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Application Possibilities In order to resupply the natural inputs necessary to maintain beach ecologies, we propose the introduction of sediment hoppers to Puget Sound’s most urban beach ecology, Elliott Bay. Our proposal is to supplement the net-shore drift in two parts: 1. Barge Hoppers located in the Duwamish River, the forever altered and managed river that once fed the bay. These barges can provide controlled dispersal of sediments based on ideal tidal patterns (outflowing tides) when currents are strong enough to deliver sediment to the bay, providing long-shore drift sediments normally transported along the coast, while avoiding slack tides or incoming tides when sediment might otherwise settle and clog maritime channels. 2. Bluff Hoppers placed at strategic locations along the bay on existing or proposed beach environments will provide sediment for wave-induced beach drift, working with the tides to replenish the supply of sediments once supplied by bluffs that ringed the bay, but have long since been altered, starving the bay of their supply of sediment.
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