However, beaches also serve a less romantic purpose. They provide essential barriers between advancing waves and currents of water and vulnerable adjoining land so as to mitigate erosion.
Unfortunately, beaches have been closing--in effect disappearing-- in two ways. First, this year several local governments--Chicago, for example-- have prohibited beachgoers as an assumed measure to limit the spread of Covid-19. The sands have remained naked of footprints.
Second, rising water levels such as in the case of Lake Michigan, coupled with more intense storm driven winds, have caused sand to migrate from beaches. As a result of diminishment of beaches as barriers to wave and current water action, adjoining bluffs have been eroding and houses have been tumbling into water.
Much attention has been given to protection of surface water sources of water supply. Perhaps, more attention may be required to the protection and restoration of beaches adjacent to the surface waters. As beaches diminish, so may their purposes.
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*Painting by George Barrel (1923-2003), Oil, 24"x36", Available for purchase, $550, at Odana Antique Center, Booth 33, Madison, WI
© Daniel J. Kucera 2020
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