Over the past few months, two large storms and consistent high winds contributed to the erosion of the beach by about 10 feet behind the Silver Creek Fire Department. The beach has eroded to the point where the pylons of the back deck of the building were exposed and could have fallen.

With a month’s worth of hard work and lots of rocks and boulders, the village is hopeful that the beach will restore itself within a few years. Marv Cummings, village trustee, spearheaded the project alongside Bob Bankoski, public works superintendent. Cummings took care of the legal side of the project, which included DEC permits, while Bankoski supervised the laying of the new material.

The process that went into restoring the core of the beach involved laying small, medium and large boulders on the beach and where the beach once was. In the end, 33 semi tractor-trailer loads of material were laid on the 150 yards of eroded beach. Extra sand and rocks stored from the cleanup of the flood Silver Creek endured in 2009 were also laid. This was used to fill in the washed out sediment and sand on the upper part of the beach.

“The idea is that the waves will come in and hit the boulders, which are built like a ramp. They’ll make the water splash up and dissipate, instead of cutting into it like before,” Bankoski said. “The thought is that sand, over time, will settle onto the rocks and we’ll have a new beach.”

Boulders of all sizes were put in place to stop the erosion of the beach near the Silver Creek Fire Department.

The project cost was around $30,000, but according to Bankoski, if the village had to contract the work out, it would have been about a $150,000 cost to the village. Most of the work was done by Peter Gierlinger and Bob Gunnell, with a few helping hands along the way.

The new beach will take years to settle, but the mayor is trusting of the work done by the public works department.

“Hopefully over the course of time we’ll get our beach back,” Hornburg said.