Christmas may have come and gone, but there's a new use for old Christmas trees at Popham Beach.
The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry wants to use them to restore sand dunes flattened by the recent storm.
Peter Slovinsky, a marine geologist for the Maine Geological Survey, said that to try to rebuild them, the agency is hoping to collect about 350 Christmas trees, then strategically place them in four large rows on part of the beach near the park's west bath house.
"And this is a location where we expect the trees to trap a lot of sand," Slovinsky said. "And the more dune ridges you can build up by doing something like this, the more protection you have for the adjacent uplands. And more habitat, actually. for species like piping plovers and least terns, which come in the late spring months."
The state tested the strategy at South Portland's Willard Beach last winter, and Slovinsky said parks in New Jersey and North Carolina have used the approach for decades. Slovinsky said the approach could potentially be attempted at other beaches in southern Maine.
"And this technique uses, what we call almost a living shoreline approach," Slovinsky said. "Because if you think about it, you're kind of beneficially reusing a naturally occurring resource, which are the trees. Yeah, they've been in people's homes and things like that, but they would just be taken by the transfer station and chipped and used for paths.
"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."
Once the Christmas tree project is permitted, the agency hopes to begin construction in February.
Trees are being collected through the end of January at a drop-off point near the Popham Beach west bath house.
