Let me be perfectly clear. I am 100% committed to maintaining our beautiful beaches. I believe they are key to the value of our homes and attracting tourists.
For the past 10 years my problem has been how we maintain our beaches. I have never agreed with the town manager's unwavering approach to expensive dredging projects while rejecting examination of possible alternatives suggested by numerous coastal engineering and technology companies. My question has always been how do we know what is available if we never ask. In the past the town manager has responded to this question by saying we do receive professional advice from the coastal engineering consultant the town has retained for over a decade, and that the town's consulting firm continues to advocate sand replenishment on a periodic basis.
"In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 1427, known as the beach management bill, which contained an Inlet Management Initiative that strengthens DEP’s ability to manage sediment around the more than 60 navigational inlets located throughout the state. These inlets, which interrupt the natural flow of sand along beaches, account for more than eighty percent of Florida’s coastal erosion" - NOAA quote. Knowing this, for the past several years my question has been, why not farm the inlets on a regular basis and return the sand to the beaches from whence it came?
The town manager has asserted for the last decade that inlet management is not feasible on Longboat Key, and that dredging from more and more distant underwater sand deposits is our only viable solution. After the passage of HB 1427, the town manager finally initiated an inlet management study of Longboat Pass. I do not feel comfortable with the town manager's decision to hire the same coastal engineering company to do the inlet management study that the town uses for its sand replenishment programs. It seems reasonable and logical to seek new fresh ideas from several qualified sources.
The town manager also rejected a recently completed comprehensive Humiston & Moore study of Longboat Pass even though the H & M work had previously been funded and approved by the Florida Department of Natural Resources, the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) and the the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville.
Commissioner Brenner has recently expressed his own concerns regarding our present beach management program, where half the deposited sand washes into the Gulf in the first two years "by design", followed by incremental losses in following years, until our beaches reach a depleted state and we do it all over again.
The truth of the matter is that many communities use many different means of controlling beach erosion. Coastal engineering appears to be an inexact science beset with constantly changing conditions and events. Still the time may have arrived when we need to look outside the box at what other communities are doing that works, and to see if their solutions are applicable to our island.
Further I want to know why we need to be looking at a beach bond referendum this year. If Port Dolphin has not indicated if and when they will begin their project, are we still obligated to remove sand from the impacted borrow areas by a certain date or is that date predicated on the commencement of the actual Port Dolphin project?
Second, exactly how many cubic yards of sand will be used from the Port Dolphin borrow sites in the proposed 2011 beach project, given the darker color of the sand from the Port Dolphin borrow sites? Is the town reimbursed on a yard-by-yard basis, and if so, how much money are we actually talking about coming from Port Dolphin, if they do decide to build the pipeline? What does the town get if Port Dolphin does not commence work until after our beach project is complete? Is the Port Dolphin sand the best choice at the least cost if the Port Dolphin project fails to materialize?
If we do not really need to replenish the beaches in 2011, and the north end danger is alleviated by the current project to add some sand to the north end beaches, might this not be a good time to pause and take another look at how we manage our beaches and postpone the bond question to 2012 when it was originally scheduled?
I hope we ask for opinions from a number of experts and look to see what is working for other communities.
In case you are wondering about the $54 million figure in the headline, I have always disagreed with the town's way of defining public debt (i.e. bond cost). The town never uses the true debt cost, which is the bond amount plus the interest on the bond. In the latest $40 million beach management bond proposal, the actual levy against the properties of Longboat Key is approximately $54 million. That is the amount that will be added to your yearly real estate taxes for the next decade.
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