Posted on August 20, 2020
The corps could tell the county then that despite the $25 million Flagler has secured, despite easements signed by property owners for 128 parcels forming the length of the project, despite the fortification of the beach and the protection of State Road A1A behind it and the line of homes and businesses on the west side of the road that a stronger dune system would create, the refusal of just 11 more property owners to sign easements would create too many gaps in the new dune system, undermining the purpose of the whole project–and killing it.
The corps could also take a more magnanimous view. The county has been securing additional easements, albeit at a painfully slow pace. All but three of the remaining property owners are represented by an attorney, pre-empting direct contact between the county and the property owners, though Flagler Beach residents have been serving as proxy lobbyists. Six easements have been secured since the county first submitted its certification, which may give the corps a sense that, this late in the process, and with $17 million in federal funds invested–and a potential 50-year, $100 million timeline for the project–too much is at stake to turn back just yet.
Nevertheless, the corps has already given what amounts to a few extensions. According to a December 2018 Corps and county timeline, the easements should have been secured by early 2020. The corps’ next deadline was March 25. The coronavirus emergency intervened. The corps offered an extension. The Corps was to open bids in April, start construction in May and have the project completed, after dredging some 330,000 cubic yards of sand from a borrow pit offshore, by early October. All of that has been pushed off to less determined dates: without the easements, the corps will not proceed.
“We’ve continued to secure easements, we’ve gotten three additional easements since the last time we met,” County Attorney Al Hadeed told county commissioners earlier this week. The three easements belonged to two owners represented by John LeRoux, a Clearwater attorney.
Source: Coastal News Today
