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More a factor of low sand than high water

Regarding the photo from 1988 accompanying Dale Mannix letter in Sept. 19 paper.

Dear Editor,

Regarding the photo from 1988 accompanying Dale Mannix letter in Sept. 19 paper.

A beautiful beach full of sand! I would like to point out something in the photo. If you look in the background at the wall behind the sand, you can see that the sand level is just under the second step on the stairs. So visualize with me, grass, one step, two step, sand! Not, grass, one step, two step, splash, step, step, step, sand …

Yes the water level is higher than in the past. Yes, if I was lucky enough to own property on the beach the natural erosion, and natural cycle of high and low seasons would be on my mind. However in regard to the beach itself, I feel although the high water is a huge factor, it is less about high water, and more about low sand.

Does no one else remember the large construction equipment that used to dig out the entire swimming area and dump all that sand back up on the beach each spring? Ice in the winter, and waves in the summer all contribute to the erosion of the beach. We used to fight that erosion by annually correcting it. As I recall, that was put to a stop because of environmental concerns with the possibility of an oil, or fuel spill from the construction equipment. So the lack of beach we have been left with is the result of the natural cycle of things with nothing done to correct it.

Do I have a solution that the environmentalist would like, no. And there wouldn’t be enough sand left in the swimming area to fix it now anyways. If nothing is done, will the problem get worse, likely.

I have no idea how deep that wall goes into the ground, but if nothing is done soon to protect it from ice and waves, the next multi-million dollar project on lake front will likely be fixing a water damaged and undermined wall. There was already evidence of that a few years back when at least one of the cement top blocks fell into the water.

I can’t even imagine how many truckloads of sand it would take, where we could find that much clean sand, its cost, or an environmental way to maintain it. To get the level of sand the beach used to have however, that is what it would take. Without such a step, the water level would have to be lowered far too drastically.

Glen Wilde,

Sylvan Lake