Why beaches erode

Mother Nature, of course, constantly erodes the sand on the region’s beaches. But the government agencies certainly make matters worse when it comes to renourishing.

By Matt Walsh
| 6:00 a.m. September 8, 2016

Sarasota
Opinion

The Gulf Coast beaches: What a mess.

We’re not talking about the aftermath of Tropical Storm Hermine. We’re referring to the maddening, expensive, time-consuming and excruciatingly bureaucratic ordeals that every Gulf Coast beach community must endure to obtain permits from federal and state agencies to renourish and maintain their beaches.

Check out the following two cases:

Longboat Key

The town of Longboat Key waited (and endured) three years from the time it filed federal and state applications for permits to the day dredg-ing actually began in New Pass to replenish sand in front of the beach-less, property-threatened Inn on the Beach and L’Ambiance and Pierre condominiums on the southern tip of the Key. Three years.

Voters send mixed messages

An election postmortem …

UnmistaKAble message

Altogether, last week’s primary produced results that make it difficult to say voters sent one, definitive message. There were mixed messages.

One race, of course, did have an unmistakably definitive message. That was Longboat Key’s density referendum. Voters rejected the Floridays Development Co.’s request to convert 2.6 acres on the north end of the island from commercial to tourism use.

The defeat was, well, stunning — albeit not surprising — 2,478 against versus 695 for, a 78% rejection.

To a degree, you might say this defeat is puzzling, particularly when you consider that most Longboaters supported the Longboat Key Club’s $400 million proposed expansion and redevelopment back in 2010.

What changed?

We’ll give you one guess: traffic.

It’s safe to say the residents of Longbeach Village would have opposed the Floridays vote even if traffic was not the issue. But when 78% of Longboat Key’s Sarasota County voters also opposed the Floridays hotel project, you can surmise that even they were sending this resounding message:

No new development until Longboat Key’s and the region’s traffic issues are resolved!

(Unicorp Development’s Chuck Whittall and the Colony Beach & Tennis Association board better take note.)

Mixed signals

The Republican District 23 Senate race had to be the shocker of all of the local election results.

This is a district whose territory is primarily Sarasota County and a slice of Charlotte County. Of the five Republican candidates competing for the seat, three of them were well-known Sarasota County politicians — former longtime Sarasota City and County Commissioner Nora Patterson (whom we would have argued was the favorite); former County Commissioner and state Rep. Ray Pilon; and former four-term state Rep. Doug Holder.

And yet, the candidate who won was state Rep. Greg Steube, a native and longtime resident of Manatee County whose House district mostly covers Manatee and the lesser populated area of east Sarasota County.

In addition to his being lesser known than the other politicians in Sarasota County, Steube is more conservative than the others and was running for a seat held by a more moderate Republican (Nancy Detert) in a county known for its moderate RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).

Now contrast that outcome with these: two Republican Sarasota County Hospital District races.

As we frequently note, elections typically are referenda on the performance of incumbents. But Sarasota County voters rejected two incumbents from the hospital board — John DeJongh and Marguerite Malone — a board that has had little strife and controversy and is overseeing a healthy, well-managed health care system. DeJongh and Malone lost to two first-time candidates, nurses Sharon Wetzler DePeters and Susan Tucker. Go figure.

Non-partisan … hah!

Caroline Zucker’s re-election to the school board is proof yet again that non-partisan elections are undeniably, clearly, incontrovertibly, inarguably, convincingly partisan.

And everyone knows it.

Zucker and her supporters can say all they want about how her race against fellow Republican Teresa Mast was “for education.”

This was a contest in which the collectivist, establishment majority on the school board, teacher-union activists and Democratic Party egalitarians were fighting to protect the entrenched, anti-choice, anti-charter, anti-voucher, anti-student, anti-parents, anti-freedom, pro-public-school status quo.

To wit: “If her opponent were to win, the pro-voucher/privatization forces would have control of our school board,” said a Democratic Party Facebook post.

Which would be a good thing.

Those who support vouchers, privatization and education savings accounts believe that funding should follow a student and parents’ choice of schools — the school that best fits each student — and that the system should open up to more and more competition.

Zucker opposes that.

Moral of the story

Every election brings disappointment, satisfaction and surprise. You can never predict for sure what voters will do. Hmm. Perhaps there is a surprise in store at the presidential level.

— Editor

Had that process taken what it should have, those properties would not have been exposed and dangerously threatened as they were. What’s more, the dredging of New Pass and renourishing of the beach would have been completed long before Tropical Storm Hermine wiped away all that was done in the past two weeks.

Lido Beach

Surely, we’re all aware of the battle raging over whether sand can be extracted from Big Pass to renourish Lido Beach.

Guess how long this process has been going on?

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager Milan Mora first publicly presented plans for the project in 2013.

But the project actually started crawling through the government bureaucracy long before that. According to the Sarasota Observer in 2013:

“To receive congressional approval [for the renourishing of Lido Beach], the Army Corps of Engineers justified to Congress that the project was financially prudent and environmentally sound. Mora said the project was initially authorized in 1999, and a congressionally authorized feasibility study was completed in 2004.”

When Mora presented the project to the public in 2013, he said he expected permits to be granted and sand moved in 2015, depending on funding from Congress.

Here it is, Sept. 8, 2016: no permits. Not to mention fervent opposition from Siesta Key residents and Sarasota County to do whatever they can to delay and block the Corps from dredging Big Pass.

These are just two examples of what repeatedly occurs all along the Gulf Coast coastline. If you talk to public works and higher officials in this region about the permitting process of beach renourishment, they will tell you — in our words — it’s ridiculous.

Consider the coastline from Anna Maria down to Boca Grande. That’s 70 miles of beachfront — all of it constantly being eroded and needing major renourishments. And we know, historically, these renourishments typically are needed at least every five to seven years. You can set your calendar to them. Sometimes they are more frequent, when the Hermines and Charleys come blowing through the coastlines.

But each time any municipality or county government attempts routine beach maintenance, the permitting process is interminable. The cause of the delays: primarily the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As one official told us: First, the feds were all about the turtles. Now they hold up the permits for the shoreline birds.

When the local municipalities press the Fish and Wildlife chieftains on why the review process takes so long, the answers are standard government issue: Blame someone else, don’t take responsibility. The Fish and Wildlife officials say Congress isn’t funding enough employees to handle the work load.

There must be a better way. And there is a better way. When you consider the millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars invested in beach maintenance along the entire Gulf Coast (not to mention nationwide), and the frequency with which these projects occur, the permitting process can and should be efficient and the least of the expense.

We have advocated before and will continue to advocate that this issue is so crucial and expensive (property and taxpayer money are at risk) to this region that the congressional representatives for this side of the state; state senators and representatives; officials from the governor’s office and federal and state permitting agencies; and representatives of the affected communities need to conduct a summit that brings an end to this costly, wasteful and frustrating process.