Posted on August 15, 2016
By Zach Murdock, Herald-Tribune
The state is expected to announce its intent to issue a permit for the long-awaited and controversial Lido Key beach renourishment project within the next 30 days.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing a series of responses submitted last week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and consultant CB&I Environmental & Infrastructure to the state’s request for additional information about the project.
Those responses lay out the latest details of the project and likely pave the way for the state to approve the plan to use sand dredged from Big Pass to rebuild more than 1.5 miles of starved and eroded beachfront on Lido Key.
The state could choose to issue another request for additional information, but critics and city officials alike agree the approval is likely forthcoming.
Once issued, though, that notice of intent will be challenged by Save Our Siesta Sand 2 to block the project, group leader and Siesta Key resident Peter van Roekens reiterated this week.
Van Roekens’ group of Siesta Key businesses and residents have long challenged the project amid fears that dredging Big Pass would change the dynamics of the channel between Lido and Siesta keys, possibly leading to more and faster erosion on Siesta’s iconic beaches. They have pledged to block the project until an alternative sand source is identified, which would effectively restart the years-long permitting process, and began fundraising to challenge the permit this summer.
Van Roekens and Jono Miller, another frequent critic, met with City Manager Tom Barwin and other city engineering officials last week to discuss their objections to the project. Despite a “respectful” conversation, neither side budged, Van Roekens said.
“We had our own sort of points of view,” he recounted. “I stated up front that our goal is to try to convince them that they needed a ‘Plan B’ which didn’t involve taking sand from the Big Pass shoal and he was interested in talking about the monitoring of the pass” that the Army Corps and city have promised.
“We had a good exchange. It was pleasant; there was no yelling and screaming,” he said with a laugh.
In the meantime, the responses to the state’s request for additional information lay out new details about the plan’s logistics.
Up to almost 1.2 million cubic yards of sand will be dredged from two borrow areas to rebuild the beach. That number has fluctuated over the past several years anywhere from 950,000 cubic yards to more than 1.2 million, but the latest response settles just how much is expected to be involved in the initial dredging project, City Engineer Alex DavisShaw said.
The consultant’s response “is not necessarily what they’re going to need — that’s how much they show as being available” in the shoals, she said. “So they could use something less than that, but they couldn’t use something more than that.”
It is likely some of the sand from the city’s 2012 beach renourishment project after Tropical Storm Debby will remain in the project area once it begins, which would lessen the amount of sand needed.
The latest response also adds the possibility of a second staging area for the construction of two planned groins at the south end of Lido Key near Ted Sperling Park. Plans had previously included access to those construction areas from the north along the beach, DavisShaw said. Although that is still the primary plan, it could change depending on beach conditions at the time, and a formal staging area to the south would be subject to more detailed planning and further approval before set up, she added.
Meanwhile, the Siesta Key Association has asked Sarasota County to intervene in the plans and demand that federal engineers perform a second, more exhaustive environmental study before the project moves forward. The county has not yet responded to that request and it has not yet been scheduled to go to the County Commission at its meetings later this month.
Source: Herald-Tribune
