Posted on August 26, 2024
The town’s beaches are stable and continue to gain sand through improvements in sand-bypassing and nourishment programs, according to an annual report presented Aug. 20 by a coastal engineering consultant.
Since 1990, when long-term sand volume measurements began, Palm Beach’s 12.2 mile-shoreline has experienced a net gain of 4.8 million cubic yards of sand, said Mike Jenkins, a coastal engineer with West Palm Beach-based Applied Technology & Management.
Jenkins and a handful of state and local scientists shared facts, figures and insight about the town’s coastal management efforts as part of the annual Palm Beach Island Beach Management Agreement stakeholder meeting at Town Hall.
Implemented in 2013, the BMA is a regional beach management plan that streamlines permitting for beach renourishment while improving the near-shore ecosystem by monitoring sand drift via ocean current, sea turtle nesting and near-shore hard-bottom environments.
The agreement affects 15.7 miles of shoreline from the Palm Beach Inlet (officially called the Lake Worth Inlet) to the South Lake Worth Inlet.
The 4.8 million cubic yards of extra sand corresponds to an average increase of 43 feet in the width of the town’s shoreline, Jenkins said.
He attributed those gains to the town’s coastal management program that was created in an effort to provide long-term storm protection.
The program includes occasional, large-scale nourishments at Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park; dune restoration; pumping sand onto the island’s northern tip through the sand transfer plant on Singer Island; and inlet dredging by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The town’s shoreline is divided into eight ‘reaches,’ or segments, running from the Palm Beach Inlet to the southern town limits.
“The BMA program is based on maximizing sand bypassing around the inlet, trying to restore that natural movement of sand and then supplementing that with nourishment from other sources — from upstream sources, from nearshore sources — to make up for over 100 years of, at times, mismanagement, to try to make up for some of the losses that have occurred,” Jenkins said.
While the additional sand is a positive measure for the town, Jenkins said, it is not evenly distributed.
Areas with coastal structures — such as seawalls and groins — and nearshore hardbottom are harder to address, he said.
Those areas include reach 2 in the North End, which covers the shoreline from Onondaga Avenue to El Mirasol; and reach 8 in the South End, which stretches from Lake Worth Municipal Beach to the south town limits.
An abundance of nearshore hardbottom habitat in both areas makes it difficult to conduct large-scale dredging projects, Jenkins said.
Other historic areas of concern within the town include Clarke Avenue Beach and Sloan’s Curve.
However, Jenkins said, long-term trends are positive in all of the “hot spot” areas.
“The town’s overall program is materially improving the beach and adding sand to the overall beach, even in areas where we don’t place sand,” he said.
Three major sand nourishment projects will occur within the next two years after the Town Council in May approved resolutions that will help pay for them.
On the North End, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers will begin a large-scale dredging of the Palm Beach Inlet. That project will include onshore sand placement as far south as Angler Avenue.
On the South End, the Phipps Ocean Park Beach Nourishment Project will replenish the dunes in the stretch of coastline from Phipps Ocean Park south to La Bonne Vie Condominiums.
And in Midtown, the Midtown Shore Protection Project will see the Army Corps replenishing sand lost to erosion during the 2022 hurricane season.
Other speakers at Tuesday’s meeting included Greg Garis, program administrator for FDEP; Nicole Dancho, senior marine scientist with Coastal Eco-Group, biological monitoring consultant for the Town of Palm Beach; Robbin Trindell, biological administrator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission; and Andy Studt, program supervisor for coastal resources management for Palm Beach County.
