Protecting beaches from erosion is difficult enough, but extra steps are needed when man-made structures, such as the Boynton Inlet, block the natural southerly flow of sand. On the inlet’s Ocean Ridge side, rock groins have been placed to slow erosion, and an outfall pipe is designed to carry sand from the inlet’s transfer plant. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Communities struggle to preserve beaches amid storms, shifting coastline
By John Pacenti
Ocean Ridge resident Betty Bingham had a bone to pick with the town’s neighbor to the north.
“I went to Manalapan the other day and it appears that they have gathered about 6 to 12 feet more beachfront,” Bingham said during public comment at Ocean Ridge’s Dec. 9 Town Commission meeting. “I was surprised at how much beach they had.”
Meanwhile, over at Manalapan, the opposite accusation surfaced in October. The general feeling was the sand transfer plant at the Boynton Inlet benefited Ocean Ridge and other towns to the south at Manalapan’s expense.
“They have no maximum amount that they can take from our beaches,” said Dr. Peter Bonutti — husband of Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti — at a meeting of Manalapan’s Beach Committee. Bonutti serves as the town’s liaison with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Palm Beach County on everything sand.
Beach erosion is a top-of-the-agenda concern from coastal Boca Raton to South Palm Beach, where shifting sands and passing storms continuously create the need for renourishment projects. Yet, beach renourishment is a Sisyphean prospect, an endless struggle, for Florida’s barrier island communities.
Related: Manalapan at odds with southern neighbors over sand transfer plant
Two South County inlets impact local beaches, blocking them from receiving sand that flows naturally from north to south. LEFT: Manalapan’s beach on the north side of the Boynton Inlet is wider than Ocean Ridge's to the south. A sand transfer plant offsets some of the loss that is due to the inlet. RIGHT: The Boca Raton Inlet is dredged regularly and the sand used to beef up the South Inlet Park beach, though the difference in beach widths north and south of the inlet is still noticeable. Google Maps
The Gold Coast
The granules of sand might as well be Krugerrands.
Tens of millions of federal, state and county dollars are poured into the beaches each year with full knowledge that the next drive-by hurricane or severe winter nor’easter can suck it all away over a bad weekend. Over the last 87 years, Florida has spent at least $1.9 billion on beach nourishment.
But it’s called Palm “Beach” County for a reason — a place where every other municipality follows suit. Nobody plops $50 million down on a palatial palace in Manalapan only to find nowhere to plant a beach umbrella.
On the other side of the economic equation, the public beaches in Lantana, Ocean Ridge, the County Pocket, Delray Beach and Boca Raton are part of Florida’s economic engine.
Tourists who come to the Sunshine State to loll oceanside pump $80 billion into the state’s annual gross domestic product, its GDP, according to the Army Corps — a big fan of beach renourishment projects.
The projects are a way of life for Palm Beach’s coastal municipalities — but each one is a snapshot in time, tiny pieces to a century-long puzzle. Town councils turn over, and town managers come and go.
“Human perspectives are short relative to geologic perspectives. The coast is changing over the course of decades and even centuries, but we have folks that may move in or out, or folks that aren’t familiar with what may have happened 30 years ago,” said Andy Studt, environmental program supervisor for the county’s coastal resource management.
Some recent work included the $5 million project in Ocean Ridge by the Army Corps in 2020. It replaced about 475,000 cubic yards of sand at Hammock Park and surrounding areas that had been lost to Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Delray Beach is about to launch a $29 million renourishment project to maintain its world-renowned beach — a remarkable story of coastal engineering.
Boca Raton has $15.1 million in its beach restoration fund this year. Recently, the city partnered with Deerfield Beach to replace sand at Palm Beach County’s South Inlet Park.
South Palm Beach and Highland Beach, where beaches abut private land and are not eligible for government grants, are the Blanche DuBoises of coastal communities, relying on the kindness of strangers — those being the town of Palm Beach and Delray Beach.
Luckily, Palm Beach has an $18 million project to restore dunes at Phipps Ocean Park, and some of the sand is to be trucked to South Palm Beach — though it’s not clear how soon that will be.
Lantana, with its public beach, had considered being part of the agreement, but balked last year when the deal changed and the town would have to pay for the sand it was to receive — instead of getting free sand in exchange for providing a beach access point, one that Palm Beach no longer needs.
Farther south, Highland Beach benefits from all the beach nourishment done in Delray Beach, sand that over time filters south to the town’s shoreline.
Florida allocated $50 million in 2024 for beach renourishment, bringing the total state investment to over $550 million since 2019.
