Shoreline Erosion Repair

This article was provided by vendor partner, SOX Erosion Solutions.

Problem: Eroding canal banks claim homeowners’ yards, docks, and pools.

Solution: Create a fortified living shoreline behind 43 homes in a Florida community.

Living on a canal loses some of its luster when the canal banks collapse into the water, taking part of the yard, and maybe the fence or a dock with it.

That’s what homeowners in Oriole Estates in the city of Lauderdale Lakes had been facing, after years of erosion and neglect. But now, homeowners have a fortified “living shoreline” behind 43 canal-front homes.

The eroded canal banks were on city property and it was the city of Lauderdale Lakes that sought solutions to this vexing problem. They had installed Geo-Tube on sections of the canal in the past and it had failed, resulting in the present conditions. Officials were advised not to use Geo-filter Tubes again by the Geotechnical Engineering Report by Terracon, an independent consulting firm.

The city officials were all set to move forward with repairing the canal walls with Gabion baskets filled with rock even though the high costs only allowed a portion of the neighborhood to be done – only 12 of 43 homes would get restored banks.

The city officials and engineers approved Fiallo’s plan to lay a foundation of rock rubble based on sections of the shoreline and apply SOX Erosion Solution’s Shoresox product on top to create a living shoreline.

The kicker was that this solution would save the city of Lauderdale Lakes $2.5 Million and all 43 homes would get new shorelines. The Gabion basket plan would have cost $2.5 million more than using Shoresox and would have provided less reclamation.

“The option is definitely less expensive than other methods like building seawalls,” City Manager Phil Alleyne said. The job to strengthen 3,250 feet of shoreline is the city’s largest canal bank restoration effort so far.

The SOLitude Lake Management crew installed the Shoresox bioengineered erosion control system using their patented subsurface anchoring system. Once staked in and stabilized, the mesh was pumped full of black dirt, compost material and topsoil. The mesh surface was then topped with St. Augustine grass squares. The shoreline is expected to last several decades.

General contractor, Abbey Fiallo, describes the final product as aesthetically pleasing. Working concurrently with the SOLitude Lake Management crew, Fiallo says the entire project took six to eight weeks with four to five of those weeks concentrating on the Shoresox installation. “Both companies planned together an maximized production time,” says Fiallo. “In addition to the $2.5 million saved by the city, we actually saved them another $24,000 because we never had a change order.”

After the install, backyards grew by several feet, putting a safer distance between the erosive waters and residents’ pools, pool decks, docks and cabanas. “We reclaimed approximately six feet of shoreland in the back of their yards,” said Brian Fischer of SOX Erosion Solutions. “It definitely improves home values.”