Florida Beach Restoration

Work to Restore Beaches Hurt by Past Storms, Prevent Further Erosion

by E. Michael Powers

Beaches on both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida were ravaged by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne and "Ivan the Terrible" in 2004.

And now, faced with the possibility of another strong hurricane season, federal, state and local governments alike are scrambling to restore the state's beaches before they are washed away completely.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns 15 beach reclamation projects in Florida. The projects were created and funded on an emergency basis in an effort to repair the beaches before the 2005 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 until November.

"The fact that Congress provided the emergency funds proves the importance of the beaches," said Jerry Scarborough, chief of coastal and navigation branch and project management in the Corps of Engineers Jacksonville district. "It is crucial to have beaches in place to prevent damage from hurricanes."

The Project Implementation Reports and National Environmental Protection Act process have been completed for all of the Jacksonville district emergency beach restoration projects, Scarborough said. With the exception of the Panama City project, all of the beaches are being restored to their full nourishment levels rather than simply pre-2004 hurricane season levels.

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"It just made sense to bring the beaches back to full levels as long as we were doing the work," Scarborough said. The money to bring the beaches to their spring 2004 levels will be entirely federal. The cost of any additional work needed to reach full nourishment will be split between local sponsors and federal funds, he added.

The reasons behind beach restoration vary based on funding sources. Federally funded projects managed by the Army Corps of Engineers are under way for the sole purpose of reducing future storm damage, Scarborough said. Wider beaches significantly reduce hurricane damage, as shown by a University of Florida study which found that beaches widened by 100 ft. could reduce storm damage by 51 percent in a 25-year storm and by 39 percent in a 50-year storm.

"The renourished beaches have higher berm elevations, which act as levees, absorbing the energy of the storm," said Steve Chatry, vice president of administration in the dredging division of Weeks Marine of Covington, La. Weeks Marine and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. of Oak Brook, Ill., have been the two primary contractors for the Corps-owned projects.

Locally sponsored beach reclamation projects, on the other hand, are primarily about the protection of tourism-based economies, said Erik Olsen, president of Olsen Associates of Jacksonville, a contractor on many local efforts.

"Florida is a primarily tourism-based economy, and the state and local governments know that they must protect the beaches as a public asset," Olsen said. The beaches draw millions of tourists and billions of their dollars, and the state realizes that the beaches are essentially a high-return investment, he added.

Weeks Marine is currently working locally funded projects at Pensacola Beach and Hideaway Beach. The company is pumping 2.3 million cu. yds. of sand onto a 5-mi. stretch of Pensacola Beach using a hopper dredge at a cost of roughly $10 million, Chatry said.

For its $2.5 million job at Hideaway Beach, Weeks is using a cutter dredge to pump approximately 250,000 cu. yds. of sand onto the beach, at the request of Collier County, the project owner.

The erosion of these beaches is not simply the product of hurricanes. The development of coastal waterways and building on beachfront property are the primary culprits, Olsen said.

Without a long-term fix available, the Corps will continue to employ the temporary solution of dredging sand and pumping it back onto the beach. Projects at Martin County and Del Ray in Palm Beach have been completed at a cost of $8 million and $4 million, respectively.

A $4 million job is in the process of wrapping up at Ft. Pierce Beach. The $3 million Broward County Segment III project was scheduled to wrap up recently.

Other Corps projects under way include a $16 million, 1 million cu.-yd. effort at Venice Beach and two jobs worth $29 million in Brevard County.

Other projects are in their preliminary phases - the $13 million effort at the beaches of St. Johns County and a $9 million contract for Duval County. Both projects should conclude this fall.

Projects in the process of being bid include an estimated $22 million job in Pinellas County, a $5 million contract for the beach of Manatee County and a $16 million job in Lee County-Captiva.

Two other projects are in a holding pattern. Broward County Segment II, valued at approximately $4 million for the transfer of 300,000 cu. yds. of sand, cannot go forward until the $4 million Segment III is completed. This 500,000-cu.-yd. rejuvenation of Ocean Ridge, Palm Beach, will be the last on the Jacksonville division's docket due to sea turtle nesting.

The restoration of the Panama City Beach, currently under way, has proven to be the oddball of the 15 Florida Corps-owned projects. The task fell under the purview of the Mobile, Ala., district of the Corps, which has employed creative environmental management practices to hasten the start of work.

"We are working the NEPA process concurrent with the project and are combining our work with NEPA work from past projects," said Howard Ladner, a biologist with the Corps Mobile district. The district was able to get a work permit by piggybacking it onto a NEPA permit already obtained by the Tourist Development Council.

The creativity and efficiency of the Mobile district was adopted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which prioritized the Panama City assessment and modified the biological opinion from a 1998 permit to speed the process along, Ladner said.

The $25 million project will renourish 16.5 mi. of beach with 4 million cu. yds. of sand by the end of August. The beach will not be taken to its full level because there is not enough of the proper sand available, said Terry Jangula, site manager in the Panama City site office of the Corps of Engineers.

The sand color must match because of environmental concerns. The color affects the sand temperature, which in turn affects the sexual differentiation of sea turtle eggs buried in the sand, Ladner explained. Acquiring enough sand of the correct color is proving difficult because they are drawing from sites that were identified and used for projects in the 1990s, Jugula said.

Areas of the beach will be taken above pre-2004 levels. However, certain areas will remain unreplenished until November because of nesting shore birds.