Anglers on a small flats boat make their way past the sea wall at South Inlet Park in Boca Raton. The wall is scheduled for replacement. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Projects aim to raise ground level, increase sea wall heights
By Jane Musgrave
A yellow sign, warning “Caution Street Flooded,” has become a fixture in a quiet neighborhood along the Intracoastal Waterway in Delray Beach.
For nearly a decade, rising seawater has been an ever-present fact of life for residents of Marine Way.
“It’s gone on for way too long,” Steve Conroy said as he walked his dog on a recent sunny afternoon along the street just south of Atlantic Avenue.
Conroy and his neighbors aren’t the only ones looking for relief from flooding.
From Lantana to Boca Raton, homeowners along with beach-goers, golfers, anglers and picnickers are seeing the impacts of the steady and unrelenting march of the sea.
“It has certainly stopped us from using the park,” part- time Boynton Beach resident Robert Smith said of the regular flooding at Ocean Inlet Park at the Boynton Inlet between Ocean Ridge and Manalapan.
Anglers fish along the Boynton Inlet at Ocean Inlet Park, where Palm Beach County plans to use thousands of truckloads of fill to raise the ground by up to three feet. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Millions to protect the coast
In the next several years, multimillion-dollar projects are planned to keep the sea at bay.
Palm Beach County’s proposed $15 million plan to replace sea walls, parking lots, picnic areas, restrooms and add roughly three feet of elevation to Ocean Inlet Park is among the most ambitious. But, there are others designed to protect both public and private land from rising waters:
• To stop flooding at South Inlet Park in Boca Raton, the county plans to replace a crumbling 38-year-old sea wall at an estimated cost of $3 million. County planners said rising seas accelerated the need to rebuild and increase the height of the 325-foot-long sea wall.
• Delray Beach in December received bids from firms interested in serving as construction managers for the long-awaited repairs along Marine Way. The $33.6 million project calls for the replacement of a 600-foot-long sea wall, drainage, roadwork and the construction of the city’s first stormwater pumping station west of the Intracoastal Waterway.
• An $11.75 million project is also planned in Delray Beach to replace a stormwater pumping station on Thomas Street west of State Road A1A just north of Atlantic Avenue. Calling it a “vital lifeline for 800 residents,” planners said the station was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and failed two years later, forcing the city to spend $300,000 in emergency repairs.
• Noting that Boynton Beach’s Jaycee, Intracoastal and Mangrove parks flood regularly during high tides and storms, city resiliency administrator Alannah Irwin said she is searching for money to fortify the shores of the parks along the Intracoastal Waterway. Mangroves, rocks, plants and other natural materials would stabilize the shorelines, she told city commissioners.
• Lantana has several ongoing projects to address sea level rise, including a multimillion-dollar plan to replace a 2,100-foot sea wall along the Intracoastal Waterway that protects Bicentennial Park along with adjacent homes and businesses along Ocean Avenue.
• The county has identified 16 sewage lift stations in flood hazard areas that need to be raised at a cost of nearly $11 million. “Flooding at lift stations throughout Palm Beach County has increased,” planners wrote. “The failure of these critical facilities … will result in serious health issues caused by wastewater overflows in homes and in the streets.”
The big-ticket projects are in addition to more routine expenditures, such as the $150,000 Delray Beach spends each year to shore up its dunes and the $2 million it spends annually to replace sea walls that are too low to protect land from rising tides.
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Plans for Ocean Inlet Park
A planned sea wall project at Ocean Inlet Park prompted county officials to explore whether additional steps should be taken to protect the park, said Bob Hamilton, director of planning for the county Department of Parks and Recreation.
With environmental experts predicting that climate change could cause sea levels in South Florida to rise between 24 and 54 inches in the next 50 years, it was clear that any new sea walls would have to be much higher than the existing ones, Hamilton said. With that decision made, parks officials decided to address other problems that were preventing full use of the 11-acre park.
Parking lots along both the Boynton Inlet and the Intracoastal frequently flood. Planners analyzed various options.
They estimated that if they did nothing at least $36 million would be spent over the next 40 years to repair damage caused by rising tides.
“Sunny day flooding of the parking lot and associated park facilities will increase over time, requiring constant renovation and eventually rendering the park unusable,” they wrote.
The best alternative, they decided, was to give the park a complete makeover by raising the level of the land.
Hamilton acknowledged that a lot of dirt will be needed. According to rough calculations, about 53,000 cubic yards — enough to fill nearly 4,400 dump trucks — would be required to raise the entire park between two and three feet.
Because the park slopes down toward the Intracoastal, the focus would be raising the low-lying land, Hamilton said.
Whether dredge material will be used, or the dirt barged in, will be determined by environmental studies, he said.
“We’ll be seeking the most cost-effective, but safe option,” Hamilton said in an email.
The project will be lengthy. Design and permitting will take about 18 months. Construction is estimated to take three years.
The county is seeking a $7.5 million grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and will match it with county tax money. Nearly all of the multimillion-dollar projects proposed by local governments are being done with a combination of grants and local taxes.
The Florida agency ranked the Ocean Inlet project eighth among the 143 statewide seeking funding. That means there is a good chance the grant will be approved, Hamilton said.
Flooding issues worsen
Hamilton acknowledged that Ocean Inlet Park isn’t the only waterfront county park that has been inundated with water, particularly in the fall when full moons produce king tides.
For instance, docks at Burt Reynolds Park in Jupiter were submerged during high tides in the fall and erosion has increased on Peanut Island in Riviera Beach, he said.
Janet Zimmerman, executive director of the 12-county Florida Inland Navigation District, said it is clear climate change is figuring into local government decision-making.
The Jupiter-based agency was established in 1927 to maintain the Intracoastal and improve access to it by providing grants for improvement projects.
While funding requests haven’t increased, Zimmerman said more local governments are requesting money to protect public land from rising tides.
“What we are seeing is, as these boating facilities reach the end of their original lifespan (20+ years), renovations and repairs that will occur are taking into account future sea level rise and storm strength/frequency,” she said in an email.
Regulars to Ocean Inlet Park said steps should be taken to shore up the park. The sea wall is crumbling. On some days, the northern parking lot and picnic areas are underwater.
“It’s in rough shape,” said one visitor who declined to give his name. “What we’ve experienced is bad. Either someone is going to get hurt or you fix the park. How much is your life worth?”
Smith, who was having a picnic in a pavilion with his wife, agreed that renovations are needed.
“It seems like a lot of money. I don’t know if they can do it for $15 million,” he said. “But it certainly would be a much better park if the land was raised.”
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