Pinellas County to begin large emergency beach nourishment; missing easements could block $103 million in federal funds

Pinellas County public works officials described plans this week to start a large, county-funded beach nourishment project for Sand Key, Treasure Island and Upham Beach and warned that missing property easements and federal permitting limits could delay construction or block $103 million in emergency federal funds. "The storm damage reduction benefits from this project are in excess of $10,000,000,000," Kelly Hammer Levy, public works director for Pinellas County, said during the Tourist Development Council meeting.

County officials said the project will reconstruct a wide beach and dune profile modeled on previously authorized U.S. Army Corps of Engineers work and will place sand both above and below the mean high water line to re-create the Corps design. The Board of County Commissioners has authorized a one-time emergency nourishment project for Sand Key, Treasure Island and Upham; county staff are proceeding without full Corps cost-share support and are using tourist development tax revenue for the majority of the work.

Levy said the program will place more than 2,000,000 cubic yards of sand on the Sand Key segment alone, a workscope she described as among the largest ever for that shoreline. Sand sources will include Egmont Shoal (a Port of Tampa borrow area) and local borrow areas at Pass-a-Grille and Blind Pass; Weeks Marine is the prime contractor for Sand Key and Gator Dredging will work on the southern segments. "This is one of the largest, if not the largest project…