Posted on November 27, 2018
Following a couple of years of significant hurricane-related damage, the St. Johns County administration has received permission to hire someone who will be the expert and advocate for local beaches.
Through the budget process this year, the County Commission approved $78,000 for a new position of beach management expert.
“There is the need for a coastal specialist, whether that’s a coastal engineer or project manager; we’re working out the details of the job description,” said Darrell Locklear, assistant county administrator.
The plan, Locklear said, is to post the position by around the first of the year and hire the successful candidate as soon as it can be done prudently.
This action comes at a time that the county is trying to decide how to go forward with solutions to beach erosion and sand dune elimination.
Right now, the Commission is in the middle of the process of deciding whether to match state funds of $10.5 million and provide $35 million for its share of an Army Corps of Engineers project. The Commission will soon (not at Tuesday’s meeting) have a second reading on an amendment to raise the “bed tax” on short-term rentals to pay for some of those obligations.
At least for Commissioner Jimmy Johns, part of the reluctance to accept the state and federal money — much of which is in the form of a loan — is the lack of full understanding of the work proposed. Johns said at a recent meeting that he feels rushed into going along with the Army Corps project without having confidence that it will solve problems at the county’s northern beaches.
That’s one of the reasons the administration wants a dedicated beach expert on staff. The person who fills that position presumably will be someone who can formulate long-term plans for the protection of each coastal area, someone on staff who can offer guidance to the Commission in situations like the current one.
“You need to have someone who can focus on our beaches,” Locklear said. “It’s a unique environment. It’s a unique piece of infrastructure for our county.”
Without a staff member working solely on beach management, Locklear said it’s difficult to have the best information and to be aware of all of the funding options available.
“We’ve got such a varied set of issues when you look at the county from south to north,” he said. “The issues are always changing, and we’re concerned that we may not be taking advantage of all the opportunities that are available to us simply because of the manpower needed.”
Locklear said many other coastal counties have beach management leaders and that the St. Johns County administration has consulted with those communities.
“We’re going to end up with unique projects all along our beaches,” he said. “We need a specialist to manage those.”
Even without a coastal specialist, nearby Flagler County is dealing with renourishment issues in house. County engineer Faith Alkhatib has responsibilities beyond the beaches, but she and her staff have become beach experts as they have taken on a $27-million dune restoration project that eventually will encompass about 11 of the county’s 18 miles of beach.
According to an article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the county intends to dump about 790,000 tons of sand on the county’s beach as part of a multi-phase plan to re-construct dunes along a stretch of coast spanning from River to Sea Preserve Park south to the Flagler Beach Pier.
“We knew there was a need to take care of our residents for protection and build as much as we can the dunes there to eliminate or reduce the amount of flooding in case we got another hurricane,” Alkhatib said in an interview with The Record. “We made this project a priority.”
Flagler is about half as populated as St. Johns County, and Alkhatib said that at some point it might also hire a coastal specialist due to the complexities of the beach environment and the importance of usable public beaches.
“Eventually, I feel Flagler one day will do that (add a full-time beach specialist),” she said.
There is also the strong possibility that the recent hurricane activity in North Florida is going to be more of the norm than an aberration.
“This is Mother Nature; this is Florida,” Alkhatib said. “I feel as a professional, this is the beginning.
“It should be one of the most critical projects and issues we have to talk about it as a community and come up with a plan try to accomplish it. We cannot keep reacting.”
That’s exactly why St. Johns County is adding to its staff and trying to think more proactively.
“We’re not going to be successful if we don’t have someone whose mission it is to take care of keeping our beaches whole,” Locklear said.
Source: staugustine
