A photograph from my recent visit to the tiny town of North Cove on the Olympic Penninsula.

North Cove had the ignominious title of most eroded coastal beach on the west coast of the U.S. For over one hundred years the town eroded away losing almost 70% of its dwellings and businesses. None of the solutions tried over the years worked to stop the huge crashing waves that took one hundred feet of beach yearly. In the 1980’s a local observed that sand was deposited in between larger beach rocks after a storm. The theory developed that piling stones higher and higher would collect more sand and eventually would become a dune with coastal grasses and broom establishing on the top most crest. Once the community embraced the idea the government was enlisted to pile rocks and quarry spalls as high a 30 foot tall. Decades later the remaining town became protected.