The beaches on both sides of Little Lagoon Pass have been influenced by the engineering at the pass. When the pass was stabilized by jetty construction in 1981, no sand bypassing system was established. In a classic response to jetty construction, the beaches got wider on the eastern side and eroded on the western side for about a decade. In the early 1990’s a lawsuit settlement included beach nourishment on the western beaches and shortening of jetties. Dredging is now needed on a fairly regular basis (about 4 to 6 times per year) to maintain depths in the pass. The dredged sand is placed on the beaches to the immediate west of the pass. Essentially, the current operations are a form of sand bypassing.
Little Lagoon Pass
The court-ordered coastal engineering has worked to a major extent. The beaches have been widened on the western side of the pass and the pass has remained open. However, because of the constant dredging and shoaling process, there is some desire to further modify the jetty system. The Alabama Department of Transportation, the agency with responsibility for the jetties, has proposed a modification to widen the jetties. Also, Gulf Shores’ 2001 beach nourishment project is east of the pass and may lead to a higher rate of shoaling and thus increased dredging costs in Lagoon Pass.
This report recommends that a comprehensive coastal engineering and planning analysis should be done for Little Lagoon Pass. The longshore sand transport along the beach, the tidal flushing of the pass, and the interactions between the two make for a complex situation that is traditionally addressed by coastal engineers. The history of Little Lagoon pass is a good example of how decisions that are not based on sound coastal engineering and comprehensive planning can cause problems. Both the downdrift erosion problem before the court-ordered jetty shortening and the present-day shoaling problems in the pass were predicted by coastal engineers. An open, sound, comprehensive coastal engineering and planning analysis for the pass could address the concerns of all the multiple users of the pass and evaluate options to provide better information for management decisions while avoiding the negative impacts experienced in the past.