Funds come through FDEP
Sarasota County has received another $351,651.38 for its South Siesta Key Beach Restoration Project, which will be used to cover the expenses of both the 2016 initiative and one in 2023 that was designed to repair damage that resulted from Hurricane Hermine only about four months after the 2016 work was finished.
In unanimously approving their Nov. 19 Consent Agenda of routine business matters, the County Commission approved a budget resolution that raised the total grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to $501,525.58 for those projects.
A county staff memo included in the agenda packet for the commission’s regular meeting on Nov. 19 indicated that the grant money would be added to a county fund designated for reimbursement grants.
Turtle Beach Park, which was part of the renourishment area in 2016 and 2023, suffered significant damage from both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton this fall. As a result its facilities are only partially open.
When The Sarasota News Leader checked the park’s status on Dec. 9, the county Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department report said the restrooms remained closed, “but portalets are available.” The parking lots, beach access, the boat ramp, the kayak launch and the playground had reopened, it added.
In September 2023, the board members unanimously approved a resolution that sought $821,250 from FDEP to help cover the expenses incurred for both projects, as The Sarasota News Leader reported. A memo in the agenda packet for that meeting explained that the state’s Beach Management Funding Assistance Program (BMFA) Program “allows eligible recipients to apply for funding to support costs for up to three years following the year of the eligible expense. The amount of the current request [from Sarasota County] is based on estimated costs for activities in 2023”: year of construction, at $258,000; 2024, the first year after construction, at $288,000; and 2025, the second year after construction, at $305,250.
“The cost estimates are derived from actual expenses incurred for previous post-construction monitoring of the South Siesta Key Beach and Manasota Key Beach projects,” the memo for the County Commission meeting on Sept. 12, 2023 pointed out.
Although the second renourishment of the south Siesta Key shoreline was completed in 2016, that memo continued, the permit conditions “require post-construction physical monitoring ‘annually for a period of three years [after the year of construction], then biennially until the next beach nourishment event or the expiration of the project design life, whichever occurs first.’ ” The monitoring was required in 2023, and it will be necessary in 2025 and possibly in 2027, the memo added, since portions of that project area were not included in the 2023 beach repair initiative. The project permit will expire in 2029, that memo noted.
A county staff memo in the Nov. 19 agenda packet also explained that FDEP administers the Beach Management Funding Assistance Program through its Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection. “Financial assistance in an amount up to 50% of beach project costs is available to local sponsors for eligible activities including [the following],” the memo said:
- “Beach restoration and nourishment activities.
- “Project design and engineering studies.
- “Environmental studies and monitoring.
- “Inlet management planning.
- “Inlet sand transfer.
- “Dune restoration.
- “Beach and inlet protection activities.
- “Other beach erosion prevention related activities consistent with the adopted Strategic Beach Management Plan,” the memo added.
“Projects must be accessible to the public, located on the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean or Straits of Florida,” and take place in areas of the shoreline that FDEP has designated as critically eroded, the memo pointed out. The initiatives also must “be consistent with the state’s Strategic Beach Management Plan,” the memo said.
“Sarasota County has been a successful applicant for a series of grants,” including one that assisted with the 2016 renourishment of South Siesta Key Beach, about nine years after the first project was completed, the memo noted, as well as the 2023 South Siesta Key Beach Repair Project.
The memo also pointed out, “In 2023, Sarasota County submitted a new application, a Local Government Funding Request, for funding at 41.31% of the eligible local costs for post-construction monitoring of the 2016 project and the 2023 repair project.”
Another document in the Nov. 19 agenda packet focused on the work plan for the revised grant. It explained that the project area is located between FDEP reference monuments R-67 and $-77 along the Gulf of Mexico, which covers approximately 1.9 miles.
County staff has reported that, during the initial restoration of the south Siesta shoreline, “Approximately 922,300 cubic yards of sand was placed in the project area from four borrow sites located 6.5 to 8 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico …” Then, during the 2016 initiative, 749,239 cubic yards of sand was placed on the shoreline. That sand came from three areas in the Gulf of Mexico, located 7 to 10 miles offshore, staff has noted.
The South Siesta Key Beach Repair Project in 2023 added 92,505 cubic yards of sand to the shoreline, staff has reported. That sand was delivered, via truck, from an upland source.