Younger presents beach-monitoring data

Longboat Key Commissioner Phillip Younger presented last week to the Town Commission a variety of beach charts, which reveal that 60% of the town’s entire beach is 10 years or more away from needing renourishment (if any).

The data Younger uses, which was acquired from the town’s beach engineer, Coastal Planning & Engineering, shows there has been a 27% erosion rate island-wide since the beach was renourished in 2006 through October 2010. That is equivalent to a 9% loss of the total beach width since 2006.

If you exclude the eroded north end of the island, which accounts for 14% of the beach, of the 86% shoreline remaining, 4.4% of the total beach width since 2006 has been lost.

Younger’s chart, shown below, shows five sections of the island’s beaches. While the north end of the island and some sections of the beach in the middle of the Key are not holding sand effectively, all of the green sections on the chart show areas of the Key that are holding and/or accreting sand. The green areas are not in danger of falling below minimum beach-width requirements for at least 10 years.

Younger has said for months that, for the most part, the mandate that the beach width be maintained at 130 feet is holding steady. Younger, however, said he isn’t drawing any conclusions from the charts he created at this time and only wants the data to be reviewed. 

Town Manager Bruce St. Denis has maintained that island-wide beach projects are necessary because the sand that’s placed on the beach constantly moves to the south, and if sand is not placed in areas that already have enough sand, other areas of the island’s beach will start to deteriorate.

Younger asked St. Denis to provide the charts to CPE and Dr. Kevin Bodge, who is performing a peer review of the town’s Comprehensive Beach Plan. Bodge is an engineer with Jacksonville-based Olsen & Associates Inc.

In emails exchanged between Younger and St. Denis May 17, Younger declined to meet with St. Denis and CPE representatives about his charts because he wants to review Bodge’s findings first.

Bodge will present his findings to the Longboat Key Town Commission at a special beach meeting at 9 a.m. Friday, May 27, at Town Hall.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].

Click here to download a PDF of a map of beach renourishment data.