It’s a lot of taxpayer money, but the beaches are a magnet for tourists with money to spend. The state saw 34.6 million visitors in 2024 and wants to keep them coming back. But that’s not all.
“Beaches serve as natural barriers against storm surges and protect coastal infrastructure. The economic benefits of maintaining them often outweigh the costs,” said Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, a coastal engineering expert with the University of Miami.
Shores take a beating
The bogeyman in beach renourishment is climate change.
Data shows a clear trend of increased intensity and frequency of larger storms —fueled by record-setting ocean temperatures — posing a threat to reefs that protect the coastline.
Predicted sea-level rise and a suspected change in the Gulf Stream current also pose longer-term threats.
“Last winter was a particularly rough, El Niño winter where we had consistent, strong winds, and we had more outreach from coastal municipalities across the county than we had had in 15 or 20 years because we were seeing similar types of damage,” Studt said.
Homes on Jupiter and Singer islands saw the beach erode right up to their back patios, sucking their backyards out to sea. And yet, there is no tipping of the hourglass here. A finite amount of sand exists in offshore borrow areas or inland mines.
The intervals between beach projects “will likely shrink and these projects will become more expensive as the borrow areas become less and less,” said Pepper Uchino, president of the Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association in Tallahassee.
The armor of the coastline, Uchino explains, is supposed to be the barrier islands that change with the river of ocean sand moving — in South Florida — from north to south.
“Barrier islands, by their very definition are ethereal,” he said. “They’re not supposed to be in the same place over and over again.”
The barrier islands in South Palm Beach County are part of a coral ridge, making them more stable. But development has made barrier islands lose more of their ecological function and require artificial protection, Uchino said.
From the time of the first barrier island high-rises and mansions, the Army Corps did what it does: plumb Mother Nature. Inlets, jetties and cuts all have commercial reasons to exist, but disrupt the natural flow of the sand, Uchino said.
“As soon as any sort of development on a barrier island goes up, it has lost its ecological function and has gained a new function as some sort of economic engine,” Uchino said.
The Boynton Inlet plays a huge role in local beach erosion, disrupting the natural flow of sand from north to south. A transfer plant pumps sand from the north side of the cut to the south side, mitigating the sand blocked by the inlet that would have flowed to Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach and other municipalities to the south.
This 1973 photo shows the severity of beach erosion along State Road A1A in Delray Beach a block south of Atlantic Avenue. Delray Beach Historical Society
The Comeback Kid
Ocean Ridge Mayor Geoff Pugh remembers growing up in the area when Delray Beach didn’t have a beach.
“Delray, when I was in high school, when you parked and walked to the ocean there was no beach there. It literally went straight down to the ocean,” Pugh said. “That is how bad it was. And Palm Beach was like that, too. They had to rebuild.”
The impact of the Boynton Inlet, along with a series of hurricanes and storms, eroded Delray Beach’s shoreline right up to State Road A1A, and shrank the beaches of other communities south of the inlet. The town of Gulf Stream appealed for state and federal help in 1957. After that, the first beach renourishment projects started in the area.
Delray Beach has undergone 10 since 1973, placing 6 million cubic yards of sand along its 2.5 miles of coastline.
It has been a remarkable transformation, so much so that Delray Beach was named a Blue Flag beach destination in 2023 — an international honor that tells travelers the beach is renowned for its environmental, educational, safety and accessibility standards.
Delray Beach Mayor Tom Carney, who spearheaded a 2013 beach renourishment project during his first stint as the city’s mayor, says there is simply no choice but to preserve the city’s main attraction. The city is pitching in $9 million for the renourishment project starting in the fall.
“We still have high tides, we still have wind, we still have storms. We have a lot of natural conditions that affect the erosion of the beach, and there’s nothing we can do about it,”
Carney said. “I mean, would I love to get rid of hurricanes? Yeah, sure.”
The beach is “our economic driver,” Delray Beach Vice Mayor Juli Casale said.
“Beach renourishment is a controversial subject. It’s expensive. It’s not a permanent solution, and it can disturb the ecosystem,” she said. “However, if we do not renourish our beach it will likely erode due to natural forces.”
The success of Delray Beach is also a result of the city’s building up its dune system. Uchino said dunes can be a cost-efficient way to protect the coastline. A strong dune system could extend the effectiveness of renourishment projects, Uchino said.
“I would say that beach design has come a long way,” Uchino said. Dunes are designed to be sacrificial, he said.
“They look like they’re these big, permanent sand mounds but their whole purpose, in an engineered system, is to take that wave energy so it doesn’t reach whatever critical infrastructure.”
There are efforts to keep the sand in its place — even if it’s a lost cause in the long run.
