River Channel Shift Will Rebuild State Park Beach

popham Beach The peripatetic Morse River has finally changed its course and no longer threatens the beach and new bathhouses at Popham Beach State Park in Phippsburg, according to Maine Department of Conservation officials.

In fact, the radical shift in the river channel is expected to result in coming years in an even larger beach area for visitors to the popular beach, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands and Maine Geological Survey officials say.

The new beach already is beginning to form, and while it still will be narrow this spring at high tide, the summer beach area will be “better than last year with the promise of being spectacular by the summer of 2012,” Stephen Dickson, marine geologist with the Maine Geological Survey, said Thursday.

“There will be more beach-blanket space,” Dickson promised, adding that it “ends the threat of erosion to the new bathhouses.”

“This is certainly what we’ve been looking and hoping for, for the Morse River to return to its original channel and allow the beach to rebuild itself,” Will Harris, BPL director, said Thursday. “Once the beach gets re-established, we know that rebuilding the dunes will take time, but this is a necessary first step.

“We hope our park visitors will understand that nature takes its own time, but they can still enjoy the beach for what it is,” Harris said.

BPL and MGS officials have been watching the Morse River channel for several years as it moved ever closer to the point of land marking the state park, one of Maine’s most popular ocean-front beaches. The erosion had threatened the beach, dunes and new $1.4 million bathhouses constructed at the park as the river washed sand out to sea.

MGS geologists predicted that the problem would ease when a break occurred in a sandbar that had built out from the neighboring Seawall Beach. The break, or breach as geologists call it, has been seen forming for several months and had been getting deeper with each storm. Meanwhile, temporary tree barricades were constructed earlier this year and successfully slowed down the river’s erosion of the dunes along the park beach.

Nature’s progress in creating the sand bar breach was slow until the Feb. 25-26 storm, with its coastal flooding followed by days of extremely high tides. There had been other big winter storms working at the breach, but that storm, followed by a period of extended high tides, “let the low spot deepen into a full channel and set a new direction for the Morse River in about a week’s time,” as state geologists had predicted, Dickson explained.

The breach in the sand bar lowered it about 8 to 10 feet, leaving a channel 3 to 4 feet deep at low tide. State officials, including Dickson, have been monitoring the site, and on Wednesday, John Picher, BPL director of engineering, flew over the extensive site at low tide for aerial observation.

Such a major shift in a river channel “is extremely rare in Maine, and for Popham Beach might occur once in every 20 to 30 years,” Dickson said. He described Popham Beach as “the most dynamic beach in the state” because of the Morse River’s movement.

The marine geologist predicted that in addition to increased beach sand at Popham Beach, visitors will see other changes as well. While the sand bar, or tombolo, to nearby Fox Island just off the state park still will be covered at high tide, it will be above water longer as more sand is deposited there and visitors will find it easier to walk to the island, he said.

On the Hunnewell Beach side of the park, to the east, more sand will continue coming ashore and gradually migrate east from the park to the Kennebec River, Dickson said. As it does, Hunnewell Beach will begin to rebuild dunes in front of the developed shore land providing improved storm protection and increasing dune habitat, he said.

“Each trip to the beach will be a new exploration of beach dynamics,” the marine geologist said.

BPL Director Harris said that during the coming park season, there still would be times when daytime high tides limit the amount of beach available for visitors. A tide calendar, which will be made available at the park and on line, is being developed so visitors will be able to plan their visits at more appropriate times, he said.

The park director suggested that visitors would find alternative beach areas at nearby Reid State Park in Georgetown, which also has a new bathhouse facility, or at Crescent Beach State Park in Cape Elizabeth.

“We have great beaches and wonderful state parks that everyone can enjoy,” Harris said.

For more information, go to: http://www.parksandlands.com

Or to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/mgs.htm

Or to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/marine/sites/jan10.htm