Posted on August 10, 2021
FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WPMI) — After each major storm, the city of Fairhope has been renourishing a small stretch of beach known as Magnolia Beach just south of the Fairhope Pier, over and over again.
So far since 2000, FEMA has reimbursed the city a total of $130,000 while replenishing the sand seven times since then.
City officials say a permanent fix is what really needs to happen, but FEMA won’t pay for it.
With truckloads of sand again today at a cost of more than $17,000, Magnolia Beach is looking pretty. But at what cost?
“That’s a little pocket beach in an area where it’s popular to have that one small beach. The city has deemed it to be a recreational resource. If we chose to solve the problem and put in a bulkhead or whatever there, it would stop the erosion, but you wouldn’t have a beach there anymore,” said Fairhope Public Works Director Richard Johnson.
Johnson says engineers have come up with a solution to the erosion problem: a “break wall” system that could run about $250,000. But FEMA won’t pay for it.
The beach’s repair history simply doesn’t add up.
“Those dollars don’t add up to the cost to get a one-to-one ratio to fix it for good, so we just don’t qualify. It’s not that it’s not a good project or whatever, it’s that we haven’t sustained enough repeated claim damage to get public assistance to qualify for that,” said Johnson.
It’s federal bureaucracy, and those who deal with FEMA call it “FEMA sanity.”
“The city could just deem enough of this long-term cost and let’s fund this project and pay for a permanent solution,” Johnson said.
The city is also waiting for word on BP Restore Act money. Until that happens or the city spends its own money, those truckloads of sand after every storm may keep on coming with no permanent fix in sight.
