Seawalls

Re: Important meeting regarding seawalls Monday, March 13

Just imagine the lawsuits when our beach is eliminated behind all these private seawalls. There will be no beach left just like in Galveston Tx. The only thing that is going to protect our beach is to dredge sand like in west Walton Co. ASAP

Re: Important meeting regarding seawalls Monday, March 13

Just imagine the lawsuits when our beach is eliminated behind all these private seawalls. There will be no beach left just like in Galveston Tx. The only thing that is going to protect our beach is to dredge sand like in west Walton Co. ASAP

How soon that will happen remains to be seen. The process for eastern SoWal has started and a big sticking point will be if enough suitable sand is located. If there is not, will folks settle for sand that is less than the existing white sand that is so unique? By lowering standards recently for dune rebuilding, is it already a moot point?

In the current project in western SoWal, if they were to run out of white sand, the project would be halted. Would we just walk away or approve lesser sand to complete the project?

Re: Important meeting regarding seawalls Monday, March 13

Please be reminded there is a public workshop scheduled for Monday, March 13th at 5 P.M. at the South Walton courthouse annex. It is my understanding that two issues will be addressed in particular: the issue of the incidental take permits and the Habitat Conservation Plan, how it will work and who will pay for *it and the issue of *the 10 seawalls built on public property.

As taxpayers, I encourage you to attend.

If you can not attend please monitor:

www.southwaltoncc.org
&
www.sowal.com message board
&
local news papers

for further information so you can contact the county commissioners with your input and questions.

From Blue Mountain Beach Community Association:

Yesterday evening Walton County held meeting that dealt with seawalls that were built under the county emergency permit, which was issued after the hurricanes last year. After the storms the commissioners said property owners needed to be allowed to do whatever they felt they needed to do to protect their property. Many beachfront property owners built walls that did not comply with state statutes and in doing so they may have created situations that will be determined to have created a ?taking? of threatened or endangered species habitat. This situation may be remedied with a Habitat Conservation Plan.

The county has said beachfront property owners have three choices.

They can put their head in the sand and do nothing. They can wait for the Feds to act, or...
They can each apply for their own Habitat Conservation Plan, something that county attorney David Hallman said could conservatively cost each of them, $250,000.00, or...
They could take part in a unified plan that the county would facilitate on behalf of the beachfront property owners who agreed to join the process. Each property would pay their fair share of the cost, which again could conservatively be $250,000.00.

The county is trying to determine how many beachfront property owners want to take part in the unified plan. Time is of the essence because grants are available to the county but the deadline is April 1, 2006. Hallman said if there is not enough interest the county will not apply for the grants. If there is enough interest the application MUST be filed soon. These grants could pay for most or even all of the cost of obtaining the Habitat Conservation Plan. If there is enough interest a second meeting may be held 3/21/06.

Hallman said beachfront property owners who joined the process would get a professionally prepared Habitat Conservation Plan. He said the cost for individual property owners could not be determined until they knew how many would join the process. It would also seem that if the county did get grants to cover most or all of the costs, the grant would significantly reduce the cost to property owners.

Hallman said those property owners not joining the process up front could be excluded or required to pay a premium for joining late. He also said he was not there to give legal advice but suggested that beachfront property owners who have not talked to an attorney who specializes in ?takings? or the other issues revolving around these seawalls could be making a mistake. He suggested they talk to such an attorney within the next 24 hours.

Hallman was clear in saying the county would not be applying for permits or the Habitat Conservation Plan on behalf of the county but only as a facilitator for beachfront property owners IF there is enough interest. The county issued 241 temporary permits for coastal armoring.

Habitat Conservation Plan could provide an out for property owners who have not complied with state statutes and create things important to the welfare of the community.

Additional information may be obtained from Walton County Deputy Building Official Gerry Demers at 850-267-2084.

so, if anyone who built and doesn't file themselves, or joins with the county, will be in non-compliance federally as of 4/2?

jr

VERY Important meeting regarding seawalls Tuesday March 14

BCC meeting, 5pm today at the South Walton Courthouse:

Some private owners built a seawall on public beach property.

The BCC will discuss and may decide to permit or to deny private owners the right to keep their seawalls on public beach.

Ten to eleven homeowners in Seagrove built their Seawalls on the public beach and are asking the County to allow the seawalls to remain on the public beach.

This will affect public use of the beach.

These seawalls affect 2 public accesses.

If you use the beaches in Seagrove you don't want to miss this meeting.

Re: VERY Important meeting regarding seawalls Tuesday March 14

If we work it right, maybe the homeowners will let us park in their driveways, trudge through their living rooms, and sit out on their patio--may even be able to swing having Pina Colada's delivered (I'll have the red umbrella--not the blue one--on my pineapple spear please... )

P.S. A place to store my beach equipment and a nice warm shower to rinse off the sand would be a nice touch too.

