The beach is why most visitors come to the Island. Whether they’re listening to the waves, breathing in the salt air, strolling the shoreline, or searching for treasures in the sand, the beach pulls us in again and again. 

 When the shoreline erodes faster than natural accretion can rebuild it, beach nourishment steps in to give nature a boost. Since 2015, Galveston has seen four major renourishment projects: the 2015 Seawall/61st Street project, the Babe’s Beach restorations in 2019 and 2021, and, most recently, the Hershey Beach project that began at the end of 2025. 

 Before the 2019 and 2021 work, Babe’s Beach had almost disappeared. At low tide there was only a narrow strip of sand, and at high tide the waves washed directly against the seawall. 

 During the 2021 renourishment, I remember watching the transformation unfold over several months as a dredging ship collected sand from the Galveston Ship Channel and pumped it through a long pipeline onto the beach. 

 A gray slurry of sand and water surged through the pipe and spread across the shoreline - not pretty at first - but once the water drained away, bulldozers shaped the fresh sand into a wider, more stable beach. 

 This renourishment used Beneficial Use of Dredge Material (BUDM), sand gathered during required maintenance of the ship channel. The material was transferred to a hopper dredge and pumped ashore through a series of pipes. 

 

 In all, up to 950,000 cubic yards of beach quality sand went into rebuilding a stretch of Babe’s Beach that had nearly vanished. 

 It was hard to imagine that the gray slurry washing across the shoreline would ever become a beach anyone wanted to visit. But the plan worked. Babe’s Beach has had a wide stretch of beautiful sand ever since. 

 As intended, chairs and umbrellas soon dotted the shoreline, and people flocked back to enjoy it. The project was a clear success.

 I’m a beachcomber at heart, so I couldn’t help wondering what this new man-made beach would mean for finding treasures in the sand. At first, there was nothing. 

 I walked the shoreline several times and found so little of interest that I stopped going altogether, convinced it wouldn’t be a good beachcombing spot anymore. 

 But over the next few months - after a series of high tides and heavy rains - something began to change. A shell hash started to appear, those broken bits of shell that get sifted from the sand and deposited in thin layers or even small piles. None of it had been there before. 

 Sitting at the 61st Street stoplight day after day, watching the hash build along the shoreline, I realized it was time to start beachcombing this stretch again. 

 It’s remarkable to think that the sand brought up from the ship channel is hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of years old. In nature, it would never have reached the shoreline in a dozen lifetimes. 

 Yet here it was, newly spread across the beach, sifted by the waves and waiting to be explored - sand that no human had ever walked on before. 

 The possibilities were thrilling, and the new beach did not disappoint. I began finding fossils almost immediately. 

 The first and most noticeable were black, oval fossilized crabs, two to three inches long and still encased in hardened mud - mud that had turned to stone over time. 

 In just one hour, I found seven fossil crabs, three shark teeth, two shark vertebrae, and three Spotted Eagle Ray fossil mouth plates - an extraordinary haul by any measure. As a bonus, I also collected a teaspoon of “tinies,” those tiny, well-frosted pieces of sea glass that feel like small treasures in the palm of your hand. 

 

 I’ve returned to Babe’s Beach many times since, and I still find fossils, though not in the abundance of that first day. Even so, I consider it a premium fossil-hunting spot. The sand will continue to churn up new shell hash - and new discoveries - for years to come. 

 Hershey Beach sits just a few miles west of Babe’s Beach, and when I saw crews beginning a new round of renourishment there - using the same method that transformed Babe’s - I felt that familiar spark of excitement. I couldn’t help remembering the bounty that appeared after the first project. 

 The Hershey Beach replenishment is a partnership between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Texas General Land Office, the City of Galveston, and the Galveston Park Board of Trustees. The project will place roughly 717,000 cubic yards of new sand from the Galveston Ship Channel along a 1.8-mile stretch of West End shoreline, from Sunbather Lane to 11 Mile Road. 

 That’s enough sand to fill half the Empire State Building - or one-eighth of the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. It’s a landmark effort to slow coastal erosion and protect the Island’s western edge. 

 But it isn’t just good for tourism or beachfront homeowners. For beachcombers, it’s another promising stretch of shoreline where ancient sand will meet the waves for the first time - and where new fossils may soon appear. 

 The Hershey Beach parking area is expected to reopen by March 2026, and you can bet I’ll be there, ready to explore whatever the tide reveals.