Geotextile tubes and rock groins

Geotextile tubes and rock groins placed in shallow calm seas, minimize shoreline erosion and increase water clarity, allowing coastal wetland vegetation to be re-established or coastal nesting island shorelines to be  stabilized. Geotextile tubes,  best described as giant sand-filled socks, have an exterior plastic fiber "skin" covered with a black UV-resistant shroud. Rock groins are long, narrow mounds of rock rip-rap. Geotextile tubes and rock groins can both be effective, but rock groins last indefinitely and create living oyster reef habitat. Geotextile tubes, on the other hand, have an expected lifespan of 25 years and cannot support a living marine community. However, rock groins are three times more costly than geotubes. Geotextile tubes have been deployed offshore from Galveston Island State Park to help restore coastal  wetlands, and near Shamrock and Sundown Islands to protect nesting islands. In other locations, such as Armand Bayou, brush fences, snow fences and hay bales have also been used to capture silt and minimize erosion damage on windward shorelines until marsh vegetation becomes established. (US Fish & Wildlife Agency)

Geotex Tubes were installed at Sea Place on Longboat Key in 1989 and are still there covered by sand. The town and their consultants CP&E installed Geotex tubes made and installed by another company and they failed fairly quickly.

Perhaps who manages these sorts of projects is an important element in project success.