Otherwise.....MOVE IT CLYDE!!!

Re: VERY Important meeting regarding seawalls Tuesday March 14

Does anyone know where in Seagrove the 10-11 homeowners are located? Does anyone know which beach accesses are affected?

Re: VERY Important meeting regarding seawalls Tuesday March 14

Any news?

hilarious!

and all the seawalls get pulled out again - hahahahahaha

probably right in the middle of turtle season too - hahahahahahahah

some jerk will spend 250,000.00 on a 5-page HCP - hahahahahahahahaha

the geotube people will probably be ok - hahahahahahahahahahah

the county who didn't do its job is named walton - haaahahahahahahahaah

by June it will all be blowing away anyway - not funny in the least

I will always visit, but I will never live (or own property) down there again

Thank you, SoWalSally, for the post regarding the meeting this past Monday. I wasn't able to attend so the information you presented was interesting to say the least.

I have lurked at SoWal for quite some time now.

Believe me, I have been involved in all this retaining wall stuff since BEFORE Hurricane Dennis. I had mixed emotions about installing a retaining wall, even though we were certainly eligible even before Dennis. However, when your back is against the "wall", for whatever reason, you HAVE to react.

One thing that really bothers me about some of the posts I read from so-called "beach lovers" is their basic antagonistic short-sightedness when it comes to this very complex situation (such as "let nature take its course..."). I guess that what happened to New Orleans with Katrina. :roll:

For whatever reason, our government (that's us by the way) has "permitted" these properties to be built where they are. They have the resources and ability to determine long range effects of erosion at the beach (we thought). Yet here we are.

Lots of people read these posts (kudos to SoWal for a GREAT site!). It's a shame that much of the well thought out posts are swimming among some garbage posts. I won't single any of them out, but you probably can tell the ones I'm referring to.

As with anything in life, there are 2 (or more) sides to every issue.

There!! My first post!! I guess I've finally taken a stand.

BMBV. I'm afraid to ask where my posts would fall in your equation! However, I welcome your posts and have wanted to hear from a GF property owner since this all began. Can you tell us more about your situation? I am not understanding this process and the huge fees involved.

Hi Beachvagrant- the kudos for the great site need to go to Kurt.


But I just had a thought- is SoWalSally somehow closely related to Kurt??

Hmm...:scratch:

Glad to have you here beachvagrant. I'm sure, as a beachfront homeowner, you had some heavy, and expensive decisions to make regarding the erection of a wall. although you may not enjoy the tone of some of the posts from those who have stated their opinions, there are some that have some scientific backup with them, and pose legitimate questions related to the environment and the law. would you care to respond to them as how they relate to you only, not the group?

jr

welcome bmbv! great first post!

i know you're worried, but the fact is it will probably only get worse - the feds are fairly stable, but the federal laws are more deeply hidden and you don't find out about them until later on - but the county is all over the place, and it is their job to know about these laws and things that will pop up

when your house is about to fall in the gulf, and the county says you can put up a temporary wall with permanent permitting to come later, you see your solution and you spend your money to fix the problem - the county should have known all along about 'take' (oh what a wonderful pun)

as for my posts, they come from someone who moved inland, lock, stock and what we could find of the barrel, they may seem to be insensitive, and i go there and say things people sometimes don't want to hear, and bring up issues people don't want to talk about, but somebody's got to do it or it ends up like the septic tanks in Gulf Trace, still there, ticking away - why don't the feds stick their noses into them if they are so concerned about the environmental impact of 'take'

Yes, sometimes we natives do get snippy about seawalls. Perhaps if you had witnessed the harm seawalls have been doing since the 1960's and the erosion exacerbated by building on the dunes, you might not have built so close to the water. My anger is not so much at the homeowners but the local governments that continue to allow building in these areas. I bought a copy of the University of Florida's "Review of Beach Erosion and Storm Tide Conditions in Florida 1961-1962" on eBay and it's deja vu all over again.

Comparison to what has happened in New Orleans is somewhat specious. There you have over a quarter-million houses built seventy years or more ago in a flood zone, rather than hundreds built in the last decade directly on the Gulf of Mexico. What is similar is the government also disregarded warnings in the early 80's and did nothing. I don't have a problem with government assistance for the folks in NO, but we shouldn't be encouraging rebuilding on the Gulf by bailing out vacation homeowners, especially if it's at the expense of our natural shoreline.

Although seawalls may temporarily help single homes, they cause problems for the rest of us. Not to mention they're ugly. From the photos posted on this site, it appears most people are using dark fill. I'm from Panama City (and own in Inlet Beach) and 30 years after dark fill was placed there, it's still visible.

