[grumblenum]

I was really curious about bearing capacity of this material, and I found this spec sheet: https://my.civil.utah.edu/~bartlett/Geofoam/EPS%20Geofoam%20... The compressive strength is actually pretty good if you use the high-end stuff. I would be skeptical of the cost-benefit versus other common fills.

I almost spit out my coffee when I saw the section on levees and the anchors "(if necessary)" annotation. I would be very reluctant to market an extremely low-density product as a barrier for flood protection applications. It really makes me wonder about the rest of the statements in the brochure.

[Someone]

That ‘if necessary’ probably proves to be true most of the time, but I think the use case they mention (levees built on compressible alluvial soils) can easily make it the better choice.

For levees, there’s also the even lighter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_rubber_dam (but those do have to be grounded)

[grumblenum]

Buoyant forces apply to things in the ground. HDPE pipes without adequate backfill or anchoring will float out of the ground, like zombies, in flood conditions where the pipe itself contains air. Your local street department has probably seen it. Also, for expedient flood protection, those tubular dams are typically filled with water.

My reaction is that "if necessary" isn't really an "if". It is necessary, or your levee may float off precisely at the time you need it to work.