Word: beaching
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Miami Beach attempts to turn back the tides...
...incongruous sight. Two miles offshore from the hotel-lined beachfront, two giant dredges toil away round the clock, scooping up tons of sand from the ocean bottom. Heavy, 27-in. pipes carry the grayish slurry to the beach. There it is deposited in large, neat mounds, until the fresh sand is spread out by large earth-moving machines. Under way for two years, the controversial $64 million project by the Army Corps of Engineers is aimed at nothing less than saving one of the nation's vacation landmarks: that fabled stretch of the Florida Gold Coast known as Miami...
Perhaps the biggest factor in the resort's decline is man's intervention with nature. One of the many barrier islands off the U.S.'s Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Miami Beach is vulnerable to waves, winds and the natural ebb and flow of its fragile sands. During the first great Florida land boom in the early 1920s and the second boom of the 1950s, the beach's problems were compounded by unrestrained growth. Developers put up mansions, hotels and condominiums almost at the water's edge, atop the dunes that protect the island from...
...groins were also ultimately destructive. Though each protected its own stretch of beach, the barricade hastened erosion on the adjacent section, which was no longer replenished by the wash of fresh sand. The only solution seemed to be to build more groins, but they caused more erosion. By the early 1960s, the waves were lapping almost at the foundations of Miami Beach monuments like the Fontainebleau Hilton...
...many experts believe, any attempt to contain erosion is futile. After spending millions of dollars on trying to save beaches along Cape Hatteras and elsewhere, the National Park Service decided that in most cases it was better to leave nature alone. But Miami Beach's leaders felt that the survival of the resort was at stake. With the support of the Florida congressional delegation, the Corps of Engineers began what is the largest beach restoration ever attempted. When the corps completes the project in 1981, it will have laid down 10.5 miles of new beach (1.2 miles in neighboring...