Dauphin Island

From the Birmingham News:

Dauphin Island looks as if an enormous rake had been dragged across the western part of the island, according to reports from the U.S. Geological Survey's aerial study of areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

On the ground, biologists report that the island was breached repeatedly as a six- to eight-foot storm surge carved inlets throughout the sand. The island was weakened when it lost sand in Hurricane Ivan last year and storms nearly every year before, all the way back to Hurricane Camille in 1969, said Ralph Havard, a biologist for the Marine Resources Division of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

"It's a long-running battle between man and Mother Nature, is what it is," Havard said. "And Mother Nature is winning."

That may be true, but man isn't helping out the situation any.

Every two or three years, a sandbar forms off Mobile Bay and impedes shipping traffic. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredges that sand and deposits it farther offshore.

Left alone, the sand would naturally drift to Dauphin Island, said Scott Douglass, a civil engineering professor at the University of South Alabama.

Instead, the dredged sand is carried out in the Gulf. Then new sand drifting along the coast falls into the shipping channel instead of reaching Dauphin Island.

"They've removed 20 million cubic yards of sand in 35 years," Douglass said. "If you had that sand right now, you could double the width of Dauphin Island."

The corps has not determined whether its dredging is affecting the dunes at Dauphin Island, said spokesman Pat Robbins. But, to settle a landowners' lawsuit, it has agreed to an independent study of the matter and will abide by the findings and change its practices accordingly, Robbins said. The proposed settlement awaits a decision by a federal judge.

Douglass said he personally would prefer that the corps dump the dredged sand at Dauphin Island, in a beach nourishment program that would mimic nature. Orange Beach and Gulf Shores' program is an outstanding example, perhaps the most successful in the country, of sand deposits saving a beach, Douglass said.