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".