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The processes of the past are exactly what is happening now, that is, no matter how much sand you put out there, the longshore drift currents that form barrier beaches on the east coast travel from Maine to Florida. this is a stop gap measure that will not save anyone's precious beach properties that the rest of the taxpayers have to underwrite the Flood Insurance on. In the summer, calm weather (winds) act to accrete (build up) sand along the shore, while rough winter weather tends to take that sand away, deposit some of it offshore, but most of it enters the longshore drift process and ends up in CT, Long Island, Jersey, NC, etc., etc. Go to the beach in August, its all built up, go in March and look what has happened. This process has been going on since time memorial. If we are foolhardy enough to believe we can buck these historic processes with short term measures that waste resources so that a few homeowners benefit to while the rest of us foot the bill, well.... ANyway, look back to the catastroiphic weather events that have changed Narragansett Beach and other south shore beaches, i.e., Hurriucanes, the "Bob"" Storm, etc., you'll get a better understanding of these processes. talk to Jon Boothroyd, URI Geology to get some more info, Jon is a preeminent sedimentologist who has studied this phenom for decades and as his student I learned how to be a better fisherman by understanding that what's under the water, writes the story of "reading the water".
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