VIDEO: Sand arrives Wednesday

Sand will be flowing from a pipe onto the the sand-starved north end of the island by Wednesday.

Work to mobilize a dredge and pipe that will bring sand to the north end of the Key is ongoing near Beer Can Island. A pipe is being positioned from the north end of the Key to begin the sand flow that will occur later this week.

Town Manager Dave Bullock informed the Longboat Key Town Commission last week that an emergency beach project in partnership with a West Coast Inland Navigation District dredging project near Jewfish Key is beginning today.

Equipment for the project is being placed at the Broadway beach access today and town staff may have to close that access for a few days. The North Shore Road access will be closed once the project begins until the sand project is done in July.

The dredge for the project arrived last week and Longboaters are now seeing a pipe laid out on the beach from Broadway to the north end. That pipe will eventually wrap its way around Beer Can Island and under the Longboat Pass Bridge.

Sand will be pumped six days a week, 12 hours a day and the town’s noise ordinance won’t apply to the contractor.

The West Coast Inland Navigation District will place up to 100,000 cubic yards of sand on the shoreline and has agreed to pay $500,000 toward the project. The town will make up the remaining cost of up to $350,000 for the estimated $850,000 project.

Bullock is hopeful two groins can be built on the north end while some of the sand being placed there this month is still intact. 

The town received a permit for the groin project last week and will have a contractor ready to begin construction once the state signs off on a modified Erosion Control Line for the north end of the Key.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].