So suck it up and resign yourself to possibly losing your house. Don't blame us or nature, but the county commissioners of today and yesterday.

BMBV. I'm afraid to ask where my posts would fall in your equation! However, I welcome your posts and have wanted to hear from a GF property owner since this all began. Can you tell us more about your situation? I am not understanding this process and the huge fees involved.

Please understand that I'm not trying to slam any fellow "beach lover". I just want people to be somewhat a little more aware of ALL of the circumstances that have put US (gulf front and non-gulf front owners) in this situation. IF a poster doesn't truly understand the total background, then perhaps all the "negative feelings" should be kept to themselves. Otherwise they risk losing any credibility with those that see the bigger picture. This is an important issue that deserves more than a kneejerk response that I see in a lot of posts.

Do I understand all this "incidental take" stuff ?? Heck NO !! And apparently not too many other people do. I'm totally confused as to how gulf front owners are "taking" away habitat when the retaining walls are going in where the bluffs were prior to the recent storms.

I understand turtles will climb a dune somewhat to lay eggs. After the hurricance, because of our unique geological elevation features anywhere on the Gulf, the erosion created an almost vertical wall (plenty of photographic evidence to confirm this). Only after owners paid to have sand hauled in, was any resemblance to dunes created.

Why then does it matter that there is a wall behind that dune ??

Turtles (as well as humans) are not immune from hurricanes in my opinion. I believe what benefits the beach front owner relative to the rebuilding of the dunes also benefits the turtles.

The initial feedback I'm getting, is that there are as many opinions from attorneys regarding the "incidental take" impact as there are attorneys.

I can understand incidental take when it comes to new development. I don't quite understand how it applies when all a property owner is trying to do, is PRESERVE what they were authorized to have to begin with. If the wall is a several feet seaward of this magic line, then, perhaps that's another issue.

Sueshore, I don't really know where your posts fit in all this. There is not a single gulf front property owner that I know of who is against building retaining walls to protect their property (other than the fact some think they won't survive). So it seems ALL the opposition comes from those that don't have beachfront property....SURPRISE SURPRISE !!!

Are we irresponsible for desiring to protect our property at TOTALLY our expense? I don't think so.

Should retaining walls be compared to septic tanks at Gulf Trace? I don't think so.

Would our area be better off without the walls after the next major hurricane when all the homes and condos are sitting on the beach? I don't think so.

Do the authorities have a real (and honest) handle on the situation? I don't think so.

Constructive replies and comments are more than welcome from everyone!

pmd8 - most of the gf owners are using approved fill. There are a few glaring instances of ugly fill and I don't know how they are getting away with it.

BMBV - I take it (pun intended) that anytime you replace natural habitat with artificial habitat or modified habitat it is considered "take".

I believe that the knee jerk reactions were by county officials and gf homeowners to do wahtever they could as fast as they could whether they really knew what they were doing or not and whether knowing it would really help or not. It was panic and it was let's do whatever we want and ask forgiveness later. Acting in panic mode never brings good results. The argument about property rights, building on dunes, etc. shouldn't be a practical part of the argument at this point and has been covered pretty good on this board months ago.

Rather - is the right thing being done recently and now? If you walk along the beaches and see the travesty going on the answer is easily no. There was little planning and little oversight. Some seawalls may be done "right" but most are a mess. If they can be covered VERY well and deep and planted then they will look fine and not be dangerous.

UNTIL they are destroyed some day in the future by a storm. And they WILL be destroyed. At that time we wll be neck deep on our beaches by the biggest mess of debris you've ever imagined. I don't want to see that or pay for removal which will never get completely done anyway as much of it will be half or completely buried.

Take or leave my opinion, but it is the height of arrogance for gf owners to think they are "improving" or "repairing" the beaches for the rest of us. We may not be paying for your seawalls but we will PAY for your mistakes for generations.

It would have made a lot more sense for all the gf owners and the county to put all the money and effort into a beach nourishment project for eastern Walton County.

You ask why it matters if there's a wall behind the dune? http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-337/construction.html
Coastal Construction - Role of Human Activities - An Overview of Coastal Land Loss: With Emphasis on the Southeastern United States

BMBV. I'm afraid to ask where my posts would fall in your equation! However, I welcome your posts and have wanted to hear from a GF property owner since this all began. Can you tell us more about your situation? I am not understanding this process and the huge fees involved.

Several gf owners have posted on these issues and they have been slammed pretty hard.

I mostly agree with you Amp22, although I've discussed beach renourishment in prior posts and have seen it first hand in Panama City Beach and Miami Beach.
The sand is not the same and it's a temporary and expensive solution.

