Clouds Over Longboat Beaches

Last Monday's commission meeting turned into a lengthy forum on the town manager's proposed $56 million beach project that has the town manager recommending that the scheduled beach renourishment be moved forward a full year. Once again I state that I object to the town using the face value of bonds as opposed to the figure that appears on our tax statements which is the bond value plus interest. The bond value is in the vicinity of $45 million.

I spoke to the commission and the gist of my statements appears below followed by the town manager's rebuttal of my claims. This column represents a new paradigm in our community government in that I can now respond to the town manager's enviable position of always getting the last word. So please read to the end, because I believe you will enjoy the new and I feel improved process of governance.

Here are my comments to the commission on Monday evening:


Initial Bond $45 million

Minus $7 million for a north end jetty.

$45 million bond minus $7 million for the jetty leaves $38 million as the projected cost for sand.

Interest on $38 million sand bond at 3% for 8 years = $9.12 million.

The true cost of the project is $38 million plus interest of $9 million = $47 million.

$47 million is what appears on our taxes.

The town manager has stated that 1.2 million yards of sand will be required.

$47 million divided by 1.2 million yards of sand equals $39 dollars a yard for sand.

At $39 per yard the most we could expect to be reimbursed from Port Dolphin would be 128 thousand yards of sand. That is 1/10th the amount being used for the proposed sand renourishment. If Port Dolphin pays us money, the cap is set at $5 million which is linked to our costs for removing the sand from the Port Dolphin right-of-way. There are absolutely no guarantees the town will get a nickel from Port Dolphin.

If the beach project is advanced a year the taxpayers will lose a full year of amortization on the previous beach bond which is approximately $660.000. In addition the taxpayers will have to start paying $1.3 million annually on a new beach bond a year early. I am not even including any discussion of possibly far less costly beach maintenance technologies that will not be examined if the beach project is advanced a year.

Is Port Dolphin worth advancing the project with all the extra costs involved?

The total cost for both the sand and the jetty is $45 mil + 3% interest for 8 years equals $10.8 mil, for a grand total of $55.8 million added to our resident’s taxes.

I include here a lower cost projection in an attempt to show that even at a lower coast project that the financials still do not make sense to me.

Low end sand only estimate: $32 mil for sand bond / $7.7 mil for interest / $40 mil total / 40 divided by 1.2 = $33 per yard / 151 thousand yards reimbursed from Port Dolphin – still not worth it.

If we are going to pay between $33 and $39 a yard for sand that will be half gone in two years, I believe we need to research alternatives first. $33 - 39 a yard is simply too much to do otherwise.

Below are my responses to the three statements made by the town manager to refute the above statements.


1) The town mnager stated that each year we lose 250,000 cubic yards of our beach sand. I am assuming that is what he is saying when he stated that there is yearly loss of $4 million worth of sand from an initial renourishment of 1.8 million yards. 1.8 divided by 8 = 225,000. From what I have read and what has been stated by CP&E, there is an initial accelerated equilibrating process that occurs in the first two to three years where approximately 50% of the dry beach profile is redistributed as the beach profile approaches equilibrium.

“The time scale for profile equilibration has been examined for several projects and it has been found that the project will stabilize to one-half the equilibrium adjustment in approximately 2 to 3 years.”…NOAA quote.

The rate of sand loss in a perfect system (no storms) then decreases logarithmically each year as the dry beach comes closer to equilibrium with the greater shore profile. This would indicate that sand loss in the final year would not be 1/8th of the whole, as the town manager stated, but much less. I disagree with the town manager's assertion that waiting a year would cost an additional $4 million dollars. I do not believe the taxpayers come out ahead by early termination of the current beach project.

Sand Loss Graph: (note logarithmic loss curve - less and less sand lost over time)

2) The proposed north end jetty: The town manager rebutted that not advancing the beach project would leave no sand in the north end system for the proposed jetty, and that a jetty needs sand in the system because jetties do not produce sand. I wish to say I do not agree with that statement. Jetties are expressly designed to keep sand out of a system, in this case out of Longboat Pass. I do not believe we need to worry about not enough sand reaching the jetty. Rather we need to hope that not too much sand escapes the jetty, and is lost into Longboat Pass, which is the whole rational for a jetty in the first place. Jetties are designed to retard the loss of shore sand into an inlet.

I believe the town manager has stated on several occasions that 50,000+ yards of sand are lost annually into Longboat Pass off just the most northern two thousand feet of Longboat. Without an accurate measurement of the sand crossing the inlet from Anna Maria onto Longboat, we have no way of predicting how much additional sand will pile up against the jetty. In short I cannot agree that waiting a year will in any way adversely affect the intended function of the proposed jetty.

3) The town manager's third assertion, that it will cost more for sand if we wait a year, is a more complex issue and one that has never been broached before. If one follows his reasoning we should terminate every beach project early to save money. I am reminded of Zeno’s Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Accelerating a beach project also accelerates the need for the next beach project, and so-on. It is a zero-sum game. Since our sand costs have risen exponentially from project to project, I find it difficult to believe that any new sand will be less expensive than sand from a previous project.

I still maintain that there are adverse financial consequences for advancing the beach project and a total lack of any assured benefits.

Termination of the current beach project a year early adds $660,000 to the existing bond amortization schedule.