WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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I'm in Cape May, at the southern tip of New
Jersey, where the US Army Corps of Engineers

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have just finished rebuilding this beach.

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A dredge is going offshore, and it's like
a vacuum,

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and it's sucking a sand-and-water mix up into
the dredge.

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Then it travels back toward the shore

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and pumps that sand-and-water mix onto the
beach.

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And then bulldozers and construction equipment
will shape that beach

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and build that template, that's designed to
reduce the damages from storms.

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We're using multiple hopper dredges and miles
of pipe,

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we're using construction equipment, bulldozers,
and excavators,

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all to complete this job.

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We are demobilising from the site,

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so all this equipment is going to another
section in Cape May,

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and we'll begin dredging and beachfill operations
at that location.

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Miami Beach in America, the Gold Coast in
Australia, the beaches of Dubai:

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around the world, engineers dredge sand from
offshore and pump it back onto beaches.

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Not only because the tourists demand it,

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but more importantly because those beaches
protect the folks living next door from the

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ocean.

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And as sea levels rise, beach erosion is happening
faster and faster.

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Well, in New Jersey, there's lots of infrastructure
that's at risk from storms.

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Boardwalks, utilities, roads, homes, businesses.

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And so this process is the best means we have
to reduce storm damages

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in a cost-effective and an environmentally
acceptable way.

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But there are other uses for sand, too:

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every concrete building in the world, every
skyscraper,

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is basically just a load of sand, like this,
stuck together with cement.

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And the world is running out of it.

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I know, that sounds strange, but the construction
industry uses billions of tons of sand every

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year.

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So the obvious answer would seem to be: use
sand from elsewhere, right?

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We've got whole deserts and ocean floors full
of the stuff.

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But those sands aren't useful.

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Desert and sea sands are too fine, too smooth,
they don't stick together properly,

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either for making concrete or for rebuilding
a beach like this.

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It has to be this kind of sand:

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sand that's been created by moving water and
waves over aeons.

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This is not a renewable resource, not on any
human timescale.

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And if it's not there to protect the coast:

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then the folks who live nearby should start
getting worried.

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This project was first completed in 1990,

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and we've come back numerous times over the
years

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to renourish and pump additional sand onto
the beach.

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If we didn't pump this sand into this area
and built an engineered system,

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the communities would be at higher risk of
damages

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from hurricanes, nor'easters, and other storm
events.

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Now, running out of sand doesn't mean that
we're suddenly going to be unable to build

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anything.

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It just means that as supply goes down, the
price of construction will go up...

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and there are going to be some rough market
forces.

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No-one's considering stripmining the Jersey
shore any time soon,

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but journalist Vince Beiser spent years investigating

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illegal sand mining in the developing world,
and brought back reports of

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disappearing islands, devastated ecosystems
and murderous black-market sand mafias.

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Hundreds of people have been killed over sand.

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Now, here, the Corps of Engineers are keeping
a community safe,

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some birds safe, and making sure there'll
still be a beach here for tourists this summer.

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But in a hundred years, who knows?

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Maybe New Jersey will get a better offer for
this sand.