Regards.

In regard to "all the opposition is from those who don't have beachfront property", the beach is public, so we all own beachfront property.

I do have bayfront property in Panama City and Miami Beach. We've left the Panama City property in it's natural state, despite the fact that our neighbor's seawall has affected it. In Miami Beach, my property is on a "fill island" and seawalls have completely encircled the island since it was formed in the 1930's. I do not use fertilizer on my yard because it eventually finds its way into the bay.

Think globally, act locally.

I was going to do a link to this previous discussion - but decided instead to just cut and paste - this was from Dave Raushkolb in October of last year and I think it is in better words than I could say






Coastal Erosion solutions: Seawalls, Geo-tubes, Beach Scraping and Beach Nourishment. What is the answer?

Basically, when the ocean rises due to a hurricane there are three powerful forces at work: wind, rising tide and ocean swells from a storm. The water that is moved by those forces moves in three directions. The tide brings the water up, the storm moves the wave action in and the wind pushes the water/waves in the direction of the wind.

Most of us who have experienced a hurricane know that when a storm approaches and we are on the east side of that storm we get winds from the northeast, then east, then southeast, then south and on around to the west and so on. The inverse would be true if we were on the west side of the storm. The key point is that for a large portion of the time the tide is abnormally high, the swells are abnormally big and the east or west current is scouring the beaches parallel to the beach.

The beach sand is a porous movable material that is completely vulnerable to these forces. Solid structures are also vulnerable to these forces but, more importantly the sand next to any solid structure will be scoured away much more rapidly than if there was no solid structure near it.

Let's dispense with scraping first. It makes the beach nicer to look at but that's it. It is newly pushed sand that has no level of impaction so it washes away in minutes. Placing sand back on the cliff/dunes and planting sea oats provides a favorable cosmetic solution.

Seawalls and geo-tubes are solid, heavy structures. Any porous sand next to these structures gets scoured away very rapidly making the situation worse near them. If you have a house next to a seawall, your backyard will go faster as the east riptide and oncoming waves collide with the seawall. The same is true with the beach in front of the seawall. The impact of the water hitting it and pushing sideways with the tide completely eliminates the beach in front of it. All you need to do is look at the wall in Galveston Texas; there used to be a beach there, now you just jump off the wall into the water; no beach. A geo tube is heavy and more solid than the sand. Any thing near these things will have sand scouring next to them too. Also when the water gets behind a seawall it washes away the sand behind it with the same impunity. Some of you might have seen the photo of the breached seawall on Dog Island I posted after Hurricane Dennis.

The largest seawall in the county is being installed just east of Seaside and it runs from the Wheel House/Seagrove villas and ends at the 30-A/395 intersection and could go further as adjacent homeowners buy on. It is roughly 20 feet high and runs 4 blocks long. Adjacent homeowners will be affected and the beach behind that wall will disappear if we get a few more storms to start the scouring activity. The prevailing winds here are from the east and the river of sand that runs along our beach could soon be interrupted and affected by this seawall.

The only solution to our erosion problem is to focus on getting our beaches nourished by pumping sand back on to the beaches. All of Walton County is being surveyed and the wheels are in motion. All these seawalls will do is destroy adjacent property and eliminate the beaches behind them. Geo-tubes will have a similar effect as the water washes over and around them.

Rosemary Beach has investigated thoroughly all options including geotubes and has decided to push for the sand dredging/beach nourishment option. There will be no geotubes or seawalls in Rosemary Beach. They did decide to do some cosmetic work (scraping) on the dunes/cliffs and finish with sea oat plantings. The town manager, James Bagby gave a very informed talk at the Rosemary Beach Homeowners meeting on where the county and federal agency's are in the beach nourishment process and it looks like it could happen countywide if approved. Jim said the pumping would take 3 days to do Rosemary Beach and would raise the beach 6 to 8 feet and go out 100 to 150 feet out.

The nourishment effort/process has taken its course in the west end of the county and they will soon begin pumping sand there. They are beginning the process for our part of the county from Inlet beach down and there will soon be a stage for public input. The whole beachfront of the county is being surveyed for this purpose and sand core samples are being taken in the gulf for sources of white sand. Funding will be an issue but if approved the beaches will be automatically nourished by the federal government after major storms. Panama City beach has been doing this for years already.

In Okaloosa County 5 beachfront homeowners disputed the nourishment project delaying it in lawsuits for 2 years. They were concerned that the thin strip of public access from the high tide waterline to the water would be enlarged if the beach was widened and people would set up beach chairs behind their property. I believe they are now being sued by adjacent owners who lost their homes in recent storms. When the time comes for public input our county voices must be united behind the nourishment answer. That?s the answer.