[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Rep. C.W. Bill Young, shown on Belleair Beach, says the sand must be replaced. "If you didn't control it in Pinellas, look at all the homes out there you would eventually lose." As chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, he plays a key role in allocating renourishment money.

By BILL ADAIR and AMY WIMMER
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 12, 2002

MONMOUTH BEACH, N.J. -- Across the street from his million-dollar home, Michael Schottland has a spectacular beach.

Thanks to a 10-foot sea wall, private stairways and lots of No Trespassing signs, Schottland and his neighbors often have the sand to themselves.

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"It's a gorgeous thing to have the beach here," he says. "I can see Long Island on a clear day."

Schottland, a prominent lawyer, is accustomed to paying his own way. He built his house three years ago and pays $12,000 a year in property taxes. But this sand is your sand: The federal government shelled out $6.7-million per mile to put it here.

Schottland and his neighbors in the wealthy town on the central Jersey shore are beneficiaries of beach renourishment, a federal program that pumps sand onto select shorelines from New Jersey to California to Florida.

The subsidized sand protects homes and highways from flooding, but it also boosts real estate values and encourages more coastal development.

• Quality sand hard to find? Try shells, rocks and oil • Back off ... he's a scientist

"This is truly welfare for the rich," says Duke University professor Orrin Pilkey, a longtime critic of the program. "God knows, there are some very powerful people on these beaches."

Indeed, Congress picks the beaches based on politics and lobbying rather than environmental science. And the millions of taxpayers who pay the bill often can't get to the sand, as coastal towns devise creative ways to discourage the public from using the public beaches.

Schottland -- who has a condo in Boca Raton that also benefits from federal sand -- says residents of beach towns deserve the help because of the substantial taxes they pay on their homes and income.

"Do we live in an anthill society where everything has to be equal?" he says. "I paid big money to get here."

Judy Martinelly, a real estate agent on Monmouth Beach, says the sand is a good federal investment because it protects homes from storms.

"We help when Texas has floods or when Iowa has storms," she says. "Everybody has to pitch in."

'There's no beach!'

When the government pumps sand on a beach, the sand pumps up home prices.

Increasing a 70-foot beach to 100 feet adds more than $34,000 to the value of a typical beachfront home, according to studies of South Carolina beach towns by researchers at Francis Marion University.

"The people that are benefiting the most are the people right on the oceanfront," says Jeffrey Pompe, co-author of the studies.

And $34,000 might underestimate the benefits in towns such as Treasure Island, where Realtor Jim Tyner boasts, "There's not a home under a million on the beach."

The towns receiving subsidized sand include some of the richest in the nation, according to a Taxpayers for Common Sense analysis. The group matched federal spending with Worth magazine's list of wealthiest places and found that 21 of the 74 coastal towns on the list had benefitted from beach restoration. The taxpayer group estimates that the towns will receive a federal subsidy of $1.7-billion over the life of the projects.

The federal sand also helps business owners. Consider this scene from the early days of the North Redington Beach Hilton:

In 1986, shortly after the hotel opened, a van with Minnesota plates pulled up, carrying a family of pale tourists.

"They were as white as a T-shirt," recalls Carl M. Hall, the hotel's owner.

While the father checked in at the reception desk, the kids ran to the windows to see the water.

"Dad! Mom! There's no beach!" the children yelled.

The father walked to the window, saw the waves crashing against a sea wall, and announced that his family would find another hotel.

"It's pretty hard to have a beach resort without a beach," says Hall.

He had built the hotel with assurances from state and county officials that government largesse would replace the sand Hurricane Elena had swept away in 1985. When the sand arrived in the late 1980s, the tourists quickly followed. The occupancy rate surged from 36 percent to 80 percent.

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Hungry beaches, like Upham, need to be fed often. Every few years, the sand washes away.

'Sand thieves'

The government provides the sand to respond to two powerful forces: Mother Nature and the people who own beachfront property.

Beaches dwindle because ocean currents wash the sand up and down the shore. A few beaches, such as the middle section of Treasure Island, grow naturally because of their location and underwater topography. Many others -- such as Sunset Beach at the southern end of Treasure Island -- are constantly losing sand.

Erosion is usually caused by human attempts to engineer the oceans. By building jetties and dredging inlets to help boaters, the government has interrupted the natural flow and robbed many beaches of their steady supply of sand.

"We are the cause of most modern erosion," says Scott Douglass, a professor of civil engineering at the University of South Alabama. "The sand thieves are the works of man."

Hungry beaches like Sunset need to be fed often. Every few years, the sand washes away. And every few years, Congress sends the Army Corps of Engineers to pump it back.

Beach renourishment, which has been around since the 1920s, is a simple but expensive process of taking sand from the ocean floor to the shore. Dredging machines suck up the sand offshore and blast it through a large pipe onto the beach. Bulldozers smooth the sand to achieve a natural contour.

