The Wrack: buffer

This is my final week in Maine as a research and coastal training program intern for the summer. I have mainly been studying the detrimental effects of nitrogen runoff. The three-year project that I helped start looks at Branch Brook and the Merriland River in the Little River Watershed. We selected 20 sites to analyze nitrogen runoff and how it affects the fish, the macroinvertebrates, the river habitat, and the water quality itself.

Flooding in York County — is it becoming more common? Roads impassable, bridges washed out, basements full... the stories have become all too familiar in recent years.

The Mother's Day storm in May 2006 seemed an anomaly till the Patriots' Day storm hit in 2007. This March, the Wells Reserve measured 16 inches of rainfall, 5 inches more than Portland's record-setting 11. The roads closed and the sump pumps hummed again.

It is probably a rare coastal beachfront property owner who is not aware that beaches are dynamic systems that erode and accrete in response to storms, sediment supply, rising sea level, and the proximity of sea walls, jetties, and other forms of coastal "armor." Many beachfront owners are also aware that "natural" barrier beaches and their dune systems are able to persist in the face of sea level rise by transgressing, or migrating shoreward.