Beach Bags: Saving the Sandstone at Lake Powell
I've been working in the masonry restoration and preservation business for more than fifty years. I thought that I had seen it all. And then a couple of guys from a company called "Beach Bags" walked into one of our training classes.
I remember looking at their name tags. Beach Bags. Arizona. I was thinking, one: Beach Bags is a funny name for a restoration business, and two: I don't believe there are any beaches in Arizona.
They were eager to learn everything they could about our Jahn Mortars and the entire Jahn Restoration System, so I waited till lunch to sit with them and get their story. And what a story it was.
The "beach" in Beach Bags was the sandstone shoreline of Lake Powell in Northern Arizona/Southern Utah. They told me that for many, many years, houseboats on Lake Powell were being anchored to the sandstone shorelines with long spikes, drilled and hammered into the soft sandstone. Apparently, the houseboat lifestyle is quite popular on Lake Powell. And so there are many, many thousands of pin holes left behind by these anchors.
Lake Powell
The team behind Beach Bags set out to end this anchoring practice (after a Park Ranger read them the riot act when they used pins to anchor their own houseboat--you can read their story here). At the time when Beach Bags started to get involved, the Park Service had outlawed the metal pins and fines were $250 per pin (a typical houseboat might have six pins). Seems to me the Park Service had a sense of how serious the problem had become.
Their solution was heavy water bags for anchors, hence: Beach Bags. No metal pins. No drilling. No hammering. No destroying the sandstone. A brilliant solution to a very serious problem. But that solution had to be tested and verified before the National Park Service would give it their stamp of approval.
While they were able to readily collect wind loading data on smaller houseboats (75’ and smaller), getting real-world data on the lake’s largest boats (85’ – 120’) proved more challenging. To verify that their system worked effectively on these larger houseboats, the company received temporary approval from the National Park Service to use pins in conjunction with the Beach Bags. This process is called "back-pinning". Essentially, the pins were a short-term safety net for very large houseboats using a new, and then unknown, anchoring system, while the data that would support the phase-out of their use was being collected.
Nonetheless, this back-pinning was leaving behind more pin holes. Although temporary, the Beach Bags team were determined to not further contribute to the pin hole problem. That's how they ended up traveling to our headquarters in Hanover, Maryland for training. Beach Bags chose our Jahn M70 Sandstone Repair Mortar to fill every pin hole they created in their pilot testing program. I was impressed.
Before
After
But an alternative anchoring solution was only part of their work; they also had to design "the process" of storing and implementing the Beach Bags. They have an extensive series of videos walking users through every aspect of the process--check them out here.
This was all a very exciting and impressive story, but I couldn't help but to think about the thousands-and-thousands of pin holes accumulated over the years. And even though Beach Bags are now a reality and available to anyone with a houseboat on Lake Powell, some continue to use the destructive anchor pins--so those pin hole numbers are still rising today. Sadly, eventually this will be an irreversible problem. Stone can only be repaired to a point (ask me about consolidates when you see me).
In a recent conversation, Troy Sherman from Beach Bags expressed to me that he is hopeful that the Lake Powell community and the National Park Service will eventually find a way to launch a program to fill all of the pin holes, and he hopes that Beach Bags can play a key role in that endeavor.
I've never been to Lake Powell, but the Beach Bags team has certainly inspired me to put that destination on my bucket list. Looks like an amazing place that is well worth preserving.
And if you didn't click the link to their story above, here it is again -- it's an inspiring group for sure.
Read more about Beach Bags “back-pinning” pilot testing program here.
