Even with a just-announced deadline extension, Palm Beach’s Midtown Beach Nourishment likely will end without sand being distributed along a roughly half-mile-long stretch of shoreline at the project’s southernmost point.
That would leave beachfront directly across from multi-million-dollar homes in the Estate Section untouched until the next project, in six to eight years.
Regulators already have granted the town two deadline extensions for the federally backed project, which originally was designed to replenish the coastline between Seminole Avenue on the near North End to Banyan Road. The latter street is about a seven-tenth of a mile south of Worth Avenue.
Originally scheduled to end in April, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-led project was forced to a halt several times because of rough weather and turbulent ocean conditions that occurred during the late winter and early spring.
The latest word from regulators is that the project will be extended through May 22 — but that still won’t be enough time to complete all of it, town Coastal Manager Sara Westphall told the Palm Beach Daily News in a May 12 email.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protect, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must approve extension request, Westphall said during a May 7 meeting of the Shore Protection Board.
The town had hoped to have the project extended through the end of May, Westphall told members of the board. But since the project was taking place during sea-turtle nesting season, regulators instead decided to give the town konly until May 16 to complete the sand placements, she told the board.
The May 16 extension would have allowed the project to reach Peruvian Avenue, leaving almost a mile of coastline south of Peruvian without sand placements, Westphall said.
The new May 22 deadline will extend the project farther — but not into the Estate Section itself.
“From the latest projections, we anticipate them being in the area of Gulfstream Road,” Gutenkunst said in her email to the Daily News. Gulfstreet Road is the second street south of Worth Avenue.
Stopping there would leave the coastline in the northernmost part of the Estate Section — where the beach is primarily privately owned above the so-called “high-water” line — without new sand.
But that stretch of coastline already saw natural sand placement occur while the re-sanding project was underway, town coastal consultant Thomas Pierro said during an April 14 Town Council meeting. That’s because tides had carried sand eroded from Midtown Beach south onto the Estate Section’s coastline, he said.
Overall re-sanding crews are projected to add close to 600,000 cubic yards of sand to the Palm Beach coastline, Westphall said during the Shore Board’s May meeting.
“They had originally estimated about 480,000 cubic yards of sand, but will be placing closer to 600,000 cubic yards just based off of the needs of” the project, she told the board.
Workers have completed all sand placement north of Clarke Avenue and have been working to place sand on the northern portion of the Midtown Municipal Beach, Westphall told the Shore Board.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach’s sanding nourishment ending. What it means for shoreline
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Post
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