erosion, replacement

It's late at night and Paul and I are sitting under his Banyan tree and a last quarter moon with a bottle of Kao Liang which we are cutting with green tea. We fly-chat amicably about the kids, tech gadgets and local politics.
“Today I saw a gravel ship floundering off the cast of Dong Huh. It appeared to be sinking. I was laughing about it with the owner of the cafe, when we realized that standing directly behind is was the owner of the ship.”
Paul laughed at me,” Haw Gai, luh, ni!! ( It serves you right )”
“Well, that's funny cause that is exactly what I said to him!”
Paul laughed even harder. “And what did he say?”
“He asked me why I say that. I told him that he was raping the land, destroying the environment and creating an irreparable erosion problem for the rest of the population.”
“And...”
“ He said,'Business is business.'”
Paul is roaring with laughter, now. So, as I take the bottle to my side of the table, I jeer, “That's it buddy. We're cutting you off. I have two questions, 1. Why don't they take the gravel from the other side of the island where they have plenty of it? 2. What is so funny? “

“On the other side of the island is costs too much,” as he pulls the bottle back to his side and tops off his glass.
“It's gravel, for chrissakes, how much could it cost?”
Pedantically he offers, “It costs too much to buy politicians. On the west coast they have passed laws to protect the environment from gravel mining. You have to pay people to change the laws or to squeeze under them.”
Incredulously, I ask, “Oh? And they have no such laws here? But, here the protection of the land is much more urgent because the land is so much less. So, where does all this gravel go? “
Paul sighs impatiently, “Didn't they just build a new highway? And the Kaohsiung MRT? And the high speed rail?”

“They say about the South east coastal highway, you never drive the same road twice, I guess some of that gravel comes back here for endless repairs to the coastal highway.”

Paul starts laughing again.
“Oh, well that answers my second question.”

“Do you think they really want to repair the highway?“ he asks with incredulity.
“Well, I dunno. I guess if they do it once and do it right they can move on to better and bigger projects,” naively I offer.

“If they do it badly, they can do it again every year,” he instructs.
“ Oh, so the industry is labor driven. Oh, yes. I see. And, if they don't take the gravel from Taitung, where can they get it?”
Paul is getting impatient with me now, “We import a lot from mainland China. “

“Tell, me why does the coastal highway constantly get washed out?”
“The typhoon takes the gravel away from the beach. “
“But, it didn't used to be like that .”
Paul picked up his cup,” Lai, lai, Drink.”
We toasted and took a deep draw.
“No, because the rains brought the gravel down the mountains to replenish the beach.” as he refilled my cup.
“So the mountains don't replenish the beach anymore?”
Paul starts laughing again.
In my mind 's eye I see the gravel mines on every riverbed, about 300 meters up stream from the beaches. And a little light goes on my head. “Ohhhhh, I see.”
Paul sees the light bulb over my head , and laughs again as he pours me some green tea and Kao Liang. “Lai, lai, huh won dze bai, hai yo I bei. ( Finish this glass we have another glass.)” he parodies an obscure song by Wu Bai. “Drink, drink it will help to take away that look of hopelessness from your face.”
“ So, they profit from stripping the gravel from the riverbed which causes erosion of the highway, and sell the gravel back to the government to repair the highway.” I paused to let that soak in.
“And in Taipei they can't see this self-perpetuating cycle of destruction? Chen Swei bien was just here campaigning and so was Lien Jan. They only need to look out the window of their airplane to see the problem.“

Paul just points to that small point on his back between the shoulder blades, and laughs. “ What do you call that? Ak...”
“Acnesis.” I reminded him.