Posted on April 5, 2023
If you enjoy visiting Tampa Bay’s beaches, you’re going to want to read this article all the way through.
There’s a beach renourishment project currently on pause because Pinellas County is unable to meet the guidelines of the Army Corps of Engineers.
The project, formally called the Federal Sand Key Shore Protection Project, impacts a 9-mile stretch of beach along Pinellas County’s coast. Every six years, the Army Corps of Engineers dredges sand from Egmont Key and pumps it onto the shore.
The next project is scheduled for 2024—but it’s not going to happen.
“They (the Army Corps) have informed us that they are required to have these perpetual public access easements,” Dr. John Bishop said. “It’s the public access portion that allows them to use the federal dollars is what they’ve told us.”
Bishop is the Pinellas County Coastal Management Coordinator. He explained why the renourishment project was canceled by the Army Corps: homeowners didn’t want to sign the perpetual easement.
“It was last renourished in 2018,” Bishop said. “We were working to try to get easements for that project and we weren’t able to get all the easements we needed and it resulted in having gaps in the project. And so for this 2024 project, the Corps has requested that we have all 100% of the easements for this project. And so right now we’ve been at a stalemate and we are trying to work with the Corps to find a solution.”
The easement requires beachfront homeowners to give the Army Corps rights and access to a portion of their land. 100 percent compliance from homeowners is required to proceed with the project. Compliance the county couldn’t get.
“98.6% of the properties that are from Sand Key down to Treasure Island are on public property, they are not on private property,” Indian Rocks Beach Mayor Cookie Kennedy said.
Kennedy has been advocating for the project to proceed. She shared how a nice walk on the beach turned into zig-zagging around people because there just wasn’t much beach left. That walk motivated her to find another way to move the renourishment project forward.
“I immediately was walking in between people,” Kennedy said. “And I said, we can’t do this. And so that day, I got on the phone, and I called my good friend, Janet Long, who’s our who had just gotten sworn in as the new county commission chair and I told her the story and she was wonderful. She said, Okay, we’re gonna put a plan together.”
That plan involved going to the White House. Pinellas County Commission Chairperson Janet Long, Kennedy, Pinellas County Public Works Director Kelli Levy, and Pinellas County Intergovernmental Liaison Brian Lowack met with White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Director Julie Chavez Rodriguez to talk about the fading beaches and what can be done to help.
“She was wonderful, engaging,” Kennedy said about Chavez. “We were in her office for an hour and 20 minutes… It’s important to say that everyone was engaged in the conversation, they wanted to work together, they wanted to find a solution. They understand the economic, the safety – there are so many issues, the tourism factor that goes along with this piece…”
The implications of not having Pinellas County beaches renourished are lengthy. It impacts sea turtle nesting and bird populations, and without sand, there’s a greater risk of hurricane damage.
“Our county is very built out,” Kennedy explained. “We are a peninsula on a peninsula. And we think that we have a very unique situation.”
Kennedy said she feels her efforts are already making an impact.
“The good news is that yesterday, we the county received the letter from the Corps, asking for some new information on the subject,” she said. “So we’re very hopeful and we’re hoping to have a resolution soon, sooner than later.”
Kennedy said she and her fellow local leaders are asking for the Army Corps to find a middle ground with them. Bishop confirmed the county received a request from the Army Corps to update the status of the easements.
“Let us have the beach renourishment which we need so desperately on the beaches without the easements,” Kennedy said.
It’s a project that’s taken place for decades, with county officials hopeful to see the stalemate end soon
“It’s about a 9-mile-long project,” Bishop said. “And we place usually over a million cubic yards of sand on the beach. And we do this fairly regularly about every six years. It first began in 1989. And it was done in three phases, and then another, we added to the north end of Belleair Beach in Clearwater and 99. And since then, we’ve been doing the entire area every six years.”
Bishop said there’s enough sand pumped onto shore to fill the empire state building. 1.3 million cubic yards of sand.
“Without that sand, sort of re-building the buffer between the waves and the dunes and the in the beach, you know, it’ll start to eat into the older part of the project and erode that away as well,” Bishop said. The longer the wait, the more erosion will take place.
