FLauthor
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- Aug 22, 2004
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Florida agency dredges up new sand for New Smyrna Beach
NEW SMYRNA BEACH - While beach renourishment projects usually cost millions, the sand being pumped onto the beach this summer comes with a cheaper price tag.
It's free.
The sand, flowing out of a pipeline near Sapphire Road, is the byproduct of the badly needed dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway.
About two miles of coastline in New Smyrna Beach will get the sand being pumped out of the nearby Indian River this summer. That 400,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils can help rebuild a beach that has never fully recovered from the 2004 hurricanes.
"There was a time when people didn't want the sand, but the 2004 season deflated the beach much more than people ever saw before," said David K. Roach, executive director of the Florida Inland Navigation District, the agency that manages the Intracoastal Waterway. "This will certainly help the beach."
The massive pipeline, which started spraying a slurry of grayish sand last week, will be familiar to beachgoers who witnessed a similar sand pumping project in 2006.
That $14 million project involved siphoning sand off a spoil island where it had been piled years ago. Roach said that island had to be leveled so it can be used to pile more dredge spoils.
This year's project, costing the district $7.7 million, will make the navigation channel deeper along a 15-mile section of the waterway, from downtown New Smyrna Beach north past the inlet.
"We need to dredge the channel every seven years, but we haven't done this section since 1995, so we're a little overdue," Roach said. In some areas near Ponce deLeon Inlet, the channel is only a couple of feet deep.
The sand being dredged from the channel will be laid into new dunes and a 150-foot-wider beach between Sapphire Road and 21st Avenue. Volusia didn't have to chip in any money for that project, unlike the 2006 project, said Joe Nolin, manager of the Ponce deLeon Inlet and Port District.
That stretch of New Smyrna Beach had been hit hard during the 2004 hurricanes, with the beach not only losing the protective dunes, but losing several feet of sand so that the actual coast saw a drop in the beach's elevation. That made the shore vulnerable to minor storms, or even the highest high tide of the month.
Sand from the 2006 project had been a boon to the beach, adding more elevation to the beach and, though the sand seemed to wash away, it had accumulated in the area immediately offshore, Nolin said.
That sand was starting to naturally migrate back to the beach, thanks to the mild winter and lack of tropical storms in recent summers, Nolin said.
The dredged sand might be the last major beach project that Volusia will see for a few years, because county officials decided earlier this year not to fund some of the ongoing studies needed for federally funded or state-funded beach renourishment projects.
Unlike Brevard County,Volusia County isn't yet in the pipeline for massive federal beach projects. County officials, during budget workshops earlier this year, decided not to fund some of the preliminary studies needed for such a project or a large-scale state-funded renourishment, putting off continued funding of such long-term projects.
In the meantime, beachgoers can expect beach closures where the pipeline empties its dredge spoils. Roach said the beach project will continue through Sept. 21, though the dredges will continue to work through December, placing the last piles of sand back onto a spoil island.
Though the beach erosion hasn't worsened since 2004, this additional sand should help the beach withstand a summer tropical storm.
"We're nowhere close to having the beach we had before 2004," saidVolusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Scott Petersohn. "This will definitely help in the long run."
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Hopefully some lost treasures are dumped onto the beach in the process of this project.
Flauthor
NEW SMYRNA BEACH - While beach renourishment projects usually cost millions, the sand being pumped onto the beach this summer comes with a cheaper price tag.
It's free.
The sand, flowing out of a pipeline near Sapphire Road, is the byproduct of the badly needed dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway.
About two miles of coastline in New Smyrna Beach will get the sand being pumped out of the nearby Indian River this summer. That 400,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils can help rebuild a beach that has never fully recovered from the 2004 hurricanes.
"There was a time when people didn't want the sand, but the 2004 season deflated the beach much more than people ever saw before," said David K. Roach, executive director of the Florida Inland Navigation District, the agency that manages the Intracoastal Waterway. "This will certainly help the beach."
The massive pipeline, which started spraying a slurry of grayish sand last week, will be familiar to beachgoers who witnessed a similar sand pumping project in 2006.
That $14 million project involved siphoning sand off a spoil island where it had been piled years ago. Roach said that island had to be leveled so it can be used to pile more dredge spoils.
This year's project, costing the district $7.7 million, will make the navigation channel deeper along a 15-mile section of the waterway, from downtown New Smyrna Beach north past the inlet.
"We need to dredge the channel every seven years, but we haven't done this section since 1995, so we're a little overdue," Roach said. In some areas near Ponce deLeon Inlet, the channel is only a couple of feet deep.
The sand being dredged from the channel will be laid into new dunes and a 150-foot-wider beach between Sapphire Road and 21st Avenue. Volusia didn't have to chip in any money for that project, unlike the 2006 project, said Joe Nolin, manager of the Ponce deLeon Inlet and Port District.
That stretch of New Smyrna Beach had been hit hard during the 2004 hurricanes, with the beach not only losing the protective dunes, but losing several feet of sand so that the actual coast saw a drop in the beach's elevation. That made the shore vulnerable to minor storms, or even the highest high tide of the month.
Sand from the 2006 project had been a boon to the beach, adding more elevation to the beach and, though the sand seemed to wash away, it had accumulated in the area immediately offshore, Nolin said.
That sand was starting to naturally migrate back to the beach, thanks to the mild winter and lack of tropical storms in recent summers, Nolin said.
The dredged sand might be the last major beach project that Volusia will see for a few years, because county officials decided earlier this year not to fund some of the ongoing studies needed for federally funded or state-funded beach renourishment projects.
Unlike Brevard County,Volusia County isn't yet in the pipeline for massive federal beach projects. County officials, during budget workshops earlier this year, decided not to fund some of the preliminary studies needed for such a project or a large-scale state-funded renourishment, putting off continued funding of such long-term projects.
In the meantime, beachgoers can expect beach closures where the pipeline empties its dredge spoils. Roach said the beach project will continue through Sept. 21, though the dredges will continue to work through December, placing the last piles of sand back onto a spoil island.
Though the beach erosion hasn't worsened since 2004, this additional sand should help the beach withstand a summer tropical storm.
"We're nowhere close to having the beach we had before 2004," saidVolusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Scott Petersohn. "This will definitely help in the long run."
*********************
Hopefully some lost treasures are dumped onto the beach in the process of this project.
Flauthor
But I grew up in Saint Petersburg for most of my life.
