Christmas trees now helping restore Popham Beach sand dunes

Volunteers and workers have almost finished placing old, donated Christmas trees in rows along Popham Beach as part of an effort to restore sand dunes that were flattened by winter storms.

In late March, they placed about 460 trees along the public beach in Phippsburg, creating three rows that totaled 1,560 feet in length, the state’s Bureau of Parks and Lands said in its newsletter .

The team will add a fourth and final row in the weeks to come, after this month’s highest tides have passed, according to Sean Vaillancourt, who manages the state park that includes the beach.

“We are happy to see that dune grass is already growing quite well between the rows after a few warm days, and I look forward to seeing how well the area recovers this summer,” Vaillancourt said in the newsletter.

Sand dunes, which make up about 2 percent of Maine’s coast, act as natural barriers between the uplands and the ocean. But they can erode as wind and waves batter the coast during winter storms — including several big ones that hit the state between December and March.

Although they can slowly rebuild themselves during the summer, people can help move that process along, as is now happening at Popham Beach State Park.

Peter Slovinsky with the Maine Geological Survey told Maine Public in December that the trees trap the windblown sand, protecting the uplands and providing habitats for coastal wildlife such as least terns.

“And then it’s using nature’s own power, of the windblown sand, to just let nature do its thing, and kind of rebuild the dunes. So we’re giving them a helping hand by putting the trees out,” Slovinsky said at the time.