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] On a cold, rainy March morning, Michael Schottland stands on his sea wall stairs with his house behind him. "Do we live in an anthill society where everything has to be equal?" he asks. "I paid big money to get here."

Decades ago, beachfront property owners and state governments paid for the work, but the federal government has steadily played a larger role. Depending on the type of project, the feds today pay up to 65 percent of the cost, with state or local governments paying the remainder.

Advocates of subsidized sand defend it on the grounds that beaches provide storm protection and a firmer footing for shoreline buildings and roads.

"The sand does migrate," says Rep. C.W. Bill Young, the Largo Republican who, as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, plays a decisive role in doling out the sand money. "If you didn't control it in Pinellas, look at all the homes out there you would eventually lose."

Yet critics say the massive federal program is paying for the mistakes of states and towns that allowed too much coastal development.

"No federal agency held a gun to the heads of the states and said, "Do stupid development,' " environmentalist Dery Bennett says as he stands atop the sea wall at Monmouth Beach.

"The states and the towns and these people" -- Bennett gestures toward the million-dollar homes lining Ocean Avenue -- "should pay."

This year, the federal beach program will cost $142-million, up from $47-million six years ago. Florida tops the list of beneficiaries with 10 projects worth $30-million.

Sand pumping isn't glamorous, but it usually draws a crowd.

"For the tourists, it's a novelty," says Tyner, the Treasure Island real estate agent. "Us, we just sit there and smile."

Keeping outsiders out

Supporters of the federal program say the sand is vital for local economies. They say high property values and busy hotels bring more jobs and tax revenue.

Harry deButts, head of public works in Avalon, N.J., says the sand is a wise federal investment in counties like his that depend on tourism.

"The only thing this county has is its beaches," he says, adding that many workers might lose their jobs and need federal welfare benefits if the beaches were not nourished.

But for all the talk of tourism, some towns that receive federal sand have become adept at shielding it from the masses -- even though federal rules say only public beaches are eligible for renourishment.

Take Belleair Beach, for example, which was part of a $29-million renourishment project in 1998. On a sunny weekend, as people in other Pinellas towns drop their quarters into parking meters at crowded lots, Belleair Beach's 77 free public parking spaces are often empty.

The town couldn't be happier.

"There was apprehension initially that the beach would become far too public," says Mayor Mike Kelly, "and that's become more of a fear that never came to reality."

Belleair Beach has deftly exploited loopholes in federal rules so its residents aren't bothered by outsiders. Officially, the parking lot for the town marina is supposed to be a public lot for beachgoers. But the lot is unlined, unpaved and mostly unnoticed.

It's across the street from the beach and there is no crosswalk. Anyone who manages to find the parking lot must dodge traffic on Gulf Boulevard to get to the sand.

Meanwhile, parking on the gulf side of the boulevard is for residents only -- a provision so strictly enforced that one city resident, whose home is in his wife's name, says he was required to get a note from her before he could park.

On the Web site of the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce, potential visitors to Belleair Beach get this explanation: "Beaches are public, but access is private."

In Monmouth Beach, there's an even bigger obstacle: an imposing 10-foot sea wall that stretches for several miles. Built to protect the town from Nor'easters, the stone wall also fends off visitors who want to enjoy the federal sand.

Wooden stairways -- most privately owned with No Trespassing signs -- are the only way over the wall.

The lack of access angers Bennett, head of the American Littoral Society, a New Jersey-based environmental group that focuses on shoreline issues. Bennett, an eccentric and frequently shoeless activist, has been known to trespass on the private stairways to show his defiance of the wall.

"It's a signal that people from the rest of the state are not welcome here," he says. "Basically, this strip of Monmouth Beach is for residents only."

Bernie Moore, an official with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, concedes the beaches could be more accessible. "The sea wall presents lots of problems," he says. "But we have provided public access at various points along that sea wall."

As for Belleair Beach, Pinellas County coastal coordinator Jim Terry says it meets federal requirements for parking "reasonably near" the beach and pedestrian access "at suitable intervals."

"What is reasonable?" says Terry. "Well, that's defined differently by different people."

Terry acknowledges that the town's beaches are "less user-friendly" than those in cities such as Indian Rocks Beach, where there's ample free parking and the city spends $10,000 annually to landscape the parking lots. But he says the county, in its desire for uniform renourishment, is willing to overlook the lack of Belleair Beach parking.

"It works a lot better when it's a continuous project," Terry says.

Yet the Pinellas project isn't continuous because of Belleair Shore, a town that is a notch more exclusive than Belleair Beach. Belleair Shore declined federal sand because the town would have been required to provide public access.

That hasn't stopped the sand from drifting to private Belleair Shore.

"I go out behind (Belleair Shore Mayor) John Robertson's house to watch the sunset," says Kelly, mayor of neighboring Belleair Beach, "and he's got a nice little beach growing out there."

