waves crash against the concrete sea wall hugging the shoreline along chicago’s calumet park. sections of the gray boundary between land and lake are crumbling against the constant pressure of the elements.

with over 25 miles of glistening blue water, chicago’s lakeshore, composed of lake michigan beaches, faces a significant threat. erosion is the shrinking of a shoreline that is slowly worn away by waves, wind, currents and other natural factors, and it is affecting the city’s shoreline at an exacerbated rate due to climate change. 

chicago beaches are narrowing at a rate of nearly 100 ft. per year along parts of the coastline, meaning less space for recreation and the loss of habitats for shorebirds and other beach animals.

“in a warming climate, there’s more intense precipitation events, which also tend to facilitate higher rates of erosion,” max berkelhammer, a climate and atmospheric scientist and professor at university of illinois at chicago, said. “the primary cause is coastal management. like building right along coastlines and not maintaining basically wetlands or or natural shore ecosystems that absorb the action of the lake. so i think it’s primarily a human or urban development issue.”

berkehammer said the primary action in question is the rising lake levels exposing more of the sand to water, wind and the increase in runoff — when it rains faster than the sand or soil can absorb the water and it runs off a surface, increasing the rate of erosion.

erosion causes damage to infrastructure (roads, buildings and parking lots) and natural habitats. it can also threaten public health by increasing the risk of algal blooms, quick growing areas of algae that can produce harmful toxins. 

edgewater environmental coalition (eec) — a nonprofit organization focused on action, advocacy and education for environmental stewardship — has a shoreline protection program aimed at restoring the natural ecosystems of the lakeshore using nature-based solutions. the organization has used successful strategies of green infrastructure like building dunes, planting native plants and removing invasive ones to mitigate erosion. eec, in conjunction with the loyola university student environmentalist alliance, has planted 300 native grasses and 1,500 marram grass stolons that act as anchors that strengthen dunes across the shore.

natural solutions can often be more cost effective, visually in tune with the natural landscape and equally as durable as traditional gray infrastructure like the concrete ground and walls that make up most of the chicago shoreline, according to eec advisory board member john laswick. he said the main goal of the organization is to reestablish dunes, which are nature’s original protection system.

“what we do is go out every last sunday of the month in the summertime and pull out invasive plants, pick up trash, plant new grasses to extend the dune plantings because if you don’t have the sand anchored with grasses and trees, then it’s just gonna blow away or wash away,” laswick said.

while the organization focuses on dunes and native plants, they also promote other natural resources to combat erosion.

natural solutions to erosion

1. beach nourishment and restoration: replenishing eroded beaches with sediment like sand to protect against wave energy.
2. dune restoration and protection: stabilizing dunes with plants and shrubs to help them last longer and protect the land against erosion.
3. natural shorelines: adding vegetation, oyster reefs and aquatic vegetation to trap sediment and diminish wave energy effects.
4. green infrastructure: adding green infrastructure in urban areas to manage stormwater runoff, like permeable pavement to retain and filter stormwater.
5. coastal vegetation management: adding and preserving native grasses, shrubs, and trees to anchor sediment.
6. integrated coastal zone management: using an integrated approach to coastal management by understanding the interaction of land, water and human activities. 

friends of the parks (fotp), which provided the seed grant that enables eec’s stewardship services along the shore, is a nonprofit organization focused on protecting chicago’s lakefront and ensuring an equitable, ecological park system. they have enacted policy changes — such as partnering with the state and chicago park district to implement the illinois clean harbors program — and educate local residents on park stewardship. 

gin kilgore, interim executive director of fotp, is a former resident of hyde park, a south side neighborhood a few miles from the lakeshore. she says she grew up observing the power of lake michigan to batter the shoreline during big storms, which she notes are more frequent and intense in recent years due to climate change. during long runs along the lakefront she has seen the limitations of “gray infrastructure” to protect against erosion, such as crumbling sidewalks in front of the calumet beach fieldhouse.

fotp is closely monitoring the u.s. army corps of engineers’ general reevaluation report (grr), a study that will evaluate the risk of flooding, erosion and storm damage along lake michigan’s coast in areas of chicago. the study, cost-shared with the city of chicago and the chicago park district, is set to be completed in 2025, at which time solutions will be shared to combat these issues.

according to kilgore, the corps’ mandate is to use the lowest-cost solutions, prioritizing the highest property values. 

