The Joe Rains Beach Living Shoreline

The Joe Rains Beach living shoreline was a grassroots effort to pair dredging and realignment of the Tyree Canal to the north with habitat restoration. The dredging of the canal provided sand to raise the elevation of the area, making it suitable for a living shoreline. Prior to the shoreline project, the seawall at Joe Rains Beach (a city park) was constantly being undermined by tides and storms, leading to costly repairs. Since the installation of the living shoreline in 2017, no additional repairs to the seawall or the parking area have been necessary. Monitoring of the area shows highly successful establishment of the shoreline vegetation and an increase in use by crabs, fish, shrimp, and birds.

Similar to the G Street site, the Joe Rains Living Shoreline uses a sill at the waterward edge of the marsh for added protection and oyster reef enhancement. Sand bags are also found here at Joe Rains, they are another common material in shoreline restoration used to establish different vegetation zones at different elevations.

Read more about the Joe Rains Beach project at our website.