Members of Facebook group continue to post regular updates
As Sarasota County staff and its consultant — along with residents and visitors — keep a figurative eye on the conditions of the restored Midnight Pass on south Siesta Key, staff early this month facilitated research on the waterway that was undertaken by representatives of a number of institutions, as noted on the county’s Facebook page and in its March 6 newsletter.
On March 1 and 2, county staff assisted Nina Stark, director of the Center for Coastal Solutions at the University of Florida, “with access to Palmer Point Park for data collection,” the post and newsletter reported. Research vessels launched from Blackburn Point Park.
Along with the University of Florida, staff wrote, the institutions participating in the endeavor were the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of North Florida, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Among the field activities were “beach core sampling, sediment analysis, flow measurements, compaction and erodibility testing, bathymetry, drone surveys and physical surveying,” staff noted.
“The research is supported in part by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation,” the Facebook post and newsletter pointed out; all of “the data collected is publicly available.”
Additional testing is planned in the coming months, ahead of the official June 1 start to the hurricane season, staff wrote.
“This ongoing work continues to expand the scientific understanding of Midnight Pass,” the post and newsletter said.
The public eye on the pass
Along with the scientific research, members of the public who routinely visit the pass report updates about its depth on the Restore Midnight Pass Now! Facebook page.
Among the more recent posts, The Sarasota News Leader read details written by James L. Springer Jr., an administrator of the page, on March 10.
Springer pointed out that the latest survey results shown on the county’s Midnight Pass webpage were “somewhat more concerning,” and then provided reasons why:
- “The Cross-Section Appears to Be Getting Shallower — The chart shows multiple colored lines representing the inlet throat cross-section from different survey dates.” The most recent line, recorded on March 2, he continued, shows that the bottom of the channel was more shallow than in some of the earlier surveys; the “sides appear to be filling in, narrowing the deep part of the inlet.” Springer added, “That pattern generally indicates shoaling — sand accumulating in the throat of the pass.”
He did note, “Sarasota County is measuring the cross-sectional area of the inlet throat each week.” That is important, he pointed out, because a large area indicates strong tidal flow, which means the inlet will stay open. A shrinking area indicates weaker flow, with sand filling in faster. “If the area drops below a certain threshold, the inlet can collapse or close naturally, especially during calm weather or after a small storm event,” he explained.
- “The Profile Shows a Developing ‘V’ Fill Pattern,” with “sand slumping inward from both sides toward the center channel,” Springer continued. That is typical of unstable inlets and inlets that are not subject to dredging or stabilization, he noted. “Without intervention, this often leads to rapid shoaling events,” Springer added.
- “Why This Is Concerning Right Now” — “Sea turtle season begins in April,” he wrote; during that season, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) would not allow dredging of the waterway. Further, Springer noted, “The inlet is still morphologically unstable after opening from the storms [in 2024, so “[a] single storm or high-sand transport event could accelerate filling.” The data do not show imminent closure yet, but they suggest that “[t]he inlet is losing some hydraulic efficiency, [and sand] transport is beginning to outpace tidal scouring.”
The “Bottom Line,” Springer added, is this: “The [March 2] survey does not show an emergency collapse, but it does show early signs of shoaling that could lead to instability if left unmanaged. That’s why many coastal engineers push for a formal Inlet Management Plan (IMP) rather than relying only on a reactive Emergency Response Plan (ERP).”
During a September 2025 discussion with the County Commission, Mike Jenkins, senior principal engineer with ATM Geosyntec — who is the county’s primary consultant on Midnight Pass — explained that the board could pursue steps under an emergency order to keep the waterway open if it began showing sufficient signs that it might close.
However, he cautioned that if circumstances arose that necessitated county pursuit of permits to maintain the pass, the process would take years.
One primary concern of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Jenkins stressed, would be how keeping the waterway open could affect Turtle Beach on south Siesta, as well as the North Casey Key shoreline, both of which are close to the pass and already are considered critically eroded.
Commissioner Joe Neunder did ask that Jenkins work with county staff to broaden the list of circumstances under which the county could pursue emergency action to keep the pass open.
On March 11, another person posted on the Restore Midnight Pass Now! Facebook page that a 26-foot boat had gone through the pass on the north side of the inlet; that individual included a video illustrating the report.
A person who commented on the post noted that he was on a 17-foot vessel that went through the pass the previous night; the depth was between 2 feet and 2.5 feet “all the way through,” he added.