Volunteers building small gabion basket

Following membership approval for improvements at our beach area, one project was to emplace two gabion baskets in gaps between breakwaters with the gabion baskets to later be covered with armor stone.

A gabion basket is a basket made of heavy galvanizes steel wire containing stones and placed as a breakwater or to hold soil in place.  Here is a commercial photo of a series of gabion baskets built to control erosion.

Two gabion baskets were to be installed.  In the summer of 2017 three of our property owners installed one gabion basket — Dave Williams, Frank Goyette, and Joe Schlatter.  The second gabion was installed later by our marine contractor.

The volunteer work was done in several steps.

1. The volunteers formed heavy galvanized wire into a basket about 12 feet long, 4 feet tall, and 4 feet wide.
2. They then dropped the wire basket over the bulkhead into the water at the base of the bulkhead.  The three volunteers then waded through the water in front of the bulkhead to place the gabion basket near the western breakwater.
3. Frank and Joe then took their trucks to a local gravel and stone dealer where they loaded — by hand large rocks into their trucks.  The basket required three trips by the two trucks to haul all the rock needed.
4. The three volunteers then set up a ramp of 2X 12 lumber, 12 feet long, sloping from the top of the bulkhed into the water.
5. Then, Joe picked up the rocks one at a time, slide the rock down the 12-foot slide where Dave was waiting to guide thr rock into a small garden cart.
6. When the garden cart was filled with stones, Joe and Dave or Dave and Frank would pull the cart out to the gabion basket where they would fill the basket with rocks

Here are some photos of the work going on.