beach renourishment project - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T14:21:33Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/beach+renourishment+projectBoca Raton: Hillsboro Beach protests Boca Raton beach renourishment planhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-hillsboro-beach-protests-boca-raton-beach-renourishmen2017-03-01T15:54:28.000Z2017-03-01T15:54:28.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960708485,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960708485,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960708485?profile=original" /></a><em>Beachgoers walk by dredging equipment on South Beach Park. The beach renourishment project</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>between the Boca Raton Inlet and Red Reef Park has resumed after a nine-month hiatus.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Steve Plunkett<br /><br /></strong> City officials hope to move sand that has shoaled in the Boca Raton Inlet back north to the partially renourished beach it came from, but Hillsboro Beach officials claim the state mistakenly issued a permit for the work. <br /> The town, just south of Deerfield Beach in Broward County, says Boca Raton’s plan will disrupt the natural flow of sand south and wants the Department of Environmental Protection to revoke its approval.<br /> Boca Raton City Council members at their Feb. 14 meeting approved spending $2.4 million to move 80,000 cubic yards of sand north to the renourishment area between the inlet and Red Reef Park, and 100,000 cubic yards south between the inlet and the Broward County line. <br /> City Manager Leif Ahnell asked council members to waive normal purchasing procedures so he could hire Weeks Marine Inc. to do the inlet dredging without going out to bid. Weeks returned in February to finish the central beach renourishment project it started in March 2016 but stopped in late April. The city’s permit does not allow dredging between May 1 and Nov. 30 to protect nesting sea turtles.<br /> “This is not original work intended for the contractor,” Ahnell said. “Sand has flowed down from the central beach project to the inlet and this is to remove a large portion of that.”<br /> Hurricane Matthew contributed to the erosion, he said.<br /> Councilman Scott Singer elaborated.<br /> “So, it’s right to say that we had sand fill up in the inlet faster than expected, we’re taking steps to remediate that quicker than expected, we have to spend more money and that was all because of weather events and the waves and tides pushing sand where we didn’t expect it,” Singer said. <br /> The central beach renourishment will cost about $11.3 million. The state and county will pay about $4 million. The city and the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District agreed to split the remainder, about $3.7 million each. The project will make about 1.45 miles of beach between Red Reef Park and the inlet 170 feet wider.<br /> Jennifer Bistyga, the city’s coastal program manager, said Weeks would finish the 2015 renourishment project first, then work on the inlet shoaling provided the DEP permit stands. All work must end April 30.<br /> Boaters have been complaining since last summer about the Boca Inlet being dangerously shallow.<br /> “The use of the ebb shoal for beach renourishment aids the boaters in addition to renourishing the beaches,” Bistyga said.<br /> Ken Oertel, a Tallahassee-based attorney for Hillsboro Beach, told that town’s commissioners their protest would stop Boca Raton from moving the sand dredged from the inlet north.<br /> “It’s pretty well-known that Hillsboro Beach doesn’t believe Boca Raton is passing enough sand,” Oertel said.<br /> The Department of Environmental Protection dismissed Hillsboro Beach’s petition on Feb. 23 but gave the town 15 days to refile its challenge. The petition did not explain how Boca Raton’s proposed dredging would affect the town’s environmental interests, the DEP said.</p></div>Boca Raton: Work restarting on central beach renourishmenthttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-work-restarting-on-central-beach-renourishment2017-02-01T16:21:11.000Z2017-02-01T16:21:11.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /> <br /> The city’s dredge contractor is back to work on a beach renourishment project between the Boca Raton Inlet and Red Reef Park. <br /> Weeks Marine Inc. left Boca Raton in April after weather delays let it finish only about 20 percent of the job. The New Jersey-based company was at the Port of Palm Beach on Jan. 31 creating a submerged pipeline for the project.<br /> “We were hoping they would be here a lot sooner. But due to the passing of Hurricane Matthew, they were up in Hilton Head building that project. That sand pretty much got all erased,” Jennifer Bistyga, the city’s coastal program manager, told Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District commissioners before the dredge returned.<br /> The contractor still has about 400,000 cubic yards of sand to pump, Bistyga said. The city hired Weeks Marine to move approximately 530,000 cubic yards in from borrow areas offshore onto what it calls its central beach. The sand will make about 1.45 miles of beach 170 feet wider. <br /> “If the weather will actually cooperate, it will be about 45 days of pumping,” Bistyga said.<br /> “This operation will be a 24/7 operation until the project is complete,” she added.<br /> The dredge will start at the Boca Beach Club, just north of the inlet, and will work its way north, opposite the direction it worked in 2016. <br /> “The last time we started, we started at the northern end of the project area” and worked south, Bistyga said.<br /> The work was originally scheduled to begin in February 2016 but did not get underway until the end of March. The dredge left April 25; its permit was set to expire April 30 to protect nesting sea turtles.