Ocean damage now less likely, thanks to these Western P.E.I. beach guardians

If you’ve never been to West Point, there’s this long red beach, a super tall lighthouse that some people think is haunted. But the beach had been disappearing, and some people actually worried that the lighthouse could be swept away. So what do you do? Can you build back a beach? Can you actually protect the shoreline? We came here to find out. Hi, Larry. Good. How are you? I’m good. So you built these. Yes. We built two reefs this year and five and 21. Where’d you get the rock from? It came from Memory Cook in New Brunswick. You had to bring it all over here. Yes. And what did it look like here when you folks started? We’re probably standing in three or four feet of water where we are now and we had to build a Causeway out to the reefs and when the IT was about 3000 tons of rock per reef and then we had to peel the roads back. I think eventually, like maybe not in my time, but they’ll eventually be filled right over the top with sand eventually. What do you think would have happened if those weren’t there? I think the lighthouse would be gone. Yeah, it would have. They put a they put like a temporary sand fence in front of it like it’s a it’s just wood and rocks but it would be gone for sure. The parking lot was falling into the ocean then. So everything they’ve done has worked knock on wood. Our projects have been going very, very well and we’re really pleased with results so far and at the same time though we’re we’re monitoring all our projects to to to learn and and to incorporate what we find in into future projects. So it’s a it’s been a real gratifying and satisfying work so far. All the stuff would be gone, you know it’s there. There’s definitely sea level rise happening and and the weather’s getting warmer because we we don’t see the ice that we used to at all. When I was a when I was a kid, like we could snowmobile like Brunswick like any day of the week and now I wouldn’t even walk on the sea ice. The transformation really is pretty cool. I was looking at the before and after photos with the minister and he called the changes fantastic. So this is one of the two new offshore reefs that was just finished this winter. The beach is already building back behind it, but there’s still some work to do. It’s going to be very interesting or the next few months for me to go take a look, take a walk along that beach and see just the impact that the additional reefs have had. A project like this doesn’t come cheap. The minister says it cost the province about $3.4 million and I asked him if they would be adding more. He says for now, they’re just going to keep an eye on the ones that they do have, make sure that they’re doing their job and the beach keeps building back. I’m surprised at how fast the sand actually builds out. Yeah, it it’s like this is only a month and we’re in probably four or five feet of water at the reef now. There’s none. So and is your work done here, is there anything left for you folks to do? We have some clean up to do and we’re just waiting for drier weather to do it, but we have some remediation, a little bit more sand fence, but we’re we’re pretty well complete. Thank you so much. No problem. Thanks.