Longboat Pass dredging permit moves forward

A Longboat Pass dredging project tentatively scheduled for September will receive a permit from the state of Florida.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued the town an intent to issue permit for the project earlier this month.

Town Attorney Maggie Mooney-Portale informed commissioners in an email Thursday that a 14-day waiting period for those wishing to challenge the project is over.

“The timeframe for parties to file a timely administrative challenge to this permit has expired,” Mooney-Portale wrote.

Public Works Director Juan Florensa called the news “a great milestone,” but noted the project still has “other hurdles”

The town expects the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue an intent to issue a federal permit within the next 30 days. And the state’s permit, likely to be issued in the next 90 days, is contingent on that federal permit. 

“One permit is contingent on the other,” Florensa said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

That’s because both Longbeach Village resident Gene Jaleski and former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash, as well as some environmental organizations, wrote letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year, debating the town’s request for a federal permit to dredge both Longboat Pass and New Pass.

In case challenges to the federal permit are received by individuals or organizations and acted upon at the federal level, the town is revising permits for emergency sand truck haul projects for the middle and south ends of the Key. Any objections could delay permits for the dredging projects by up to two years.

With two groins under construction to help hold sand on the north end of the Key, the town wants to place some sand on the north end from Longboat Pass through a sharing agreement with Manatee County at a cost of $3.5 million. Sand would be filled in around the groins and in other sand starved areas of the mid- and north-end portions of the Key.

And on the south end, the town hopes to dredge New Pass in summer 2016 to use 315,000 cubic yards of sand to fill in eroded areas on the south end behind L’Ambiance, Longboat Towers and other condominiums.

The commission nixed a $1.5 million emergency truck-haul project that would have brought 25,000 cubic yards of sand to the south end of the island last year, citing traffic headaches from dump trucks and a project that’s too expensive.

But Bullock and Florensa are prepared to utilize trucks to bring sand to the island if permit delays occur.

“We’re covering all our bases to bring sand to areas of the Key that need it as soon as we can,” Florensa said.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].