And allowing natural detritus to build up on the beach, to create what is called the wrack, is effective but may not be wanted by a municipality for aesthetic reasons. Those perfectly raked beaches are the stuff of tourist posters.
Beachgoers in Boca Raton last month enjoy South Inlet Park, which received major restoration in 2023 in a city partnership with Deerfield Beach. Boca Raton has $15.1 million in its 2025 beach restoration fund. The park is just south of the Boca Raton Inlet. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
The Boca experience
Boca Raton was recognized in 2023 with a Best Restored Beach Award from the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association for a multi-jurisdiction collaboration.
The city partnered with Deerfield Beach on a project that included replacing sand at South Inlet Park. It ended up extending the park beach by 100 feet — sand that eventually will make its way south to Deerfield Beach and points beyond. In addition, the inlet is dredged regularly and the sand used to beef up the beach to the south.
Boca Raton City Council member Marc Wigder said it’s important the municipalities don’t go it alone, that they realize the coast doesn’t stop at city limits.
“What I’ve learned is that it’s not just Boca that’s participating for the most part. It’s most of the cities and/or the county participating in the sections of the beaches that they own, and the fact that they’re all participating together is what’s so important,” Wigder said.
Just north in Highland Beach, where the sand is private, individual condo communities have been working to build up their dunes. In a 2023 beach restoration study, the town said it participated in a joint climate change resilience study as it mulled a $14 million project.
The Highland Beach shoreline retreated on average 1.2 feet annually — but it was worse on the south end of town. “The beach in the northern 1.85 miles of the town has benefited from repeated beach nourishments in Delray Beach,” according to the study’s summary.
Science to the rescue?
Another way to retain sand is breakwaters or artificial reefs. Associate Professor Rhode-Barbarigos of the University of Miami spearheaded the development of the SEAHIVE system — perforated, hexagonal concrete pieces that fit together like Legos.
SEAHIVE is designed to dissipate strong waves but also to allow marine life to thrive around it. The structure can be “tuned” to the particular coastline, he said. It can also be used right up against the coastline to create a living sea wall — an example can be found at Wahoo Bay park in Pompano Beach.
Carney is skeptical that an artificial reef system would work for Delray Beach.
“There’s a lot of science out there that says these artificial reefs and things do reduce the erosion effect, right? But I don’t know,” Carney said.
Ocean Ridge’s Pugh is open to breakwaters —structures built off the coast to absorb wave energy and protect shorelines — or artificial reefs. He said the 2020 project took an environmental toll, covering up patch reefs that have only recently re-emerged, he said.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection required the town of Palm Beach in 2013 to build artificial reefs and coral nurseries to offset reef damage caused by 2003 and 2006 beach fills at Midtown Beach.
The county has also used groins — stone or concrete structures — to keep the sand in place. Groins — as well as a staccato of a dozen artificial reefs offshore — are south of the Boynton Inlet.
T-groins, breakwaters and sand renourishment can be the subject of resident backlash. Palm Beach County ended up paying $605,000 a judge awarded in 2023 for placing a breakwater in the Intracoastal Waterway just south of the Toscana condominiums in Highland Beach without the private property owner’s consent. It was sued by Golden City Highland Beach LLC.
In 2022, the county removed 750 tons of rock it had placed in the water there in 2015 — and it is still in court over how much it will have to pay to cover Golden City’s attorney fees.
Renourishment projects, like this 2017 one at South Inlet Park, are expensive, messy and put machinery and beach-goers at odds. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Sand supply shrinking
And what about the sand? It’s not an endless supply and it has to be the right color, the right size, the right temperature. If not, it could affect the nesting and sexing of sea turtles— whose well-being depends on healthy Florida beaches.
“It’s not a shortage of sand. It’s a shortage of inexpensive sand,” Uchino said.
In 2019, Delray Beach commissioned a research vessel to look for borrow areas to dredge. Some communities have turned to trucking in sand from inland mines in places such as Clewiston. While Highland Beach’s report suggested trucking in sand, that would be up to individual oceanfront condominiums or single-family homes and not the town.
Studt, with the county, said beach renourishment is highly complex, having to take into account numerous regulations and requirements, habitat for sea turtles and other environmental concerns. The best solution, he said, remains “the placement of the highest quality sand we can get a hold of.”
But the fact is, Studt added, that near-shore sand resources are depleting, and interior sand mines are finite and very expensive to truck in. The future looks like more groins, breakwaters, artificial reefs and new technology.
“So I think in the long term, we’re going to be focused more and more on structures. We’ve seen tremendous benefit from the structures,” he said.
