Longboat has plan to renourish sand stolen by hurricanes

The hunt is on for where to find 800,000 cubic yards of sand for beach renourishment, and not just any sand will do.

By S.T. Cardinal
| 8:00 a.m. November 26, 2025

The beach parallel to Gulfside Road south of the Ohana seawall recently underwent a $2.8 million interim beach renourishment project which wrapped up in February.

Longboat Key
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Longboat Key leaders are unfurling their maps and extending their telescopes, hoping to announce, “sand ho!”

The search for sand comes after 200,000 dump trucks' worth of sand was taken from Longboat Key beaches during the 2024 hurricanes.

A big loss.

“Sand is pretty much gold in Florida,” Longboat Key Public Works Director Charlie Mopps told the Town Commission at a recent workshop.

Gold is expensive

Longboat Key Public Works Director Charlie Mopps said that an 800,000 cubic yard beach renourishment project would cost more than $30 million. He explained the economy of scale is an important factor to consider in a project as intensive as beach renourishment.

“To get the bigger contractors here, you want to give them enough meat on the bones so that they would want to actually bid on the project,” Mopps said. “Then you’ll get the better rates and more efficient operations.”

The town’s five-year capital improvements plan shows $32.9 million tentatively budgeted for beach renourishment in fiscal year 2028. That funding will come from FEMA ($12.2 million), the state ($7 million), tourism development taxes ($5 million) and money left over from the last renourishment project in 2021.

Now, the hunt is on to find sand for the next round of Longboat Key’s beach renourishment. The town puts plenty of effort into maintaining its beach, which naturally experiences 150,000 to 175,000 cubic yards' worth of erosion annually.

The 2024 hurricane season took more than 400,000 cubic yards of sand from the beaches of Longboat Key.

Mopps said the town is planning an 800,000 cubic yard beach renourishment project in 2028. Sourcing the precious sand is an important first step. And not any sand will do.

“It’s hard to find good quality sand that you can put on a beach and make people happy,” Mopps said.

Sand also must meet certain characteristics to abide by environmental regulations to not adversely impact sea turtles and wading birds.

Sourced from the Gulf floor, there are others vying for that buried treasure.

“Everybody is fighting for the same sand sources,” Mopps said. “And we can’t go mine the stuff down in the Caribbean and drag it up here because it’d cost you like four times than what it would cost if you can find a viable sand source within this geographic location.”

Dredging Longboat Pass and New Pass would be a natural solution, but “there are a lot of hands in that basket” for both locations, said Al Browder, principal and vice president of coastal engineering consultants Foth Olsen. The city of Sarasota takes turns with Longboat to dredge New Pass, and Manatee County alternates with Longboat Key dredging Longboat Pass for its beach renourishment projects.

X Marks the Spot:The red X’s indicate where the best sand can be found to use for beach renourishment. — The red X’s indicate where the best sand can be found to use for beach renourishment.

The town is hoping to find a cache of its own.

“We would like to be able to identify a broader area so we can go research and develop a bigger area that we could use in the future for one, two, even three projects,” Browder said.

The town and its coastal engineering consultants are performing “desktop research” for where to source sand. When a shortlist of potential locations is determined, a core boring boat will take samples of sand from the ocean floor.Into the ocean is where a majority of sand washed away from the hurricanes ended up, while the rest powder blasted streets, yards and sidewalks on Longboat Key with a coating of sugar sand.

The cleanup effort involved county workers sweeping up sand from all areas of the island. A majority of the collected sand went to a Coquina Beach parking lot, where Manatee County took custody of sand cleaned up from Anna Maria, Bradenton and Coquina Beach and other local beach towns that were covered in sand.

Crews work at the sand pile station at Coquina Beach which sifts sand left behind by Hurricane Helene's surge. — Crews worked the sand pile station at Coquina Beach in November, 2024, sifting sand left behind by Hurricane Helene's surge.

According to Manatee County Director of Natural Resources Charlie Hunsicker, 151,474 cubic yards of sand was recovered by the county through cleanup efforts.

From Longboat Key, Mopps estimates Manatee County removed about 50,000 cubic yards of sand and placed in the sorting pile. That sand will not return to the shores of Longboat Key.

“Sand brought to Coquina Beach for processing from Longboat Key will not be returned,” said Manatee County spokesman Bill Logan. “As the sand was collected and delivered from Longboat key, we were unable to determine the source of the sand collected, and we were concerned that much of it may have contained storm related debris, rendering it unsuitable for placement on any recreational beach, even after sifting.”

Shaping while placing

The town’s efforts to combat erosion include more than just putting sand back where it was.

The hurricanes flattened the beach. The hurricanes swept away dunes and vegetation lining the shore of Longboat Key, leaving Longboat Key vulnerable to a future storm.

Vegetation grows back slowly a year after hurricanes flattened the beaches of Longboat Key in 2024.

Building back those dunes and planting vegetation will be an important part of the next beach renourishment, Mopps says. That’s years in the future, and beachfront property owners are being encouraged to rebuild their dunes in the meantime.

“The town has been encouraging since the day after the hurricane to rebuild your own dune. A vast majority of the dunes are privately owned,” Mopps said. “Build what you can, protect yourself, protect your property. And when we build this project, we’re going to tie into it and make it even better.”

In rebuilding the beach, Mopps said the rebuilt shape of it is especially important. The beach needs a berm.

“In Florida, where you have hurricanes, that berm elevation is one of your key mitigators for storm surge impacts,” Mopps said. “The dune is the failsafe. That’s like if all your soldiers were up front and you had that reserve in the back. The reserve is the dune. That berm elevation is your primary means for defense.”

Dune destruction hurts mother and baby sea turtles

Dunes act as a natural barrier from storm surge impacts for coastal properties. They also protect mother and baby sea turtles.

Sea turtle hatchlings “have an inborn tendency to move in the brightest direction,” according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

On a natural beach, the brightest direction is the night sky and the ocean reflecting it. But on beaches with condos and streets and cars and houses, lights near the beach often draw the turtles away from their natural path. This is called disorientation, and it takes precious energy from the newborn turtles on their already arduous first journey.

It was a record year for the number of nests on Longboat Key this year, but Mote Marine Laboratory Staff Scientist Jake Lasala said it was also a record year for disorientations.

The leveling of dunes from 2024 hurricanes may have played a part. Lights that were shielded from dunes before were visible from the beach this year. That can lead babies astray, but also can discourage mothers from nesting where they were born. Sea turtles will return to where they were born using electromagnetic senses to nest, but then use their eyes to confirm the beach is suitable.

author

S.T. Cardinal

S.T. "Tommy" Cardinal is the Longboat Key news reporter. The Sarasota native earned a degree from the University of Central Florida in Orlando with a minor in environmental studies. In Central Florida, Cardinal worked for a monthly newspaper covering downtown Orlando and College Park. He then worked for a weekly newspaper in coastal South Carolina where he earned South Carolina Press Association awards for his local government news coverage and photography.