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] When the federal government renourished north Pinellas beaches in 1998, Belleair Shore declined the money. Accepting would have meant opening the exclusive beach to the public. But the town still benefits, as federal sand drifts in from neighboring beaches.

'Find someone else's money!'

If you read the rules, you might think beaches are picked for federal sand based on a complicated formula about storm damage and flooding. But it's mostly politics, with a little science thrown in for good measure. DeButts, the head of public works for Avalon, calls it "the game."

Although the Corps of Engineers analyzes each project, Congress decides which projects get built. What matters is raw political clout and whether a lawmaker has the chops to insert a local project in a bill.

DeButts says there is a little science involved, but the real way to get money is to "duke it out in D.C." His town hired Howard Marlowe, Washington's premier lobbyist for sand, who managed to get Avalon $4-million from Congress last year and $2-million this year. (Marlowe keeps a running tally of the millions he wins for his clients. It's now six pages long.)

A growing number of beach towns are seeking federal help because Congress keeps increasing the pot of money every year. The trend is reflected in a tip sheet published last year by California's Orange County Coastal Coalition:

"Don't give up because you don't have the money. Find someone else's money!"

Some towns get federal help even when they don't need it.

In the late 1980s, Captiva Island in Southwest Florida had so little sand that a small tropical storm caused the only evacuation road to collapse.

Residents agreed to tax themselves to pay for more sand, but thanks to U.S. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, the federal government stepped in to help anyway -- and offered $1.8-million. Just the anticipation of sand buoyed real estate prices, and property values skyrocketed before the first grain of new sand was placed on the beach. Now, it's hard to find a beachfront home for less than $4-million.

"We needed the beach so badly that we would've gone ahead with it, with or without outside funding," says Alison Hagerup, administrator of the Captiva Island Erosion Control District.

In "the game," Congress makes no systematic effort to assess the national needs or prioritize the projects. Committees don't study which beaches are most deserving or have the most critical problems. Instead, sand projects are quietly tucked inside bills, often at the last minute.

[Photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach, N.J., had virtually no beach in the early 1990s. But the federal nourishment in 1994-96 created a wide expanse of sand. These aerial views show the area before (top) and after (below) the sand arrived.

"Quite frankly, there isn't enough done to prioritize projects," says Rick Mertens, an official of the Office of Management and Budget. "It's not as rigorous as we might hope."

Presidents Bush and Clinton both sought to reduce the sand money. Last year, Bush proposed drastic cuts and a reduction in the federal share from the current 65 percent to 35 percent.

But the commander in chief was no match for mayors from tiny beach towns and their allies in Congress. A key player was Young, the appropriations committee chairman. Lobbyist Marlowe praises Young's generosity with the sand money. "He's been very kind to his colleagues on the committee. Beaches are something he understands."

Young is proud of the money he has gotten for Pinellas beaches, which he says are the backbone of the county's economy. "My responsibility is to my district."

Young disagrees that the sand helps the rich get richer, noting that Gulf Boulevard has a mix of luxury condos, single-family homes and mom-and-pop motels.

"There is more economic diversity than people would realize on the beaches," he says. "In Pinellas County, the economic diversity is very real."

So, once Bush's proposal arrived last spring, Young plotted with his colleagues how to defeat it and include $2-million for beaches in Pinellas.

Ultimately, the House and Senate not only rejected the Bush proposal, but Young and other lawmakers packed the bill with their own beach projects.

Bush had wanted an $89-million bill, but after it was stuffed with new projects, it ended up costing $142-million.

[Times art]

'Gimme, gimme, gimme'

Beach renourishment advocates say the sand protects homes and businesses from storms, which in turn reduces costs for flood insurance and other federal programs.

"If we can prevent the damage from natural disasters, we save having to repair after the disaster," says Young.

But critics say the beach dwellers are driven by more selfish motives.

Don Eifert lives in Belleair Beach -- not on the gulf side but on the Intracoastal Waterway, where homeowners must pay to maintain their sea walls while their neighbors across the island reap the benefits of free sand.

"All those condo owners over there on the beach, they couldn't raise money on their own to protect themselves," Eifert says. "They just wanted all the federal money -- "gimme, gimme, gimme.' "

And even some who live on renourished beaches question whether the federal government should be paying.

Bernie Wolfson's beachfront house on Treasure Island is now worth about $1.3-million -- more than twice what he paid five years ago. Wolfson says the sand was a big factor in that increase.

"I'm the real beneficiary," he says, quickly adding that "my neighbors won't like to hear that."

Wolfson, a retired pharmaceutical researcher, says state and local governments should pay a larger share of the sand costs because they benefit most directly.

Or, as Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense puts it, "If it's such a boon to a local economy, why should my Uncle Sid in Omaha have to pay for it?"

-- To comment on this series, go to www.sptimes.com/sandforum.

-- Staff writer Bill Adair can be reached at (202) 463-0575 or adair@sptimes.com; staff writer Amy Wimmer can be reached at (727) 892-2271 or wimmer@sptimes.com.

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