<br /> The renourishment will cost $11.3 million, with the state and county paying about $4 million. The city and the Beach & Park District agreed to split the remainder, with each paying $3.7 million. <br /> City officials call it routine maintenance; the central beach was last renourished in 2006. <br /> In other news for the Beach & Park District, Bistyga said the city will hire engineers this year to design a new pump station for the saltwater tanks at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. The existing pump and pipes did not produce enough water flow and were leaking bubbles into the tanks. PVC pipes and a valve box at Red Reef Park were replaced with a new system in March, she said. <br /> “This has created some temporary relief, about a gallon-per-minute flow, as well as decreasing the bubbles that have been coming into the system,” Bistyga said. <br /> The new pump station will be constructed east of A1A to reduce the length of the suction pipes in an effort to improve the system, which Bistyga said would be good for 20 years. <br /> Engineering costs are budgeted at $300,000 in this budget year; construction is projected to cost $2.5 million in fiscal 2018.</p></div>Boca Raton: Boca’s talk of annexing subdivisions upsets beach-park district officialshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-boca-s-talk-of-annexing-subdivisions-upsets-beach-park2016-06-01T14:25:38.000Z2016-06-01T14:25:38.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /><br /> Talk of the city annexing five subdivisions north of Clint Moore Road has the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District crying foul.<br /> District commissioners were already chafed by the 2013 annexation of the Royal Palm polo grounds, which also are north of Clint Moore Road and outside district boundaries. Royal Palm polo residents are able to use beach and park district facilities but do not pay beach and park taxes. <br /> “It is unfair to tax some people and not others. Whatever it takes to make it fair to everyone is what needs to be done,” District Commissioner Dennis Frisch said.<br /> The Boca Raton City Council heard a preliminary analysis of the possible annexation of Le Lac, Azura, Fieldbrook Estates, Boniello Acres and Newport Bay at its May 9 workshop session. Combined, the 435 residences in the neighborhoods would bring in an additional $505,567 in city taxes, Deputy City Manager George Brown said.<br /> Arthur Koski, the beach and park district’s interim executive director, estimated that the Royal Palm annexation, with a planned 247 homes, would mean about $250,000 a year in unpaid district taxes when built out. A buyer paid $2.2 million for the first residence there in December, according to county property appraiser records.<br /> “This is not small change,” Commissioner Earl Starkoff said, adding that the missing revenues over 10 years would pay for most of a beach renourishment project.<br /> The five targeted neighborhoods would bring the district about $277,000 a year in taxes if the new residents also become part of the district. But if not, they too will get free use of beach and park facilities.<br /> “It would seem to me, simply, that all the existing city residents and the existing district residents would be subsidizing those annexed citizens as they come into the city. Everyone else would be paying the [$1 per $1,000 of taxable value] to the district except for these annexed citizens,” Koski said.<br /> Koski also said that if the annexed residents were to pay district taxes, existing residents might see a tax decrease. But changing the district’s boundaries is not a simple task; it requires a state legislative act, and city officials must give their approval first.<br /> Commissioners told Koski to write the City Council and ask its members to support a change to the district’s legislation to include newly annexed areas. Frisch said to also request that they consider the matter at their June 14 meeting since the council meets less frequently in the summer. <br /> “If we get a letter there next week and it doesn’t get put on until the July or August agenda, it defeats our purpose of making things go,” Frisch said</p></div>Boca Raton: Central beach’s renourishment project stalled until end of 2016https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-22016-05-04T14:30:00.000Z2016-05-04T14:30:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960652893,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960652893,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960652893?profile=original" /></a><em>Dredging equipment fills the central beach of Boca Raton in late April.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>The pipes and bulldozers were removed after work was halted.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align:left;"><strong><strong>By Steve Plunkett<br /> <br /> </strong></strong> The city’s dredge contractor has left Boca Raton after completing about 20 percent of a beach renourishment project between Red Reef Park and the Boca Raton Inlet. It will return in December to finish.<br /> The city’s permit to dredge was set to expire on April 30. <br /> Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, a group of scuba-diving conservationists who were monitoring the project, announced the suspension of the work on April 25, less than an hour after the dredge vessel operated by New Jersey-based Weeks Marine Inc. left the site.<br /> The city hired Weeks Marine to move approximately 530,000 cubic yards of sand from borrow areas offshore onto the area it calls its central beach. The sand was to make approximately 1.45 miles of beach 170 feet wider. <br /> Work was originally scheduled to begin in February but did not start until the end of March because of bad weather.<br /> The city had planned to post updates of the project online as well as photo submissions from the public. But it made only three entries:<br /> • “Weeks Marine Dredge arrived offshore of the project site on 3/29.”<br /> • “The Contractor began pumping sand onto the beach on March 30, 2016.”<br /> • “As of April 13, 2016, the Contractor is currently placing sand between Life guard towers 3 and 4 and will continue working south.”<br /> The renourishment contract is for $11.3 million, with the state and county paying about $4 million. <br /> The city and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District agreed to split the remainder, with each entity paying $3.7 million. The city considers the project to be routine maintenance; the central beach was last renourished in 2006. <br /> The project caused Gumbo Limbo Nature Center specialists to move the first sea turtle nest of the season, a leatherback’s that was found March 24 in South Beach Park. It and a second leatherback nest were relocated outside the project zone to Red Reef Park.</p></div>