Meters reveal sand moving at the will of the weather
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Sand in the ocean off the South Shore in Madaket is moving not just westward, but also east, especially during violent ocean storms.

That is the conclusion of Resolve Marine owner Joseph Farrell in a study he is doing of sand transport off Madaket.

"The sand is moving, in some instances, opposite of what you would imagine," said Farrell. "[In a southeast storm], the waves are putting the sand in solution in a southeast wind that is taking the sand off the beach and you would assume the current would move it to west, but it can be going exactly opposite to that and that sand is still in solution a day or two after the storm."

The sand in the water is moving roughly two miles per hour, added Farrell.

"It's very fickle," he said. "It's whatever the weather system is doing; it's going whatever direction the current is going."

Farrell, a rescuer of stranded ships from sand bars and other perilous situations at sea, is responsible for safeguarding 45 percent of all oil tankers entering U.S. waters as an emergency first-responder and also handles hazardous material clean-ups such as oil spills. Thirty years of experiencing the effects of ocean currents on shoals and sand piqued Farrell's interest in the how and the why of sand transport in seawater.

Melding his curiosity with the technical know-how of engineers Sandy Williams and Todd Morrison of Nobska Engineering, who invented an ocean current-measuring meter called the MAVS-3, and coastal scientist Steve Elgar of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass., Farrell began watching sand last fall from a small shed just off the beach in Madaket.

The current meters measure the speed, direction and sand content of the water at the molecular level using light beams. The data is collected using two MAVS-3s planted off the South Shore at intervals of 290 and 490, 11 and 13 feet deep, respectively. They are wired to Farrell's computer in the shed by low voltage cables.

Farrell is hoping to use the information on waterborne sand transport to help control erosion, in the immediate future, on certain private properties along the South Shore. He is hoping to begin phase two of his study this spring or summer that includes the placement of what he calls shoal modules 15 feet below the surface of the water.

Made of aluminum 20 feet long by 10 feet wide and five feet high, these shoal modules as Farrell calls them, are designed to interrupt the wave action and sand transport offshore and protect shorelines from erosion. But the aluminum prototypes are experimental, said Farrell.

"We put them in so they are just about covered at high water just to stop, in certain areas, the drift of the littoral sand," he said

"In the instance of Tom Erichsen's property, by putting in these temporary shoal modules, that will back up the sand just in the immediate area. It's really part of a bigger project, but it's to buy some time for phase three."

However, Farrell would not discuss what phase three entails. Currently, he is in the process of getting his data onto his Web site, www.coastalrecovery.org so everyone can check out his results to date.

"We've had some delays getting the Web site up, trying to get the engineers and the scientists to get the data up on the Web site," said Farrell. "We've been monitoring two storms: the Valentine's Day Storm and now we're crunching the data from last

week's storm." I