If you’ve ever shoveled wet sand, you know it’s a “grunt” job — no easy task. Now think of the muscle required to restore protective sand dunes constantly being eroded by wind and waves along the Atlantic coast.

That’s why Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control deploys Steiger Quadtracs with 12-foot Degelman blades from Hoober Inc. to maintain and restore Delaware’s beaches at Lewes, Del., and at the Indian River Inlet in Sussex County. Don’t be surprised if you spot one muscling the beach if you visit there.

Hoober has been supplying Quadtracs for more for than 10 years. Erosion takes away an average of 2 to 3 feet of ocean beaches per year, according to DNREC officials.

Farm Progress asked Hoober’s semi-retired president, Charlie Hoober, to quantify that muscle. With the 12-foot blade, they move 6 yards — about 21,000 pounds — with no trouble. DNREC officials chose the 12-foot blade because it fits the roadways and paths to the beach. Others using the Steiger to move dirt with a larger blade move 13 yards — approximately 45,000 pounds — with no problem, Hoober adds.

Low-tide duties
The tractors reclaim sand from what’s called a repair bar. Once waters settle down after nor’easters and hurricanes, explains Scott Figurski, DNREC environmental scientist, the ocean returns eroded sand a little at a time, forming a repair bar. “At low tide, we’ll go down with the Steiger and push that repair bar back up onto the beach [toe of the dune] to help reinforce the dune.” Some is also used to raise the beach’s elevation so “when the next high water comes due to a nor’easter, hurricane or even an extremely high tide, the water doesn’t make it so far up on the beach.”

On occasion, the beach program tractors are used for something designers and engineers never envisioned — moving and burying whales. Every once in a while, a whale, often weighing around 40,000 pounds, washes up on the beach, reports Figurski. A Quadtrac is used to drag it up out of the surf so biologists can do their work and evaluation, then do a beach burial. The tracked “horses” also are used to grade sand roads and beaches, and even plow snow after major snowstorms.