Ron Gorton of Gloucester and Carroll County has been pretty busy over the past couple of years. His business, Golden Oyster Shoreline Restoration, has been involved in a number of projects in Gloucester and other parts of the Chesapeake Bay that, in cooperation with other local restoration firms, have put a halt on erosion along shorelines and increased navigability in local streams.
Gorton’s company uses a technology called ShoreSOX to restore property lines devastated by erosion and to create living shorelines. The technology involves anchoring knitted polyethylene mesh on the shoreline with stakes, folding the mesh back on itself, staking the top layer, and blowing or washing sand into the channel that’s created.
Unlike hardening a shoreline with rock, the ShoreSOX conforms to the existing shoreline, prevents the sand from being washed away, and allows for grass to be planted through the mesh into the encapsulated sand.
Gorton said another knitted mesh product can be used in similar...