NORTH REDINGTON BEACH, Fla. — Sand Key needs more sand.
It’s an ironic problem on the Pinellas County barrier island that’s home to coastal communities like Belleair Beach, Indian Rocks Beach, Redington Beach, and Madeira Beach.
For months, mayors along the island have underscored the need for more. Now, they’re intensifying that plea after Hurricane Idalia worsened beach erosion that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection already considers “critical.”
Though Idalia passed by well offshore, storm surge churned up by hurricane-pounded dunes on Pinellas County’s barrier islands and turned many into steep cliffs.
North Redington Beach Mayor Bill Queen pointed out Thursday it also flattened beaches like the one behind the DoubleTree hotel in North Redington.
“This beach should extend from the top of [the hotel’s] seawall all the way out about 300 feet and then it slowly, gradually goes down,” Queen explained.
Because of the new topography, a high tide Thursday climbed within roughly ten feet from the hotel’s seawall and left just a sliver of beach for the tourists and visitors returning to enjoy the surf and sand.
“You’ve got no sand, you know, you’ve got no beach, you’ve got no tourists,” the mayor warned.
The beach erosion also leaves the barrier island more vulnerable to future storms with less buffer between the Gulf of Mexico and homes, hotels, and businesses.
“We’re just living on borrowed time right now,” Queen said.
Traditionally, there was a solution. For years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers periodically renourished or rebuilt the beaches along Pinellas County’s barrier islands by reforming their dunes and berms with fresh sand either trucked in or dredged from the Gulf.
Now, however, a recent policy has put those renourishment projects on indefinite hold.
The Army Corps has said it won’t proceed until private property owners along the beach give a “perpetual” easement, or access, to part of their properties where some work must be done.
Some landowners are hesitant to agree to that.
Thursday evening, Colonel Jamie Booth, the district commander of the Army Corps division that oversees all of Florida, toured beach erosion in Belleair Beach.
Though he acknowledged that renourishment is needed, he defended the controversial policy.
“Sometimes, these projects are not only on the state side of the beach but also — sometimes for them to perform properly — are designed where they may go up … into private property owners’ land,” Booth said. “We need to make sure that when we have a project, we can always get in and do the maintenance and renourishment on them.”
Additionally, Booth said no renourishment work can begin until it sees agreements from 100% of the impacted private landowners up and down the county’s barrier islands.
As Queen pointed out, Pinellas County has received easements from all impacted private landowners along North Redington Beach and Belleair Beach.
However, because landowners in other nearby communities like Indian Rocks Beach, Indian Shores, and Redington Shores have not agreed, no work can happen.
Col. Booth stands by that decision. He thinks rebuilding the critically eroded beaches along the county’s barrier islands will only work if everyone buys in: all or nothing.
“If you can imagine a pot that you expect to hold water, you don’t want that pot to have holes in the bottom of it,” he said. “If we build that project with gaps, when the waves come up — when the surge comes up — it’s just going to come right through.”
Booth, however, is hopeful the stalemate will eventually end and a resolution can be achieved that leads to beach renourishment.
He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has an open communication line with Pinellas’ coastal leaders. On Friday, Sept. 8, the Army Corps will host a public meeting to brief both coastal leaders and members of the public on the project’s status. The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in the fourth floor Community Room of the Indian Shores Town Hall, 19305 Gulf Blvd., Indian Shores, FL 33785.
Mayor Queen will be there and said he hopes “common sense” will prevail before it’s too late.
“Listen, I saw a storm that came in here back in the Seventies that took the whole end of that hotel off right there,” he said, gesturing to a hotel not far from the DoubleTree. “And it was not anything major, but we didn’t have any beach renourishment out here, and the water just came up and slammed against the place.”
