Sand and shoreline maintenance practices are used to maintain the City's Gulf beaches. Well maintained shorelines serve the community, visitors, and local wildlife.

To assist the flow of traffic on beach roads, we maintain at least a 25-foot wide driving lane on all Gulf beaches. Crews move soft sand off the driving path to comply with our permit issued by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

We begin by grading our beach driving lanes with motor grader equipment. Then, we distribute the sand along the beaches depending on the area and the time of year. This practice is overseen by the USACE and enforced by the General Land Office of Texas. The final step is to distribute water from our 4,000-gallon truck onto the sand. The sand is compacted to ensure visitors can drive on the lanes.

To maintain a clean beach, we have several issues to address. To prevent littering, we provide free trash bags to all visitors before they enter the beach. We also provide over 200 96-gallon trash containers throughout the 7.9 miles of City beach. These trash cans are emptied daily.

We also address the large amount of seaweed that naturally washes ashore. We leave most of it on the beach until it dies. The seaweed provides food for birds, turtles, sea life, and other wildlife on the beach. Once the seaweed dies, we bury it along the shoreline. This builds our protective dunes as part of our barrier islands. It also helps to prevent beach erosion, which helps us to follow our USACE permit.