners have the right to build within the set guidelines.

When it comes to retaining walls, Goguen said that is not part of their jurisdiction.

He said the KRSC does not issue permits for retaining walls.

"There is no set criteria on how to build those walls," he said adding they do not fall under the national building code guidelines.

There are guidelines set out in the Coastal Areas Protection Policy for New Brunswick. The policy was released in 2002 and updated in 2019.

The political will to stop this isn't there

- Jeff Ollerhead

Both versions give the green light to property owners to use boulders or to build retaining walls to protect their land.

The document states, "Acceptable erosion control structures" are permitted in Zone A, which is defined as the areas closest to the water known as the coast lands core area.

The only update is that property owners must now demonstrate evidence of erosion and a risk to infrastructure.

According to the Department of Environment, a Watercourse and Wetland Alteration permit is not typically required for coastal projects.

The only time a permit is required is when there is a watercourse — a tributary to the coast — or a wetland within 30 metres of the project location. In that case, engineered drawings may be requested depending on the scope of the project.

In the document Bank Protection Projects, written in June 2019, the department lists vegetation such as grasses, shrubs, trees, vines and live cuttings as its first preference for erosion-control measures.

That is followed by rip-rap/armour stone — a layer of boulders, cobbles or rock fragments placed over an exposed slope.

Last on the list is retaining walls. These are typically wire baskets or cages filled with rock or timber crib, steel or concrete.


Property owners are using boulders and retaining walls to prevent erosion of their waterfront properties (Shelley Rodgers/Submitted)

Environmentalists and coastal-erosion experts in New Brunswick have been warning the government about the damage caused by certain coastal developments for years.

Jeff Ollerhead, coastal geomorphologist at Mount Allison University, is not surprised that Faubert and Foster can no longer access the beach during a high tide.

"That's exactly what we would expect to happen," he said.

"Remember, when you stop erosion, you stop the sediment which actually creates the beach. So, by definition, when you stop erosion you're actually stopping the beach. You are jeopardizing the beach from being there."

Ollerhead said sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate yet people are still building along the coast.
"The political will to stop this isn't there."

"It's a societal choice," he said. "If you want beaches, if you want wide beaches, if you want access to beaches then you have to be prepared to not have hard walls, not have sea walls."

Ollerhead said it's a matter of balancing the general interests of the public with private property owners who want to protect their investments.

He points to Ontario as an example of a jurisdiction with stringent shoreline regulations and a framework that recognizes dynamic shorelines.

"So not only do they tell you that here's a line and you have to build behind the line but that line is redefined every few years."

Ollerhead said those regulations change the way coastlines are developed. "So even if you built a structure in a given location in the 1990s, you couldn't build a structure in the same place today because the shoreline will have moved back."

Ollerhead said there are more environmentally friendly ways of trying to protect properties from erosion by planting vegetation and contouring slopes but nothing can prevent erosion.

"I mean 30, 50, 100 years the shoreline is going to move back."


This aerial shot show the wharf and cottages in Caissie Cape in July. Photo Credit: Shelley Rodgers/submitted (Shelley Rodgers/Submitted )

He said the shoreline was hundreds of metres further out into the Northumberland Strait 1,000 years ago. "So ultimately, if you're not going to allow the shoreline to retreat naturally then you are going to end up in a conflict."

Ollerhead said society needs to decide what is more important — the protection of the coast line or the rights of property owners.

"Go to a jurisdiction like Florida, where the private property rights generally override the interests of the general public."

Ollerhead said there are many parts of that state where the general public can't access beaches because of walls and fences that are put in to keep people out.

"What kind of world do you want?"

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices

105 Comments
Commenting is now closed for this story.




David Amos
Too Too Funny

"The political will to stop this isn't there"

Methinks Mother Nature must laugh at our nonsense all day long N'esy Pas?


Brad Evans 

Reply to @David Amos: King Cnute tried to stop the sea from flooding. That was awhile ago.

David Amos

Reply to @Brad Evans: If I wished to live right on the coast like that I park a mobile home and as Mother Nature did her thing I would simply keep moving it back

James Bilodeau

Reply to @David Amos: Oh come now, that's not how the rich work. They have to deconstruct the shoreline to build there big fancy houses. Then they wonder why the shore line recedes. What about all those shorelines undergoing this 'natural' transformation where there are no whiney rich buildings on them? 
 

Ray Oliver
Reply to @David Amos: mobile home? Living under the overpass isnt good enough for you? Well fair case..























Wayne Taylor
A huge article based on a senseless issue.


David Amos 

Reply to @Wayne Taylor: Oh So True

Terry Tibbs
On the one hand you have shoreline property owners protecting their property (including eventually their houses) from disappearing into the ocean and on the other hand you have folks (in the cheap seats) complaining the public parts of the beach are disappearing.
I'm not sure I see a problem of ANY sort here?


David Amos  

Reply to @Terry Tibbs: Methinks my old man bought one of those beach front lots for a song when I was a kid Too bad he did not keep it and then leave for me in my old age to enjoy camping on and embarrassing the snobby neighbours N'esy Pas?

 

Dan Moore

Reply to @Terry Tibbs: All waterfront in Canada is subject to a set back and is considered public, there are no 'public' parts of the beach it is all public. Even if, as a landowner, you 'owned' all of the land around a lake, if a person could access the land through a waterway they would be within their rights to enjoy the lake and shoreline.

Jim Thomas 

Reply to @Dan Moore:
Tell that to certain homeowners in my little town on Lake Ontario whose deeds give them ownership right down to and even into the water, and who prevent anyone from crossing "their" stretch of beach.

Bud Rich

Reply to @Dan Moore: Actually Harper changed the Navigable Waterways Act before he left office, so now people only have a right of egress onto a defined list of waterways.

Carroll Cameron

Reply to @Dan Moore:
IIRC, a person owning land that may border on a lake, stream or river, their property ends at the high water mark in year of survey, in NB anyway.

Now I'm just assuming this part, but, in tidal water it would be the high tide mark, of the time.

Fred Brewer  

Reply to @Dan Moore: Actually, a landowner owns a beach up to the ordinary high water mark. So depending on condition of a beach, a landowner could own a nice stretch of beach at high tide that is private. Look it up, its the law. For non-tidal waters the law varies from province to province but generally follows the same principle but some provinces use the ordinary low water mark as the edge of a landowner's private property.