Posted on September 6, 2022
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District’s present beach restoration project in Miami Beach has its roots in the previous millennium.
More than half a century ago, officials in Dade County, Florida, concluded that natural erosion and storm damage to the Miami Beach coastline was a serious threat to the health of its beaches, and with it the viability and security of the extensive residential development and tourist economy which sustain way of life of the nation’s best known vacation destination.
After several years of investigation, planning and coordination, USACE completed a plan for a beach resilience and storm damage mitigation project, and in 1968 Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to construct the Dade County Beach Erosion Control and Hurricane Protection Project.
Today’s beach operations are the latest iteration in a series of periodic renourishment projects that fulfill that authorization. The congressional mandate called for the placement of beach fill along 9.3 miles of shoreline extending from Baker’s Haulover Inlet in the north to Government Cut in the south, and along a 1.4 mile length of Haulover Beach Park immediately north of Baker’s Haulover Inlet. A 2.4 mile stretch of shoreline at Sunny Isles was added to the original project in 1985 under a separate authorization.
The present renourishment project is being conducted along four critically eroded sections of the shoreline through a $40.4 million contract that was awarded July 30, 2021. The federal government is funding the entire cost of the renourishment.
Presently USACE is placing sand on the Allison Park (64th Street) and Indian Beach Park (46th Street) segments of the beach. These will be followed by segments at 55th Street and 27th Street.
Between today and its projected completion next summer, the Corps will have placed approximately 835,000 cubic yards of beach quality sand along some 11,400 linear feet of the Miami Beach shoreline. The beach restoration will help reduce potential economic, environmental and infrastructure damage that may be caused by future tropical storms and hurricanes.
