High water and winter storms brought over three dozen volunteers from around Sodus Bay to join forces at Crescent Beach – East End – near Lake Bluff - to help with an erosion mitigation project that will help protect Sodus Bay and Crescent Beach over the winter months. Storms this past fall continued to push Crescent Beach further into Sodus Bay and diminish the barrier bar that buffers the bay from Lake Ontario. One storm in October of 2019, moved the barrier bar as much as 40 feet further into the bay. The Lake Ontario coastal flooding of 2017 and 2019 has eroded the barrier bar to a point where, the willows and poplars are all gone but four shabby trees, holding on by only a few roots. These trees have been an important factor in the stabilization and erosion control of the beach.

The project concept designer is Lindsey Gertenslager, District Manager of the Wayne County Soil and Water. The idea of the plan is that the bags will be high enough, heavy and bulky enough to allow beach sand and gravel to accumulate on the lakeside of the bags, building the beach up, providing a slope for the waves to dissipate, and preventing further wash-overs into the bay, which removing the habitat many fish species, including endangered species require. Lindsey worked with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the Huron Coastal Zone Management Officer to assure all were on board.

This barrier bar erosion mitigation project is a temporary measure until The New York State Resiliency Economic Development Initiative (REDI) project for this area of Crescent Beach is completed.