Money talks but mother nature talks louder. Sea levels are rising and we can't stop it even if we had the means we couldn't afford it.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates...is-of-rising-sea-levels/index.html?v=x;asd09u[0qwieckmaefr#article-2-against-the-tide
BEACH BUMP: Structural engineer Terry Anderson stands near the dunes he created to help ensure approval of a permit for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's beachfront house in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. REUTERS/Phil Sears Part 2: Despite laws intended to curb development where rising seas pose the greatest threat, Reuters finds that government is happy to help the nation indulge in its passion for beachfront living.
SANTA ROSA BEACH, Florida – Mike Huckabee bought a beachfront lot here in 2009, a year after his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination. A longtime friend and political ally of the former Arkansas governor bought the lot next door. They planned to build $3 million vacation villas side-by-side, each with a pool and sweeping views of Walton County’s renowned sugary sand beaches and the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The only hitch was that their lots lay on a severely eroding beach. Under state regulations, they couldn’t build on the seaward side of the sand dune nearest to the surf. And after seven hurricanes in six years, the surviving “frontal dune” sat too close to the street to allow space behind it for the friends’ 11,000-square-foot (1,020-square-meter) compounds.
The structural engineer they had hired knew what to do. He dumped truckloads of sand farther out on the beach, shaped it into a mound, and declared the man-made hump to be the new frontal dune. When staff at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) still balked at issuing the necessary permits, the engineer asked Michael Sole, head of the agency at the time, to intercede.
“I met with Secretary Sole on Friday …” the contractor wrote to DEP staff in
a March 8, 2010, email, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters. “I believe we’ve reached a consensus decision on the location of both these projects.”
The decision: Huckabee and his friend would nudge their home sites back 5 feet (1.5 meters). The permits were approved. Construction wrapped up in 2011.
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