Lido Key shoreline renourishment progresses

More than 200,000 cubic yards of sand has made its way from Big Pass to the southern Lido Key shoreline as work continues on a dredging and renourishment project on the barrier island.

The city is partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on an effort to renourish Lido Beach by dredging Big Pass for the first time. The project began in earnest in July near Ted Sperling Park at South Lido Beach. The crews and sand-pumping equipment have made their way north to the area near the Lido Beach Club, and work is scheduled to continue to progress up the beach in September and October.

Lido Key residents have expressed excitement about finally seeing the long-awaited project underway. The renourishment effort will add more than 120 feet of width to a shoreline the city has called critically eroded. Carl Shoffstall, president of the Lido Key Residents Association, said the group was very happy with how the construction effort was going.

“Everything is moving,” Shoffstall said. “They’re pumping sand. It’s all good right now.”

The dredging project was the target of a series of objections and legal challenges from Siesta Key residents, one of which remains outstanding. After the Army Corps presented plans for the project in 2013, Siesta residents began to express concern about how dredging Big Pass would affect the coastal ecosystem — including the shoreline on Siesta Key, located just to the south.

Catherine Luckner, the president of the Siesta Key Association, said the group is closely monitoring the dredging work for potential issues. The group is collecting drone photographs of Big Pass to track how the coast shifts over time, and it’s also checking in with residents on the northern end of Siesta who have said they’ve seen unusual shifts in their shoreline recently.

“We’re going to keep documenting all of these things,” Luckner said.

As part of the conditions of obtaining a permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Army Corps and the city have agreed to monitor how the dredging affects the coastlines in the area and adjust plans if necessary. After sand-pumping is scheduled to conclude in October, the project team will construct a pair of sand-retaining groins on the Lido beach. The entire project is scheduled to be complete by May 2021.

Even with construction underway, Lido and Siesta residents remain at odds over the merits of the project. Still, Shoffstall said he wanted to find a way to effectively work with people living on Siesta Key, interested in creating a coalition of islands residents to monitor the health of the coastal environment moving forward.

“We’re all in this together,” Shoffstall said. “We need everybody to cooperate because it’s all for the betterment of the entire county and west coast of Florida.”