Beach Raking
What do we mean when we say “Beach Raking” Thursday mornings at 6:00AM.
There is beach raking and there is “Beach Raking”. “Beach Raking” is the raking and REMOVAL of seaweed from the beach. It is illegal to remove seaweed from the beach. It requires DEP approval to remove seaweed from any beach. The HBA has permission from the DEP to manually remove seaweed from the beach with assistance from the Town. Any person cannot legally remove seaweed from Higgins Beach.
Can I rake a clearing in the seaweed for my chairs and blankets?
If someone wanted to rake a clearing in the seaweed to place their chair or blanket, that beach raking is allowed, you just can’t remove it from the beach.
History of Beach Raking and its effect
“Beach Raking” at Higgins goes back at least to the 1930’s or 1940’s, according to some of the oldtimers. So it has been a tradition that has been kept alive to the current day. To give the summer beach raking some perspective, there are 2 tides per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, or 730 tides. The beach raking is scheduled for 1 morning a week for about 8 weeks in the summer, and sometimes less than that if the tide is too high at the time of raking, or the weather is inclement. So for the summer months we are raking only 1 tide out of the 14 tides a week or .07% of the opportunities that a tide can deposit seaweed on the beach. There have been times when the beach is raked clean and the next tide deposits a raft of seaweed on the just raked beach. The outgoing tide can also remove the seaweed from the beach.
How much of the beach gets raked?
That depends on the number of volunteers and the amount of seaweed. Usually the area from Houghton St to Ashton St is the only area to get raked. The HBA volunteers show up at 6:00AM and rake the seaweed into piles. The Town comes around 7:00AM with their bucket loader and dump trucks. The bucket loader goes down the ramp to the beach and the Town crew must pitchfork the seaweed into the bucket loader which then dumps it into the dump truck. The use of pitchforks reduces the amount of sand that is removed. The bucket loader will not go near the water and will not go on the beach if the tide is too high.
What does the Town do with the seaweed?
They take the seaweed to one of their facilities and store it separate from seaweed from other beaches. The Town brings back the seaweed and some of the sand and dumps it along the dunes between Pearl and Ashton Sts., with the property owners' permission. This helps protect the dunes from erosion during the winter storms.
Why was there talk of eliminating “Beach Raking”?
When we remove seaweed from the beach we are also removing sand. Higgins beach has a unique eco system. The sand on our beach does not exist anywhere else nearby. We cannot go to a quarry and get truckloads of any sand and drop it on the beach. Once the sand is gone, it’s gone. The sand on the beach cycles from the beach to the river to the ocean and back to the beach. It is constantly cycling. Some years, there is very little sand at the Houghton St. end of the beach. Rocks and ledge are exposed. By the end of summer, the sand has cycled back to that end of the beach. Sand leaves the beach in other ways too, on the bottom of chairs, shoes, feet, blankets, towels, etc. Most of that sand stays in the watershed area of the beach. But we should take care to try and remove as much sand from our chairs and shoes as possible. The sand in the removed seaweed does not come back to the beach.
To address this issue, the Board set up an ad hoc committee to explore ways to maintain the tradition of “Beach Raking” and to minimize the removal of sand contained in the seaweed leaving the beach. This will be updated when that report is submitted and approved by the Board.
Call Marine Mammals of Maine
