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facing east, the remnants of the bulkheaded area, Michael walking
along where the beach would have stood |
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facing east from the beach you can see the other side of section 1
across the water |
When I was a child growing up on McKinley Drive in the '70's it was a very common occurrence for my family and I to walk or bike down to various portions of the water front. One spot that we frequented because of its proximity to our home was the end of Jefferson Drive. When I was a child there was at least 20 - 30 more feet of land there sticking out into the Narrows Bay than there is now. The very end had a three sided bulk headed section on the east and on the west was a sandy beach with a swing set and the remains of a gazebo. When the fleas got too bad my father would walk down with us and our dog and toss the Lab/Irish Setter mix into the bay at the deep end of the bulk head. We would then run around to the sandy beach calling for our dog to swim to us. After a walk home and a bath in the yard our dog was feeling a lot less itchy.
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facing north east toward the old Keenans property
at the end of Beaver Drive |
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| map of the area in at the end of Jefferson Drive, Mastic Beach |
The other feature found at the end of Jefferson Drive were the mud flats. When I was a a child I had no idea why this land was barren and so much different that all the rest that I knew. It was a place for dirt bikes and BB Guns and never going alone.
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| what the mud flats look like now |
What I didn't know was that that land had been used as a dredging spoils deposit area. Dredge spoils are the mud and silt that fill up the waterways. This makes it difficult for boats to navigate in the channel through the Narrows Bay and the entrances into the creeks and marinas nearby. The mud and silt need to be dug out and put somewhere else. In large harbors and bays an out of the way place in the water is usually chosen to deposit the dug up material so that navigation is improved where necessary and the materials moved do not get in the way. In the Narrows Bay, at the south end of Mastic Beach, there is not enough room in the bay to just shift the spoils off to the side when dredging. The spoils need to be moved to an on land/ upland site so that they can be dewatered (dried out some) and then brought to their final resting place. Sometimes, the dredge spoils are not moved to a second site and can be left in the first place they were deposited.
to be continued next time....
