SHORELINE AND WATERWAY

MANAGEMENT SECTIONDNREC

ANTHONY PRATT

ADMINISTRATOR

BEACH PRESERVATION

• 1971 Beach Preservation Act

• Recreation

• Storm Protection

• Important Economic Resource

• Dynamic Nature of Beaches

• “…enhance, preserve and protect the public and private beaches of the State…”

“Beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay Shoreline are hereby declared to be valuable natural features which furnish recreational opportunity and provide storm protection for persons and property, as well as being an important economic resource for the people of the State. Beach erosion and shoreline migration occur due to the influence of waves, currents, tides, storms and rising sea level. These natural forces have created, and will continue to alter, the beaches of the State.”

• “The purposes of this chapter are to enhance, preserve and protect the public and private beaches of the State, to mitigate beach erosion, to create civil and criminal remedies for acts destructive of beaches, prescribe the penalties for such acts and to vest in the DNREC the authority to adopt such rules and regulations it deems necessary to effectuate the purposes of this chapter.”

BEACH EROSION HAS BEEN PROBLEMATIC SINCE DEVELOPMENT BEGAN IN THE LATE 1800’S

REHOBOTH BEACH , JULY 1906 REHOBOTH BEACH, SEPTEMBER 1920

BY THE 1950’S THE STATE OF DELAWARE HAD DEVELOPED AN ACTIVE PROGRAM TO COUNTER THE EFFECTS OF EROSION.

BROADKILL BEACH, 1956

REHOBOTH BEACH, 1961

FENWICK