Tuesday am a bunch of people moved down the beach cutting the big stuff with a chain saw and piling up the driftwood. Later in the day a group of locals went down the beach again making the piles even more compact so the tractor (when it does come) will remove less rocks and sand.
Yesterday a big tractor came by and moved most of the piles off the beach. The driver was very talented but it struggled to get just the wood, I think it was a bit too big for the job, like trying to put frosting on a cupcake with a shovel.
But they did the best they could (you certainly can't say they didn't try) a little more today and the beach will be clear of wood
Thank you La Huerta and locals alike!
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Re: Beach clean up
Posted by Daniel H on November 2, 2018, 11:22 am, in reply to "Beach clean up"
Yesterday a smaller tractor showed up and finished up the photo. Then later in the day the big machine showed up and started removing the top two feet of rocks from the beach, which I thought they were trying to avoid doing. Kind of confusing to me.
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Re: Beach clean up
Posted by Alison G on November 2, 2018, 4:36 pm, in reply to "Re: Beach clean up"
Daniel,
Thanks so much for posting these photos! Really helps to see what is going on. Can't wait for my return.
xA
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Re: Beach clean up
Posted by tim edwards on November 2, 2018, 5:47 pm, in reply to "Beach clean up"
they get an A++ for what they did in front of our place.
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Re: Beach clean up
Posted by Craig Peterson on November 6, 2018, 10:04 am, in reply to "Beach clean up"
Better a little rough than eroded
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open pit mining . . .
Posted by Red on November 8, 2018, 8:39 am, in reply to "Beach clean up"
When clean up turns to open pit mining you would hope someone in authority would notice.
Who in their right mind thinks that hundreds of cubic meters of material can be hauled off the beach without permanently damaging that same beach?
And I can only shake my head in wonder as the few national tourists in town still struggle through the trench to get back on the upper beach after swimming. WTF ?
I wish I could find the confidence some of my neighbors have expressed that nature will heal the wounds. But I'm sorry, I can't. Nature can't fix stupid.
Maybe it would hurt less if we gave up our nightly walk down to watch sunset and enjoy our bay. But then why be in Lamanz? a sad Rojo
Could someone please post photos. We are arriving this weekend with extended family, lots of kiddos. Am a bit concerned about safety on the beach.
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Re: open pit mining . . .
Posted by Daniel H on November 8, 2018, 12:58 pm, in reply to "open pit mining . . ."
Removing anything from the beach is a controversial subject, some say remove nothing others say each situation is different and has to be judged on its own.
I did two searches, one using the query - beach erosion - and the other using the query - removing rocks from the beach -.
Beach erosion (got the most controversial results) is prevalent around the world with many beaches resorting to replenishing the lost sand with imported sand, sometimes imported from other parts of the word! Many of the results were talking about erosion from Hurricanes, not human made changes.
I found it interesting that even the Hawaiian Islands have erosion problems. I would have thought they would be isolated from those kinds of changes, but things globally seem to be influx, cha cha cha changes.
Rock removal has some interesting results, some about removing rocks from the beach and others about removing rocks from the shallow water to make it easier for guest to enter the water.
On our beach from La Manzanilla to Boca de Igunas the policy (that I remember past 18 years) has been that it is illegal to remove anything from the beach. There have been times that policy was not followed but not very many. I don't know if that policy comes from SEMARNAT for all of Mexico or if each area is judged separately. I also don't know of any in depth studies for our beach or the Bay of Tenacatita.
The situation varies greatly depending on what part of the beach you are referring to. For us at this end of the beach the rocks and trench show up every year, usually after the first big waves from a hurricane passing out in the ocean. Sometimes they pile up with sandy places in between the piles. For the most part the rocks stay until a tractor pushes them back into the ocean around December. After that we have a perfect sandy beach.
Most of the erosion/rock removal links I read are on beaches where the sand normally moves down or up the coast every year, that doesn't seem to be the case for us. When the beach is rocky you can go up onto the hillsides around La Manzanilla and see the sand in the shallow ocean just off shore. from what I can tell it doesn't leave the bay, it goes out and then comes back depending on the currents / time of year. We also have a lot of sediment that comes into the bay from the rivers and lagoons, which is another feature that is specific to our situation.
It could be that removing the rocks from the beach will initiate a change that will reduce the amount of sand. A sandy beach is the life blood of La Manzanilla, so its quite a big bet to change anything as sand replenishment is very very expensive and doesn't always work. It would take a detailed study of our specific situation to come to a prediction of any value. It could also be that removing the rocks from the beach is something that should have been done long ago. It looks like we are about to find out.