“do we only measure cost in terms of how much it costs to put down the concrete? okay, maybe that’s cheap. but, what’s the cost of compromising habitats, or what’s the cost of human access to the lake?” kilgore said. 

fotp also sees the study as an opportunity to complete chicago’s lakefront parks and paths system which currently falls short two miles at both the north and south ends, due in part to private properties that hug the shoreline, kilgore said. creating a buffer between the buildings and water’s edge provides flood protection and allows for public use.

eec also wants to ensure that the report’s proposed solutions are nature-based, and are raising awareness of their work to influence the army corps’ approach.

“a huge part of what is physically chicago and culturally chicago is this lakefront and these parks and the lakeshore drive, and these decisions [about the shore] are going to have an effect for decades,” laswick said. “we got to get started on the right path.”

in late may of 2019, three of us drove to silver strand state beach — runs are supposed to be the biggest on broad, secluded beaches — and waited for the fish to come. the second hour of the second night is said to bring the biggest spawns, and we sat on shore, three out-of-staters poised to be reminded of why we came to college in california. the wind was blowing onshore in a familiar midwestern way, but none of the breaking waves brought fish with them, only thick salt spray. we walked further down shore, first year environmental science majors not yet possessing the language to explain the patterns of longshore drift that pull sediment (and grunion) north up the strand. after an hour of searching, our most significant sighting was a lone juvenile man-o-war, a small jellylike hydrozoan that from a distance appeared to be a small newspaper bag washed up at the high tide mark. we left grunionless, but relieved to see a different creature from ecology class rendered real instead of beach litter. 

two years later, on a springtime full moon, i reconciled that i couldn’t leave california without having taken part in a proper grunion run. early march is the first publicized run of the year. in 2021, this meant the day after daylight saving time, when midnight feels like 11 p.m. and it’s a little bit easier to be fully awake and present in the dark. we saw flashlights about halfway down the beach and turned away from them and started toward the jetty. the first discernable change was the texture of the sand. at high tide, it’s soft and gooey, the kind that your feet fall into and leave an oblong imprint, more hoof-like than human.

we saw one fish, about 400 meters north of the lifeguard house. it wasn’t a good omen. grunion have a built-in safety system: if the first fish don’t get swept back in the ocean by the tide, the rest of the group will identify a threat onshore and a run will not occur. i was convinced we’d witnessed precisely that, a lone scout on the beach signaling an apparent danger. as we walked further south, a group of plovers scurried out behind a breaking wave. dun brown on top with white underbellies, the small birds looked just enough like the silvery sides of a grunion to be the real thing. they moved in a pack, though they scuttled over land much more nimbly than a fish could. still, i wanted to believe they were grunion: if these fish could spawn on land, maybe they really could move like they had legs?

the plovers ran east, and we turned toward the breaking waves to see the silvery sides of hundreds of fish illuminated by parking lot lights. finally, grunion had materialized in the incoming water, glistening in a way that was distinctly the product of layered scales, and not deceptive feathers.  almost immediately, they surged up against the sand, burrowing vertically into the soft sediment and laying eggs. for every fish flopping onto land, there was another head visible, buried fins-down in this perennial ritual. further south, a network of holes was visible: we had found the grunion mid-run, the glistening orange eggs filling the indentations indicated. the grunion on the sand sound like wings, their tails beating against the thin laminate of water as the waves rush back down the sloped sand. 

catching grunion is a form of sustainable fishing in california: with no bait, lines, or lures, california fish and wildlife rules state that they must be caught with one’s bare hands, and strictly prohibits the catching of excess fish. a hunter approached us, armed with only a red cooler and small flashlight. upon seeing us, they turned back — it may be an unspoken rule of grunion hunting that it is best done in isolation. perhaps it was our turn to go, too, and just let the fish be.  

the next day, we went out again. the third day is sometimes as good as the second, research tells us. the weather felt strikingly similar to that grunionless may of 2019, with strong winds, giant kelp washed onto burgeoning dunes, and eggshell-white foam spray surrounding the kelp beds. the winds were strong enough to knock out a transformer, breaking the link between the electric grid and the entirety of the glorified sandbar that is mission beach. in the full darkness the grunion could be apart from humanity, spawning in actual darkness like evolution intended them to. we walked down to the jetty, and they were there — scattered across the shore with the force of the waves, but still digging holes with only tails and fins, still silver against the night-black sky, still making their world go on.

prior to november 2013, this island’s northwestern shore went largely ignored by many, slowly eroding. decades passed, a few feet would turn into a few hundred feet into a few acres.

boats, storms, waves, and winds have all played their role in swallowing a great chunk of the island’s northwestern shore.

