Oscar Garcia, UTB graduate in Environmental Science, has been working on a sand dunes and beach erosion project. (Courtesy photo)
Special to the PRESS
South Padre Island’s sand dunes help protect buildings and roadways from damaging waves during hurricanes. With the waves often comes beach erosion, a problem that city, county and state officials often try to resolve with dredging and sand renourishment.
A recent University of Texas at Brownsville graduate has studied a possible solution to beach erosion which he presented to the city of South Padre Island’s Shoreline Task Force on Monday, Jan. 9. Oscar Garcia, 20, of Brownsville talked about the feasibility study he did last fall for his senior project for the bachelor’s degree in environmental science he earned in December 2010.
Garcia worked up to four times a week on South Padre Island tending experimental plots containing native coastal sea oats and bitter panicum growing in sand and a separate mixture of sand and glass cullet, which is pulverized and recycled glass. It took Garcia up to 60 hours to sift through the glass cullet he got from McAllen to prepare it for his research.
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