Preserving a quirk of nature

Major work to preserve Mont-Saint-Michel is expected to start in a few months.
MONT-SAINT-MICHEL, France (AP) -- While much of the world worries about how to stop sea levels from rising, engineers in this corner of France want to spend $260 million to do just the opposite: raise the tides back up to save a national treasure.
With its Gothic abbey soaring 558 feet above a mostly flat, nondescript Normandy landscape, Mont-Saint-Michel is both a feat of human will and a quirk of nature, planted in a tidal system that each day brings the sea surging in as fast as a trotting horse to fill the bay with surf.
But Mont-Saint-Michel is no longer much of an island: Since the 19th century, a causeway from the mainland has been disrupting the currents that flush away silt, and about 60 acres of salt marsh are gaining on the islet annually.
"If we do nothing, Mont-Saint-Michel will be surrounded by grass in 2042," said Francois-Xavier de Beaulaincourt, the engineer overseeing the state-financed project to undo the damage. If the government gives a green light, major work is to start in a few months.
The project aims to be gentle with the bay's unique ecosystem. A new reservoir will be built on a river to boost its flushing power without affecting the seals, amphibians and shellfish that live here. A new dam with eight sluice gates will also help guide sediment downstream. The Mont will stay open to tourists during work, scheduled to end in 2009.
The causeway and its ugly parking lot will be ripped up. Visitors will park inland and take a shuttle or walk across a delicate new bridge that will let water pass underneath.
By 2042, scientists say, the seabed should lie more than two feet deeper, with tides swirling freely again.
For centuries, the faithful trekked to the Mont from across Europe, risking their lives along the final stretches of quicksand. The first small shrine was built about 1,300 years ago, by a bishop who said he dreamed the Archangel Michael told him to do it.
It is France's biggest tourist destination after the Eiffel Tower and the Versailles Palace, drawing 3 million visitors a year, and the save-the-Mont plan has naturally stirred passions.
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