Work will be done in the coming months to protect Silver Beach from additional erosion as the winter approaches. During a Thursday meeting of the Berrien County Board of Commissioners, County Administrator Brian Dissette said he’s worked with Abonmarche to study options for erosion mitigation. They’ve settled on a plan to hire Edgewater Resources to install temporary structures along the shore to prevent erosion from winter storms.
“At this point, we are getting very close to the end of the calendar year,” Dissette said. “We know that as we get into fall, fall will then lead into winter, and winter is going to lead to storms. We don’t have a lot of space at Silver Beach, the space that we do have, if we don’t take steps to do some armoring, we are going to lose.”
Dissette said the Army Corps of Engineers permitting process could take weeks, and so he urged quick approval of the plan. The board then approved it at a cost of around $18,000. Also on Thursday, Commissioner Bill Chickering had some good news to report. He said despite COVID, revenue for the Berrien County Parks Department was only down about 10% this year. That’s even with the parking at Silver Beach being limited to 50%.
