Correction: Owners of property east of A1A pay 60 percent of taxes on the Delray Beach barrier island. A reader-submitted Local Voices story used an incorrect percentage.
Protect Our Beaches, a West Palm Beach-based nonprofit group, held its first public meeting in early April to address the effects of sea level rise in Palm Beach County.
The group’s goal is to form a coalition of area associations, businesses and other groups to protect our beaches from erosion due to storm surge and sea level rise. Forming a coalition would provide a more powerful voice and be would be more effective in saving Palm Beach County’s environment, property and tourist economy.
“[Hurricane] Sandy was a tap on our shoulder in Florida,” said the group’s founder, Sonny Nardulli, who also serves as president of the Eastpointe Condominium Association on Singer Island. “It is time to act now as our window of opportunity is closing.”
He went on: “This is a ‘we’ problem. We need to take chances and say yes to new ideas, with a combination of solutions.”
At a measurement site in Key West, the ocean has risen 9 inches in the last 100 years, with conservative projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for an additional increase of 9 to 24 inches in the next 50 years. The rise will continue, and continue at a faster rate.
Attending the event were several condominium association leaders from properties as far south as Highland Beach all the way up to Singer Island; nonprofit groups such as the Florida Coalition for Preservation and the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches; several coastal community businesses and elected officials, including U.S. Rep. and former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel and Sen. and former Lake Worth Mayor Jeff Clemons.
Several messages of the presentation were heard by attendees, such as: This is not just an oceanfront homes or coastal community problem. Due to Florida’s geology and limestone formation, water will rise inland as well. Information must be shared with our neighbors to the west, not just regarding their vulnerability, but in lost tax revenue to cities when higher taxpaying properties closer to the ocean are lost. For example, in Delray Beach, the homes along A1A pay 60 percent of the city’s property taxes.
The county shoreline needs to be looked at as a total system, not individual pieces. Our actions do not happen in isolation. For example, sea walls may seem like the best, immediate solution, but they can harm natural habitats such as egg laying for the sea turtles and can damage natural systems in adjacent communities.
Action needs to be taken by all of us now to protect ourselves from not just sea level rise, which we can plan for, but also storm surge, which happens with more intensity and was certainly Hurricane Sandy’s calling card.
The next POB meeting will be held in South Palm Beach County in June. For information, contact Protect Our Beaches at info@beachescoalition.com or call 561-228-7055. Visit the website at http://beachescoalition.com/.
Nancy Schneider
Delray Beach
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