it was in 2013 that this process of erosion could go on no longer. one more storm and the shoreline of fowl river would be exposed to the same harsh conditions accelerating the deterioration of the shorelines currently undergoing stabilization. however, without the collaborative efforts of the small company pushed forth by the mobile bay national estuary program and others, mon louis island would not resemble times of old — an unfathomable reality.

standing on the four and a half new acres of restored marsh and island shoreline, it could be hard to believe that the very ground beneath your feet was the product of a project that spans back only to early july. it could be even harder to believe that six months from now when the same marshland is filled with vegetation bursting forth, painting the brown canvas a lush green. for those who would, do not feel ashamed, for i, too, remain dumbfounded at the progress of the project even though i stood in the very waters being filled with dredged material that now serves as that restored marshland, taking photographs with tom herder, the mobile bay national estuary program watershed protection manager and mon louis island shoreline stabilization/restoration project manager.

our trip to the site of the project occurred a month after our trip to the oyster reefs along the island during the warmer, more humid late july. broken oyster shells lined the then-shoreline, prodding the soles of my feet from the hidden shallows of the water murky with dredged materials. the pungent aroma of sand, silt, and mud dug up from eight feet below the surface of gulf coast water filled the air like a thin film.

dredgers sat on floating barges taking massive clumps of dredged material and relocating it to the then-shoreline. these massive machines sat off to the right of my shoulder, speeding through the thick waters and heavy earth reclaiming what had been lost to decades of erosion.

the pictures i took during that afternoon, unfortunately, did not capture the weight in the presence of those machines or the earth they moved. and this weight did not lie only physically within the moment, but in both the years before, when habitats and homes to many organisms, big and small, were slipping away into the ocean. and the years to come, when those same habitats and homes are being rebuilt and re-stabilized, giving birth once again to all kinds of critters populating the land in this life and filling my stomach in the next.

of course, this progress could not have occurred without the efforts of three years ago.

in november 2013, the national fish and wildlife foundation board, identified the restoration and stabilization of the northwestern tip of mon louis island as an emergency project. in a july 2016 fox 10 news interview, herder revealed that this project is the first alabama coastal restoration project to be funded by “bp money.” that is, money derived from criminal penalties related to the deepwater horizon spill that must be “tied” to damaged habitats or living resources, according to a facebook post by herder.

though $1.2 million was initially granted through the national fish and wildlife foundation environmental benefit fund, and an additional $800,000 alabama deepwater horizon incident grant was identified and secured by alabama senator bill hightower in early 2015.

between those two timestamps – november 2013 to early 2015 – herder and the estuary program began their collaboration efforts with marine scientist supervisor and living shoreline expert c. scott hardaway, as well as the experts at the u.s. army corps of engineers and thompson engineering, to analyze exactly how critical the situation was on the northwestern tip of mon louis island.

this small group was tasked with overcoming multiple challenges, according to herder, such as where to obtain — and how to transport — dredging materials, how to construct the rock “pile on” and breakwater, and how to conduct this process as environmentally friendly as possible. what resulted from their efforts over the course of the year was a four-phase plan for the project, herder said: 1. construct a 1,540-foot “dog-ugly” breakwater of riprap, or rubble used to form the foundation for a breakwater, to stabilize the northwestern tip; 2. fill in the marsh; 3. dredge the army corps of engineers-designated fowl river open water disposal area, the fowl river navigation channel, through hydraulic pumping (a method that eliminates environmental impact as channel sediments will naturally replace all borrowed material); 4. plant the marsh with native species.

as of late october, phases one through three have been completed. the continuous breakwater has been constructed, the marsh has been filled, and the dredge materials have been placed and settled.

moving forward, the members of the project expect the riprap to serve its purpose disrupting tidal flows, boat waves, wind energy, and storm damages, while they now wait until may at the latest to begin planting native species to restore the missing greenery of the marsh. of course, the breakwater is not impermeable and it is documented that this is an understood fact. but now, habitats can be revitalized, fowl river once again has a strong line of defense, and the community along the mobile bay can rest easy knowing that decades of erosion have been reversed and the northwestern shoreline of mon louis island has been stabilized. that’s all thanks to the efforts of this persistent group — and the necessary funding.

and work will not stop at the tip of mon louis island, just as it did not begin at the tip of mon louis island. it is the success of efforts such as these that, again, show all is not bleak on our shorefronts. members of the marine science community at large will continue to save our coast —not just the gulf coast, but all our coasts — one shore at a time.