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9 miles of battered beaches replenished

$40-million worth of dredged sand will help protect 9 miles of Pinellas beaches and buildings from hurricane damage.

By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
Published August 4, 2006

	[Times photo: Ted McLaren]
	This view of the northern end of renourished Indian Rocks Beach looks north to Belleair Shore, where the renourishment program did not take place. Sand Key, Belleair Beach, Indian Shores, Redington Shores and North Redington Beach also have received new sand.

It took 10 months and nearly 1.7-million cubic yards of sand, but the $40-million beach renourishment project was finished Monday.

The new layers of sand will help protect 9 miles of beaches and waterfront buildings on Sand Key, Belleair Beach, Indian Rocks Beach, Indian Shores, Redington Shores and North Redington Beach.

Only Belleair Shore, which has no public access to its beach, did not receive any new sand.

"The main purpose of beach nourishment is to protect the beach communities from damage during storms," said Nicole Elko, Pinellas County's coastal management coordinator. "These beaches are now ready for the 2006 hurricane season."

The beach renourishment project, which started last November, was conducted by the county, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The county's portion of the $40-million cost was funded by a half-cent "bed tax" levied on tourists and visitors.

The new sand was dredged from the Egmont Shoals, the same location used in the 1998-99 beach renourishment project. The large sand bars making up the shoals are located north of Egmont Key and almost 3 miles due west of Fort De Soto Park.

Sand from the shoals was loaded onto barges, pushed to the beaches by tugboats and then pumped through submerged pipelines leading to the beaches to screen for rocks larger than 2 inches wide. Bulldozers then redistributed the sand along the beaches.

Officials say the slightly darker color of the new sand will gradually lighten as it is exposed to the sun.

Each day beginning in April, early morning surveys by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium checked the beach for turtle nests. When they found them, they moved them outside the construction area. The number of nests in Pinellas County has steadily increased from 77 in 1993 to 195 in 2003, according to county officials.

Regular beach renourishment began in 1983 when plans were developed to restore all the beaches south from Clearwater Pass. Since then, Pinellas beaches have been renourished in 1988, 1990, 1992 and in 1998-99, when the $24-million project placed 2.6-million cubic yards of sand along nearly 9 miles of shoreline.

Before renourishing, many beaches had eroded so severely that they disappeared, allowing normal waves to lap right up to seawalls, and during storms to surge over seawalls and flood beachfront buildings.

With repeated renourishment, the resulting wider beaches protect the upland area from storm waves and surges.

Equipment used to dredge, deposit and spread the sand along this phase of beach renourishment will now move back to Indian Rocks Beach to repair sections of beach between Central and Seventh avenues that were damaged by Tropical Storm Alberto.

When that is completed, the next phase of beach renourishment will begin at Treasure Island and then move on to St. Pete Beach.

[Last modified August 4, 2006, 07:03:00]