beach restoration update

[Sally]

From Walton Sun:

Walton County and Destin have entered into an agreement to jointly hire the same contractor and pay for beach restoration.
The five mile stretch of beach to be restored is from Topsail Hill State Park in Walton County west to Henderson State Park in Destin, Brad Pickel, director of beach management for Walton County, said.
?The key element here is that the payment arrangements will be directly proportional to the amount of beach in Walton County and Destin. Sixty nine percent of the beach is in Walton County and the remaining 31 percent is in Destin,? County Attorney David Hallman said.
The contract is expected to be awarded the week of Nov. 28 and county officials expect to have work started by the first of the year.
Beach scraping has been suspended since Oct. 7 when the Department of Environment Protection permit for beach scraping ran out. Since Hurricane Katrina, beach scraping hasn?t been conducted because not enough sand was washing up on the beaches. Too many calm water days and impacts from Hurricane Rita are to blame, Pickel said.
After Hurricane Ivan, in 2004 11.9 miles of beach were declared ?critically eroded,? Pickel said. He added with the storm activity since Ivan, those areas designated ?critically eroded? most likely will increase, up to between 15 to 20 miles.
The county is in the process of locating suitable sites offshore to dredge sand to place on the beach. Sonar will be used to find deposits of sand and then core samples will be taken to ensure the area contains the white sand matching the beaches, Pickel said.
Because of a lengthy permitting process for dredging, the project probably won?t begin until next summer, Pickel added.

 

[Wastin Away]

Do you by any chance have any information on when they are going to complete the county accesses that have been started or a website to go to to find this information.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Do you by any chance have any information on when they are going to complete the county accesses that have been started or a website to go to to find this information.

My understanding is that the County would not begin reconstruction of the walkovers until Hurricane Season ends, Nov 30.

 

[Kurt]

This page tells you which are open:

http://www.partners.beachesofsouthwalton.com/Open_Beach_Access.asp

 

[Wastin Away]

Thanks,

I have some friends coming in during Thanksgiving and the walkover at Ramsgate has some ramp to it and the pillars up and some wood delivered and it looks like sand put under but no activitiy in a couple of weeks. I am just wondering why they don't come and finish it.

 

[SGB]

The accesses at Live Oak and Thyme in Seagrove had just the posts for the longest time. The walkovers were finally finished a few weeks ago. So maybe there is hope that yours will get done soon.

 

[Sally]

The restoration of 7.1 miles of beaches in Walton County and the City of Destin will begin by early January.
The $23 million to fix the beaches will be split by the two governing bodies proportional to the percent of beach in each one?s jurisdiction. With 69 percent of the project in Walton County, the county will pay nearly $16 million, said Bill Imfeld, Walton County finance director.
The Walton Board of County Commissioners voted to approve the restoration at a special meeting on Nov. 28 at the South Walton Annex.
Overall, the project will extend the beach 75 ? 125 feet, and raise the existing beach by 3-5 feet. It will build a dune that will offer protection against storm surge, Brad Pickel, director of beach management for Walton County, said.
?We will dump 80 cubic yards of sand per foot on the beaches,? Pickel said at the Monday?s BCC meeting. ?We are looking at putting around three million yards of sand on the beaches.?
The area of beach to be restored is from Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Walton County west to Henderson State Park in Destin.
Only four companies in the world are capable to do this job and the county received bids from two of them. Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, of Oak Park, Ill. was the winning bidder and will have the project completed in about 150 days after starting, Pickel said.
To accomplish the restructuring of the each, a boat will suck up the sand like a big vacuum cleaner from the borrow site off shore from the East Pass. It then will be taken and pumped back onto the beaches via an under water pipeline.
About 100 ? 300 feet of beach will be replenished a day. Inspectors will be on the beaches to ensure that the proper color and size sand is going onto the beach. If a pocket of bad sand is mistakenly put onto the beach it will be bulldozed into the ocean and replaced with the proper sand, Pickel said.
Bulldozers and front-end loaders will shape the beaches and dunes into a natural shape.
Pickel added that small winter storms will help shape the beaches back into their natural shape.

 

[seagrovelover]

That is very interesting, thanks for the info.

 

[Miss Kitty]

That should be something to see! I hope SJ or Kurt gets down there with a camera.

 

[dbuck]

I am so glad to hear this is going to be done. :clap_1: I wondered from the very beginning why this wasn't being considered. This was done on Panama City Beach and it made a hugh difference quickly. Looks like insurance companies would ante-up some money on this, since it will save them millions in the long run. It would just take 12 houses or 1 condo building collapsing to equal $23 million.