SEMI-RENOURISHED BEACH & "TRASHY PHOTOS"

The "renourishment" project that the county took on all by itself, because the federal and state governments reneged on their obligation to pay for beach renourishment throughout the state this year, is completed and appears to have salvaged at least about 1700' of the beach running south of the jetty. While the renourishment has saved a good part of the city beach property and some private property immediately south of the jetty, it stopped too short to save any of the rest of the mile or so of beach and beach dune grasses running south beyond that portion that was renourished. To date, this Turtle Dad has not seen any nests since the beginning of the sea turtle nesting season (March/April) on any part of the entire beach running for a approximately one mile immediately south of the jetty. It appears that it will be a very sparse year for turtle nesting and hatching on our section of the south beach area.

Further south of the 1700 ' of beach that was just renourished, is the remainder of a mile or so of beach that has been severely eroded, to the extent that there are still some very steep "escarpments" on that portion of beach that will continue to obstruct sea turtles from advancing far enough onshore to lay their eggs. Many of these escarpments have been leveled somewhat, so there is still some hope that, eventually, some sea turtles will be able to crawl up on the beach far enough over the escarpments to actually dig their nests and lay their eggs. So far, the score is zero!

The good news is that there appears to be other people that walk the beach, in addition to this Turtle Dad, who are helping to keep the beach somewhat free of "litter". I know that you are expecting to see some photos of sea turtles and nests when you read this blog, but all I have to offer this time are some photos of the "semi-renourished" beach and some "trashy photos" showing that there are still some concientious beach walkers who try to keep the beach and surrounding environment "cleaned-up" after some less-than conscientious beach goers have left their trash on the public beaches. Thanks to those that are "pitching-in" to help keep the beaches litter-free!

Beach Renourishment(?)

An "emergency" beach renourishment project was begun last week, as reported in an article in the St. Lucie News Tribune (4/7/2011), and as witnessed by this blogger this morning during a beach walk. Apparently, the only government to step up to the plate was St. Lucie County. Kudos to Jim David and the St. Lucie County Erosion District for honoring the county's committment to our beach renourishment! Unfortunately, both the federal and state governments decided to pass on their responsibility, citing "budget issues". Once the federal government declined to honor it's obligation, the state decided to withhold the "matching funds" that it was to contribute to the project. As per a previous agreement (reported in the article) between the county, state and federal governments to fund beach renourishment south of the inlet every two years, 2011 was the year that money was to be expended to once again renourish the beach. Since the federal and state governments bailed out on the project, the county was left as the only government entity of the three to fund the project. As the newspaper article went on to explain, "without the federal and state money ... the project had to be scaled back dramatically". Instead of pumping more than a half million yards of sand onto the beach, running about a mile south from the jetty if the federal and state monies were included, the county can only afford to haul and dump enough sand to cover about 1/3 mile of the shoreline immediately south of the jetty. That may be enough to salvage the city property and some of the dune grasses (planted several years ago) near the jetty, but it will do little to provide an acceptable beach for property owners, tourists and sea turtles beyond that point. As mentioned in a previous blog, this will not be a good year for sea turtle nesting on our section of beach!

The included photos show the area of the beach renourishment and some of the progress to date. Note that the ocean has already eroded the sand up to, and including, the dune grasses. Most of the dune and grasses in the stretch of beach beyond that first 1/3 mile south of the jetty will be eroded away by the end of the season, and most of those areas of the beach will be inaccessible by the sea turtles throughout the entire egg laying season. We don't even have to blame "climate" this time, since this is a man-made "disaster".