A recently completed project aims to turn a patch of the Lake Worth Lagoon off Palm Beach into a paradise for seagrass.
The privately funded restoration work in the lagoon — part of the Intracoastal Waterway — took place in an area west of the Palm Beach Country Club off the North End. The work was part of mitigation work that followed a dredging project at the Viking Yacht Service Center in Riviera Beach, according to state records and town officials.
A critical element of the marine habitat, seagrass provides food and shelter for many species of wildlife, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Seagrass also provides a primary food source for some endangered marine animals, including manatees and sea turtles.
A barge carrying sand to the site was parked in the lagoon for a few weeks, about 2½ miles south of the inlet at the north tip of the island. Construction began in June and finished at the end of July.
Before the project at the 6.7-acre seagrass-restoration site, the floor of the lagoon was too deep to support the growth of seagrass, engineer Matt Butler with Isiminger & Stubbs Engineering said in an email. Isiminger & Stubbs was hired by Viking’s parent company to design the project.
The depth at the site had been between 12 feet and 15 feet but sanding crews with Vance Construction Co. raised it to 10 feet, which is more hospitable to seagrass, Butler said.
The site will be monitored for five years or until seagrass has successfully grown into the area, he said. The material that was dredged from Viking’s service yard was used at the project site, state records show.
The project was permitted through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
According to Army Corps records, the mitigation step was needed because two types of seagrass, Johnson’s and paddle, were found in the area that was dredged at Viking, which stands just north of the Port of Palm Beach.
The restoration location sits within a larger 85-acre site that was identified by Palm Beach County’s Department of Environmental Resource Management in 2018 as a “preferred seagrass creation area,” Army Corps records show.
The Town Council in September of 2022 approved a request from Vance Construction to allow work to take place outside of the usually-allowed hours. Town staff noted at that time that the project “provides an environmental enhancement to the Lake Worth Lagoon and discourages mooring.”
The timing of the project generated confusion among some Palm Beach residents, who thought the work may have been related to a now-defunct town-backed project.
That “living shoreline” project, which was designed to stem erosion and replace an aging seawall, would have stretched along the lagoon and the Lake Trail west of Palm Beach Country Club. The town canceled that project after Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a $262,500 grant from the state budget.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Restoration work brings new life to Lake Worth Lagoon near Palm Beach
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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By Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News | USA TODAY Network
