Posted on July 17, 2018
An escalation in the legal battle over sand.
The group ‘Save Our Siesta Sand’ is not giving up its fight against dredging Siesta Key’s Big Pass to help re-nourish Lido Beach.
Now, they’re taking the fight to the federal level.
“Once you dredge a channel, you’re in for trouble,” Said Peter van Roekens, who is the Chairman of ‘Save Our Siesta Sand’.
The group said it won’t give up the fight, to keep people from dredging Big Pass.
“We realize that Lido needs sand, that’s not the question. Our goal is to take sand from someplace other than Big Pass,” van Roekens said.
However, Sarasota City Manager, Tom Barwin said doing so would not be cost effective or good for the environment, “Going great distances to get sand creates its own environmental problems and costs probably 2,3,4 times what recycling local sand costs therefore it gets very expensive for the tax payers and all levels of government.”
Barwin said some of the best computer models in the country don’t back up the argument that dredging is bad for the environment.
It is instead recycling the sand back where it came from.
“The judge, the administrative law judge has ruled that these contentions are not valid, the project doesn’t create any risks or threats,” Said Barwin.
But, the group said it does not believe the ruling was fair and that’s why they are taking the fight to the next level.
The city however said enough is enough.
“We plead with the folks to stop litigating, start collaborating. We certainly attend to do no harm, we won’t allow any harm to be done, if by any remote possibility that something negative were to happen we would address it and adjust,” Said Barwin.
As of now the dredging from Big Pass to re-nourish Lido Beach is scheduled to start next summer.
Source: MySuncoast
