Horsey Island Recharge Project Part 2

Blog by Kieren Alexander, Site Manager for RSPB Old Hall Marshes

Work is progressing nicely on the beneficial reuse project at Horsey island, with almost 25% of the material delivered by the Sospan Dau so far.
 
The Sospan Dau is being skippered by a joint venture of Van Oord and Boskalis Westminster who have undertaken many such projects around the globe and are experts in this type of operation. They are able to access the disposal location at every high tide once they have found enough of the correct material from the Harwich Haven authority channel deepening source site, in this case sand and shingle. The material is then pumped ashore using a short length of floating pipe held in place by ropes and a small tugboat. This allows accurate disposal of the material and into the area it should be placed. 

You can track the boat here:

​Or here,
 
MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic
 
However, the best view is from the air and we were able to access Horsey last week and take this Drone footage. This shows the Sospan Dau approaching the island and discharging the material. 

​At the moment the material resembles a large flat sand and shingle pancake. It will be shaped and sculpted by tide and wind over winter, moving landwards and westwards and in time building up the existing beach.
 
Although it doesn’t look like it now, the existing beach at Horsey is manmade, it was created in the 1990’s by the original Sospan Dau after a similar scheme where material was transported from a deepening project carried out by Harwich Haven Authority and the Environment Agency. It was after this that little terns colonised the beach and made this an important colony. However, the same forces that created the beach are also slowly causing it to be less suitable for nesting birds, it is slowly flattening out and lowering. This makes it much more vulnerable to storm events and high tides over the breeding season, which can lead to the complete loss of a breeding season. This work will make this scenario much less likely in the future in this location.

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In case you missed it, here is the link to first part of Horsey Island Recharge Project blog.