Beach Erosion Engineer Called a Godsend, Fake

To some waterfront property owners on the Great Lakes, Dick Holmberg is a savior of shorelines.

To some government officials, he is a nuisance making a lot of money at the expense of desperate homeowners willing to try his method of preventing beach erosion.

The state of Michigan is footing the bill to find out who’s right.

The battleground is at the base of a deteriorating 60-foot bluff on Lake Michigan in this Allegan County tourist town.

Lakeshore Drive, a scenic stretch atop the dune, has crumbled as the turbulent lake chews up the supporting bluff. Parts of the two-lane road, which is lined with summer homes, have been closed or reduced to one lane.

What to do about the quarter-mile stretch of shrinking beach represents only a small part of the controversy confronting scientists, government officials and communities as they seek ways to save the shorelines disappearing into our seas and the Great Lakes.

Holmberg, a self-described geomorphologist without a degree, claims that he has found a solution.

Satisfied Customers

He has found his believers in some satisfied customers and some state lawmakers who have authorized about $300,000 from the state budget for a pilot project of his patented “Undercurrent Stabilizer System.”

Holmberg, who heads Erosion Control Systems Inc. of Whitehall, has installed the system here, and will put it next at East Tawas on Lake Huron and possibly one other test site.

Western Michigan University will monitor the systems’ effectiveness.

“There are those who believe Dick Holmberg’s techniques are a godsend, and then there are those who think he’s a fake,” says state Sen. Phil Arthurhultz of Whitehall, who authorized the release of the funds. “But if there’s a method out there that can protect our existing shoreline or expand it, we are negligent if we are not employing it to the maximum.”

Most coastal engineers believe shoreline erosion is a natural process and advocate tougher setback laws and the pumping of dredged sand to replenish beaches.

Blames Dredging

But Holmberg blames governmental dredging of navigational inlets and construction of piers for erosion because they divert offshore the natural sand-laden near-shore currents.

Beach nourishment is a temporary, costly solution, and setback laws “simply mean that we’re banning the shoreline, just running from it,” Holmberg says.

Holmberg’s devices consist of concrete-injected earth and textile bags installed perpendicularly to the shoreline at regular intervals, extending 150 feet into the lake.

He says they act as underwater speed bumps, elevating and slowing the currents. The suspended sand precipitates and is deposited on the shoreline. Within two to four years, the bags are covered by sand. The system costs $200 to $1,000 per foot of shoreline.

Work With Nature

Traditional hard structures such as seawalls and rock revetments only reflect wave energy seaward and increase near-shore turbulence, Holmberg said. The key, he said, is to work with the forces of nature, not against them.

Holmberg, a burly 52-year-old who installs every system himself, has constructed hundreds for private property owners in the past decade.

He contends that he has been tangled in bureaucratic red tape because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Natural Resources have conspired against him by restricting his permits.

“It’s all about egos and power,” Holmberg said. “I’ve taken a different path and even though they know my system works, they’ve chosen to ignore me.”

Against Preservation

Moreover, Holmberg contends, government officials don’t want to preserve the shorelines.

“They want to get rid of beaches because beaches are shallow water zones and you can’t build a pier in a shallow water zone,” he said.

Government officials scoff at those allegations.

“Mr. Holmberg is upset because he feels we are not doing enough to promote his product,” said Martin Jannereth of the DNR’s Land and Water Management Division.

Jannereth and other government officials said Holmberg never has fully documented his system’s effectiveness and that any apparent successes probably result from fluctuating lake levels.

Holmberg, however, presents 10-inch-thick albums with dramatic before-and-after photographs and said he has presented mounds of data, only to be ignored.

A Holmberg system was installed at the New Buffalo summer home of Thomas Rehwaldt in 1986, a month before Lake Michigan reached its record-high levels.

“Even as the water got higher, I began seeing beach almost immediately,” said Rehwaldt, who paid $21,000 for the system.

Today, Rehwaldt has 120 feet of beach outside his home. Before the system was installed, part of his back yard had been swallowed by the lake.

Three Installations

The state Department of Transportation last year funded three Holmberg installations near threatened roads in Charlevoix in northeastern lower Michigan. So far, they are pleased with the results, DOT Engineer Thomas Coleman said.

But many coastal engineers said Holmberg’s techniques are nothing but variations on a groin, a shore-attached structure that runs perpendicularly to the shoreline.

“What gets me is that his techniques are nothing new--they’re decades old,” said William Wood, director of the Great Lakes Coastal Research Laboratory at Purdue University. “He isn’t doing anything dishonest, but he’s misrepresenting.”

Wood said he examined a system Holmberg installed at Ogden Dunes, Ind., in early 1985 and found that the stabilizers did lead to an expansion of homeowners’ beach--but at the expense of their neighbors to the south.

“Where do you think the sand comes from?” Wood asked.

Denies Adverse Effect

Holmberg denied that his structures adversely affect nearby beaches.

In Florida, Holmberg was accused of violating DNR permits while installing a system at Captiva Island in 1979, officials there said. Although Holmberg claims that the project was successful, a government report by a coastal engineering consulting firm was inconclusive.

Some East Coast states have banned the use of hard structures altogether, and Orrin H. Pilkey, a Duke University geology professor who heads a shoreline protection program, said he was amazed taxpayers’ money was being used for a Holmberg project.

“All it is is hard stabilization with a snazzy name,” Pilkey said.