- Joined
- May 20, 2004
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- Location
- Satellite Beach
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- Minelab Excal 1000
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
SATELITTE BEACH -- Kathy Cleveland and her daughter, Rebecca Radtke, sauntered down the new dune -- a cliff two months ago, a gentle, freshly-raked slope today.
The new sand, dredged from a pit in Titusville, blended right in at Pelican Beach Park, one of Brevard County's skinniest beaches -- thinned by four hurricanes in two years.
Workers this week put the last touches on a $5.7 million repair of about 20 miles of eroded dunes along Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach and between Melbourne Beach and Sebastian Inlet. Trucks hauled in about 175,000 cubic yards, or roughly 8,750 truckloads, of sand during the two-month project, which began
Feb. 27. The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid most of the cost, except for $750,000 split evenly between Brevard and the state.
Beachfront property owners got from .5 to 9.8 cubic yards of sand per linear foot of beach, depending on how much they lost of last year's dune restoration project, which replaced sand stripped away during the 2004 hurricanes.
To Cleveland, the new grains -- remnants of an ancient dune ridge that once lined mainland Brevard -- matched well with the sand already on the beach. The rebuilt dunes looked better than beach she remembers from a visit 35 years ago.
"It seems to be more cared for," said the tourist from Grand Haven, Mich. "I've been pleasantly surprised."
County officials said they took special care to control sand quality to make sure the new sand matches the native beach's color, texture, and shell content.
This week, landscapers drove a tractor dragging a rake-like plow to loosen the sand so sea turtles can nest and sea oats can root. The county must check artificially widened beaches each spring, then soften them to the natural hardness turtles prefer. Otherwise, nesting turtles tire, quit digging or snub Brevard beaches altogether. In exhaustion, some may even lay their eggs at sea.
County officials postponed a planned planting of vegetation to stabilize the new dunes until mid-November. Because of the size of the project, contractors were unable to complete the planting project before the May 1 deadline, when sea turtle nesting season begins and state and federal wildlife agencies ban construction directly on the beach.
The latest project adds to the $30.2 million beach restoration effort after the 2004 hurricanes. Dredges pumped about 1 1/2 million cubic yards of sand onto more than 10 miles of beach and trucks hauled in another 560,000 cubic yards of sand by truck to dump onto dunes countywide.
Then in early September, Hurricane Ophelia partially eroded recently placed dune sand countywide, followed by Wilma in late October, which took away much of the rest of the sand placed on the dunes after the 2004 storms. The new sand went in those previously restored spots eroded by Wilma.
"If they didn't get sand, it's because they hadn't lost any since we put sand in 2005," said Mike McGarry, Brevard's beach renourishment coordinator, who urged beachgoers to go easy on the new dunes.
"If they could stay off the dunes and the steeper slope of the dune on the west side of the beach, it's beneficial to help the vegetation recruit," McGarry said.
At the northern end of Ocean Street in Satellite Beach, residents consider sand vital to protecting their property. This week, builders worked on the concrete shell of a home destroyed in the 2004 storms at the street's northern terminus, in the same spot it stood before the storms.
"It's just amazing how one was washed away and the other one is fine," Radtke said, gazing upon the Ocean Street homes from a dune crossover, her mother at her side.
"We'll be back," Cleveland, her mother, said. "It was interesting to see a tractor on the beach."
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we...me=gannett&s_site=floridatoday&p_product=FLTB
The new sand, dredged from a pit in Titusville, blended right in at Pelican Beach Park, one of Brevard County's skinniest beaches -- thinned by four hurricanes in two years.
Workers this week put the last touches on a $5.7 million repair of about 20 miles of eroded dunes along Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach and between Melbourne Beach and Sebastian Inlet. Trucks hauled in about 175,000 cubic yards, or roughly 8,750 truckloads, of sand during the two-month project, which began
Feb. 27. The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid most of the cost, except for $750,000 split evenly between Brevard and the state.
Beachfront property owners got from .5 to 9.8 cubic yards of sand per linear foot of beach, depending on how much they lost of last year's dune restoration project, which replaced sand stripped away during the 2004 hurricanes.
To Cleveland, the new grains -- remnants of an ancient dune ridge that once lined mainland Brevard -- matched well with the sand already on the beach. The rebuilt dunes looked better than beach she remembers from a visit 35 years ago.
"It seems to be more cared for," said the tourist from Grand Haven, Mich. "I've been pleasantly surprised."
County officials said they took special care to control sand quality to make sure the new sand matches the native beach's color, texture, and shell content.
This week, landscapers drove a tractor dragging a rake-like plow to loosen the sand so sea turtles can nest and sea oats can root. The county must check artificially widened beaches each spring, then soften them to the natural hardness turtles prefer. Otherwise, nesting turtles tire, quit digging or snub Brevard beaches altogether. In exhaustion, some may even lay their eggs at sea.
County officials postponed a planned planting of vegetation to stabilize the new dunes until mid-November. Because of the size of the project, contractors were unable to complete the planting project before the May 1 deadline, when sea turtle nesting season begins and state and federal wildlife agencies ban construction directly on the beach.
The latest project adds to the $30.2 million beach restoration effort after the 2004 hurricanes. Dredges pumped about 1 1/2 million cubic yards of sand onto more than 10 miles of beach and trucks hauled in another 560,000 cubic yards of sand by truck to dump onto dunes countywide.
Then in early September, Hurricane Ophelia partially eroded recently placed dune sand countywide, followed by Wilma in late October, which took away much of the rest of the sand placed on the dunes after the 2004 storms. The new sand went in those previously restored spots eroded by Wilma.
"If they didn't get sand, it's because they hadn't lost any since we put sand in 2005," said Mike McGarry, Brevard's beach renourishment coordinator, who urged beachgoers to go easy on the new dunes.
"If they could stay off the dunes and the steeper slope of the dune on the west side of the beach, it's beneficial to help the vegetation recruit," McGarry said.
At the northern end of Ocean Street in Satellite Beach, residents consider sand vital to protecting their property. This week, builders worked on the concrete shell of a home destroyed in the 2004 storms at the street's northern terminus, in the same spot it stood before the storms.
"It's just amazing how one was washed away and the other one is fine," Radtke said, gazing upon the Ocean Street homes from a dune crossover, her mother at her side.
"We'll be back," Cleveland, her mother, said. "It was interesting to see a tractor on the beach."
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we...me=gannett&s_site=floridatoday&p_product=FLTB
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