Pinellas County's first beach renourishment project since 2018 gets underway
Pinellas County begins beach renourishment project
In Pinellas County, crews are moving around a lot of sand -- enough to fill the Dali Museum more than 40 times. Kailey Tracy reports.
INDIAN SHORES, Fla. - Crews are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to place millions of cubic yards of sand up and down Pinellas County’s coast.
It’s enough sand to fill up the Dali Museum more than 40 times, and is part of the beach nourishment project that started on Wednesday near 197th Avenue in Indian Shores.
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It’s a project that has been in the works for a while, though.
The backstory:
It’s the first major renourishment project in Pinellas County since 2018. Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters said it’s overdue.
"I am so happy and so excited," she said. "This has been long awaited and hard fought for."
"As many people saw, that behind and with the storms that we had eroded our beaches to non-existent, where seawalls were showing. We saw structures that we didn't even know existed, that we have seen since before 1960. And so, it really left our community vulnerable. It left our buildings vulnerable, but it left our infrastructure vulnerable," Peters said.
"In Helene, we lost all our water pipes down in Sunset Beach, so the beaches couldn't have water for 10 days until we quickly replaced them all. That's why this is critical," Peters said.
Big picture view:
They’re dredging sand from Egmont Shoal, Blind Pass and John’s Pass and placing it on Clearwater Beach to Belleair Beach, Indian Rocks Beach to North Redington Beach, Treasure Island and Upham Beach.
It started near 197th Avenue in Indian Shores, and crews are continuing south. Crews will also start in Upham Beach in October and work their way north. The beaches will remain open during construction but parts of the beach, parking areas and beach accesses where work is going on will close for safety reasons when the contractor is in the immediate area.
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The project is expected to wrap up by March.
"It is very important to Indian Shores, not only to have people come and visit this beautiful place, but it does protect our infrastructure," Indian Shores Mayor Diantha Schear said.
Dig deeper:
The Sand Key portion will have gaps, though, because about 20% of the beachfront residents refused to sign temporary construction easements.
"Unfortunately, that's going to leave breaks in this piece of infrastructure we're replacing on the beach, and it will make those properties more vulnerable, and it will erode this much quicker than it normally would. So that's unfortunate," Peters said.
"There are some people that just will never sign for one reason or the other. They feel, some people feel, it's a taking by the government and there are multiple number of reasons," Schear said.
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County officials said reasons some residents haven’t signed include that they think the easements mean giving up property rights or allowing public access when they do not, absentee landlords aren’t responding and some owners are facing ongoing property disputes and don’t want to sign anything that complicates their cases.
Property owners can still sign an easement up until construction is within five days of their property. If residents are interested, they can contact the county through signforsand@pinellas.gov.
The nearly $126 million project is using money from the hotel bed tax, paid by visitors, and at least $11 million of state grant funding. Previous projects benefited from a 65% federal cost-share through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Without all property owners complying with the Army Corps easements that use the language into perpetuity, meaning an indefinite period of time, the county isn’t eligible for federal funding.
The county’s construction easements expire in three years.
"In some instances [with the Corps’ easements], it was their pool deck, it was their driveway, it is their garage, and they had to sign into perpetuity and then anybody could go on their pool deck. So, I understand their apprehension. So, the Army Corps is going to come down, we have a new ASA. There's a new administrator in Washington. We've been talking with them. Congresswoman Luna has been helping to facilitate it," Peters said.
"They're actually going to come down here and look at our issue. We're going to demonstrate where their language is impeding on people's pool decks and so forth. And hopefully, we'll be able to come to an agreement and we can get back into that collaboration and that partnership that we've had since 1960," Peters said.
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Sea turtle nesting season lasts through October, and county officials also said their contractor will work closely with their partners to minimize disruptions to the nests.
What you can do:
Residents can find the project timeline on the county’s website. The county also has an interactive map there that shows where there’s an active construction zone, where work is starting soon, where it has been completed and more.
Residents can also text PCBEACHES to 888777 for project updates.
The Source: This story was written with information provided by Pinellas County officials.