![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_9490.jpg\")
\t\t\tPopham Beach State Park’s West Beach on Dec. 9. A shift in the path of the Morse River has caused increased erosion and leveled some dunes that were restored using Christmas trees in 2024. (Katie Langley\/Staff Writer)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPopham Beach State Park’s West Beach on Dec. 9. A shift in the path of the Morse River has caused increased erosion and leveled some dunes that were restored using Christmas trees in 2024. (Katie Langley\/Staff Writer)<\/p>\n
PHIPPSBURG \u2014 After powerful storms flattened Popham Beach State Park\u2019s coastline in the winter of 2024 , a pilot project used 450 discarded Christmas trees<\/a> to capture wind-blown sand and restore about 100 feet of dunes.<\/p>\n The project prevented the situation in a region already prone to \u201cdynamic\u201d erosion from getting significantly worse, said Peter Slovinsky, a marine geologist for the Maine Geological Survey. But now, despite those efforts, the state park beach is the narrowest he has ever seen.<\/p>\n The latest challenge to dune restoration at Popham is a northeastern shift of the Morse River, first noticed around August. Normally, the river lets out to the west of Popham Beach closest to Small Point, allowing sand to build up, but every 10\u201315 years, it swings over, eating away at the dunes that have grown over time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the worst I\u2019ve seen it in my 25 years,\u201d Slovinsky said.<\/p>\n Locations at Popham Beach are eroding faster than other Maine beaches, according to data released by the Maine Geological Survey<\/a> in October. While Maine\u2019s beaches have been eroding at about 1 foot per year on average, Popham Beach between the West and Center access paths has eroded an average of about 92 feet per year since 2017, the highest rate in the state.<\/p>\n The last time a shift of this magnitude occurred was in 2010, when erosion caused waves to nearly reach the bathhouse on the west side of the park.<\/p>\n The East and Center paths to the beach have been severely damaged by recent erosion and are currently closed to visitors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve lost signage that I don\u2019t believe has ever been moved or repositioned since the \u201960s, when the park was created,\u201d said Park Manager Sean Vaillancourt.<\/p>\n To demonstrate the fluctuating nature of erosion at the state park, as recently as 2019, the beach extended roughly 1,000 feet, allowing people to walk out to nearby Fox Island at low tide, Slovinsky said. <\/p>\n The 2024 Christmas tree project was built on a similar trial at South Portland\u2019s Willard Beach<\/a> in 2023. Reid State Park followed Popham\u2019s example in 2025 when volunteers collected<\/a> hundreds of recycled trees.<\/p>\n The process mimics the natural creation of sand dunes, which serve as barriers against storm surges and crucial ecological habitats. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat it does is it naturally creates these mounds, like the dune would do in nature anyway, and in doing so, it helps capture more sand,\u201d Slovinsky said. \u201cAnd then waves will sometimes wash in and the sand will get deposited, and then the grass will start growing, [which] traps the sand, too.\u201d<\/p>\n The trees likely helped prevent the recent erosion event from destroying even more dunes. About 30\u201340 feet of dune remained on the West Beach in early December, with many pine trees still buried deep under sand, snow and vegetation. The rest of the trees have probably floated away, Vaillancourt and Slovinsky said.<\/p>\n However, a similar project won\u2019t be possible this holiday season. While the winter 2024 storms left behind a long, flat beach, the beach in its current state is too short to fit enough Christmas trees to make a difference.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to predict when the Morse River will reposition itself and allow the beach to build back up, Vaillancourt and Slovinsky said, but the hope is that Mother Nature will step in before tourist season.<\/p>\n In the long term, they\u2019re weighing a number of possible strategies, including manually diverting the Morse River and relocating or rebuilding the bathhouse that sits just above the dunes. Visitors can stay tuned to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry\u2019s text message and email alert system<\/a> for closures and other information, Vaillancourt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Popham Beach State Park’s West Beach on Dec. 9. A shift in the path of the Morse River…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-343706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_9493.jpg\")
<\/a>The Center Path at Popham Beach State Park in Phippsburg on Dec. 9. The path was closed due to dune erosion. (Katie Langley\/Staff Writer)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2024-07-02-at-7.37.06-AM-1720049422.jpg\")
<\/a>A drone photo of the Popham Beach State Park Christmas tree pilot in 2024. (Courtesy of Sean Vaillancourt)<\/p>\n