By DOTTY NIST
A lengthy question and answer session on the Walton County Hurricane and Storm Reduction Project took place at a Dec. 2 county workshop at the South Walton Annex.
Along with the Walton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC), Walton County Tourist Development Council Executive Director Jim Bagby, and Brad Pickel, beach management consultant for Walton County, representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) were present to answer questions about the project. A large crowd of beachfront property owners and other residents was in attendance at the meeting as well.
The ACOE is federal sponsor for the project. DEP is reviewing ACOE’s permit application for the project. Walton County is pursuing approximately $12 million in state grants to partially fund the project, which is estimated to cost from $60 – $65 million.
According to Pickel, ACOE’s funding share is expected to be 28 percent, with Walton County to pay slightly over 55 percent from TDC bed tax funds set aside for this purpose and a loan secured on the basis of future beach nourishment bed tax revenues.
Representing DEP at the meeting was Mark Thomasson, director for the agency’s Division of Water Resource Management. Answering questions for ACOE were David Newell, project manager for the agency’s Mobile District, and Richard Allen, a coastal engineer for the district.
Some questions answered at the meeting had been submitted in advance. Attendees could also submit questions at the meeting by writing them on index cards.
A number of the questions were pertaining to the Erosion Control Line (ERC). The establishment of this line is a requirement for large-scale beach restoration projects in Florida. Such a line is already in place along approximately five miles of beach on the west end of Walton County due to a beach restoration project that was completed in 2007.
The ECL establishes the limits of upland property ownership by the state before such a project is initiated. For lots deeded to the gulf or the mean high water line, the ECL becomes the new seaward property boundary.
To create the ECL, the mean high water elevation is obtained from the state and the beach is then surveyed to mark where that elevation falls at intervals along the beach. This is established as the mean high water location, with a line being connected between the marked elevations and surveyed to establish the proposed ECL. An application and public hearing process are required to officially set the ECL.
Asked if there had been an application to set the ECL for the Walton County Hurricane and Storm Damage Reduction Project, Thomasson responded, “The short answer is no.”
He said DEP had been provided with a preliminary mean high water survey from the county. A lengthy list of steps is required to establish the ECL, Thomasson noted, the first of those being a resolution from the local government making such a request. Subsequent steps, he commented, include a mean high water survey with subsets, a public workshop on the proposed ECL, a public hearing on the proposed ECL followed by a public comment period, a State of Florida Board of Trustees hearing to consider establishment of the ECL, and then the recording of the ECL with the local clerk of courts.
Asked if a property owner could ask not to have the ECL established on his or her property, Thomasson said that the owner would need to make a request to be removed and that the request would be reviewed by the project sponsors per applicable rules and statutes.
In response to a question, Thomasson said that DEP had spent approximately $900,000 on the project to date.
Answering a question about noise associated with a large-scale beach restoration project, Newell was frank that there would be significant noise, with bulldozers running along the beach and beeping around the clock. He said progress would range from 500 to 1,000 feet per day.
Newell also said that ACOE had currently spent $2 million in federal dollars on the project.
Speaking on the sand source, Allen said shell content would be from 2 to 2 1/2 percent, falling below DEP requirements for a maximum of 5-percent shell content. While some pockets in the borrow area may have a higher percent of shell content, ACOE will mitigate excessive shell content, he added. According to Pickel, shell content on the unrestored beach is less than one-half percent.
Allen said sand in the borrow area is a 0.29 millimeter grain size, with color identified as 5Y72 and 5Y62 on the Munsell color scale.
No environmental impact study has been performed for the project, he continued, just an environmental assessment completed in July 2013. This is the first step, and an environmental impact study is not required if no significant issues are identified in the assessment, Allen told the group.
Newell said the project would leave “sweep areas” for the coastal dune lake outfalls and that no significant impacts were anticipated in connection with those lakes or outfalls.
Asked if the project sand would be tested for contamination from the BP oil spill, Pickel responded that testing had already been done, with no contamination detected. Ten borrow sites were investigated, he said, and one of those, Borrow Area 4, was selected for the project. The site is located approximately five miles offshore from Sandestin, Pickel commented.
He corrected previous information that he had mistakenly provided that the offshore sand source would be the same as the one used for the West Destin/Holiday Isle beach nourishment project. While a different borrow site would be used, sand for the Walton County project would be of a better quality than that used for the other project, Pickel noted.
He gave $1.1 million as the amount spent by the TDC on the project feasibility study, with $350,000 spent for project engineering, design and permitting costs. These costs have been paid for through the one-cent portion of the bed tax than the TDC began collecting for beach nourishment in 1999, Pickel told attendees.
Walton County District 5 Commissioner Cindy Meadows asked about areas of the non-state-park beachfront that would not be included in the project, one of those being in the WaterSound area, where there are no structures close to the shoreline. Newell explained that due to construction being set back substantially from the water, it would not be expected that sufficient storm damage to structures would occur there to economically justify building up the beach.
Pickel commented that 600 feet in the area of Sanctuary by the Sea was excluded from the project as well for this reason.
In response to being asked if previous board of county commissioners had approved the project, Pickel answered in the affirmative. Multiple BCCs have granted their approval, he told the group. “It’s been out there,” he said of the project.
Questioned about project impacts on property rights, Thomasson discussed that through the establishment of the ECL, property owners lose rights to sand accretion on their lots. However, they gain in the event that there is erosion rather than accretion, he pointed out. In spite of beach erosion, the owners would maintain their property line up to the ECL, Thomasson explained. State statutes are also clear, he continued, that a beach restoration project does not take away a beachfront owner’s “riparian” rights, which carry over to nourished areas seaward of the ECL. These include the rights of ingress, egress, swimming, fishing, boating, and other rights identified by law.
Pickel added that a county ordinance states that no vending is allowed on the beach without the permission of any upland property owner and state law prohibits anything taking place on restored areas that would be injurious to that property owner.
Pickel pointed out that the area typically gets hit by a hurricane at least every 10 years. He said it is really an owner’s personal decision whether they want to have project sand on their property for protection in the event of storm impacts.
On the topic of who had been interested in the project, Bagby said that people had indeed asked for it to be pursued. Some of its biggest proponents had been property owners who lost a lot of sand from their lots during storms in 2004 and 2005, he said. Most of the big developments are in support of the restoration project, he commented, but said he did not have a count of those in favor. He acknowledged that there had been opposition and said that some owners are still undecided.
Beachfront property owners will be provided with easement documents that, if signed, will provide access to their property for construction and maintenance of the project, which would be built on both public and private property. Language for the easements has been finalized but not as yet approved by the BCC.
After some additional discussion, Walton County Commission Chairman Bill Imfeld concluded the workshop with the observation that a BCC public hearing was still needed on the issue. The hearing has not been scheduled at this time.
A video of the Dec. 2 workshop is available for viewing on the Walton County web site, www.co.walton.fl.us. under the heading “Government” and by selecting “Agendas and Minutes,” “Agendas, Minutes and Live and Archived Meeting Video..,” and then “Video” corresponding with “Beach Renourishment and Potential Establishment of ECL.”
Information on the Walton County Hurricane and Storm Damage Reduction Project is also available on the project web site, www.protectwaltoncountybeaches.com.
