The Sand-Tube (low-profile groins) Alternative

At least two companies we know about are marketing “low profile groin fields”—long tubes filled with sand that extend out into the water at right angles to shore.

The conceptual similarity to Holmberg Technologies Inc.’s Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems is not coincidental: Dick Holmberg began his experimentation and testing more than 30 years ago using such sandbags and sand-filled tubes. He found them to be unreliable, difficult to shape into the required configurations for each individual location, and most of all, vulnerable to damage and breakage. Once breached and its contents spilled, a sand tube is all but useless for beach restoration. Holmberg has not used sand-filled bags for 25 years.

Installations by other companies are described here. One of them, Olsen Associates of Jacksonville, is among the six engineering firms interviewed August 23 for the “sand-search” task. The other, BRI of Lebanon TN, made a presentation to the City of Flagler Beach in the summer of 2005 and at the Tallahassee workshop in February, 2006.