The white sandy beaches along a swath of Florida's Gulf Coast were battered by hurricanes Helene, Milton, and Debby last year, leading to a multimillion-dollar effort to repair a coastline that's the region's economic engine. Crews are working with dredges, trucks, and pipelines along the 35-mile stretch of beach in Pinellas County that includes prime tourist destinations like Clearwater Beach, Indian Rocks Beach, Belleair Beach, and Redington Beach. Helene was the most destructive for the beach towns, even though it made landfall far to the north. Twelve people died in Pinellas County because of strong storm surge that reached 8 feet high in some places.
In past years, the US Army Corps of Engineers paid about 65% of the beach restoration costs, reports the AP, but not this time. The Corps wants private landowners to sign up for permanent easements that would allow government access in perpetuity—a change that has met with stiff resistance. So Pinellas County is doing the beach restoration itself, spending more than $125 million in tourism tax revenue to cover the costs. The county also has an easement program, but because some property owners won't sign up, there will be gaps in the beach renourishment that could lead to damage in future storms.
"We can't do it as well as we could," said Barry Burton, the Pinellas County administrator. "Our desire is to place sand across as much of the beach as we can." The project calls for using 2.5 million cubic yards of sand that's being dredged and pumped from offshore. In places where property owners refused to sign the easements, new sand is being placed toward the Gulf side of the beach, which is public. The beaches are being widened by as much as 100 feet. The county won't be able to afford beach work like this again, said Public Works Director Kelli Hammer Levy. "This is the last and only time," she said.
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For its part, the Army Corps said it can't justify spending millions of US taxpayer dollars on beach renourishment without permanent easements to allow access. "The Congressionally authorized, engineered project cannot provide the level of protection when constructed with gaps," the agency said in a statement. Those gaps mean that properties with sand dunes and an elongated beach might be next to another one with nothing—and that's where the storm surge in future hurricanes will go.
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