After suffering $50 million in damages during Superstorm Sandy, Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey is following the lead of other U.S. military bases steeling themselves against future storms using oysters.

Allowing an environmental group to plant an almost mile-long network of oyster reefs roughly a quarter mile off its shoreline, facility officials hope the reefs will act as a natural shield to minimize the damage from future storms. Additionally, oysters, with their natural filtering ability, may also help improve water quality.

"Having a hardened structure like that oyster reef will absorb some of that wave energy," said Earle spokesman Bill Addison. "All the pipes and cables that are on the pier now, all of that was washed away and had to be rebuilt. And there was a lot of flooding that came into the base. Will this protect us against all of that? No, but it will do a significant amount of good to protect the base and the complex and our surrounding communities."

Calling the reefs "nice speedbumps," environmental experts believe that using coastal reefs as a combined storm protection/water improvement measure is preferable to the steel sea wall and wooden bulkhead solutions of the past because they are cheaper and they don't contribute to the accelerated erosion of sand around the man-made fortresses.

"Waves are affected by the roughness of the bottom," said Boze Hancock, a marine restoration scientist with The Nature Conservancy who has studied and participated in oyster projects around the world. "Picture a wave trying to roll over a huge sponge, compared to one rolling over an asphalt parking lot. The 'sponge,' or rough, uneven oyster reef, sucks the energy out of the wave as it rolls toward the shore."

Having gained popularity worldwide in the last decade, these "living shorelines" are being used to perform some function in every coastal state in America.