Beach contamination in Seagrove

Who is having the sand trucked in?

What County employee have you talked to?

Has code enforcement approved a sample of the sand in question? If they have not been contacted you need to make sure that they go to the site and sample the sand. They should have been given a sample by the contractor before dumping. You need to make sure that the sample they were given and the actual sand that is dumped are the same.

The Walton County Commissioner for our district should be contacted about this. She will see that something is done. Her name is Cindy Meadows and she lives in South Walton. You can contact her through the Walton County Board of County Commissioners in DeFuniak Springs. I am seeing Cindy in a little more than a week, when we are at Grayton, and I will mention this to her. It always helps when an elected official has as many contacts as possible and as soon as possible, however.

The Walton County Commissioner for our district should be contacted about this. She will see that something is done. Her name is Cindy Meadows and she lives in South Walton. You can contact her through the Walton County Board of County Commissioners in DeFuniak Springs. I am seeing Cindy in a little more than a week, when we are at Grayton, and I will mention this to her. It always helps when an elected official has as many contacts as possible and as soon as possible, however.

I bleieve that Seagrove Beach is Scott Brannon's District one.

I bleieve that Seagrove Beach is Scott Brannon's District one.

I think you are correct. Good luck!

Commissioner Scott Brannon
19367 U.S. Hwy 331 S Freeport, FL 32439

Tel: (850) 835-4860

Fax: (850) 835-4836

E-mail: brascott@co.walton.fl.us



Photos of your Commissioners. (I think they need to hire Kurt to take better photos. These are ridiculously terrible.)

Thanks for your interest.

I have contacted the county several times over the last month. It will obviously take more than calls and emails from just me.

Go take a look and make your own judgement . They have to hear from more concerned citizens.

Below are local news media, and county and state contacts.
I have already contacted most of them plus my county commissioner.

COUNTY

Brad Pickel, TDC Director Of Beach Management,
<bpickel@beachesofsouthwalton.com>, (850) 267-1216.

Pat Blackshear, Director of Planning and Development,
<blapat@co.walton.fl.us>, (850) 267-1955.

Kevin Hargett, Code Enforcement Coordinator, Code Enforcement Office,
<harkevin@co.walton.fl.us>, (850) 622-0564.



STATE AND FEDERAL
Tony McNeal with DEP. <tony.mcneal@dep.state.fl.us> 850-921-7745.

Lorna Patrick, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, <lorna_patrick@fws.gov> 850-769-0552 ext.229.

Jim Martinello, DEP Enforcement & Compliance officer. <James.Martinello@dep.state.fl.us> 850-414-7772.


NEWS MEDIA

Gwen Break, Editor, The Walton Sun, <sunnews@link.freedom.com> (850)267-4555.

Dotty Nist, Reporter, The Beach Breeze, <breeze@dfsi.net>, (850) 231-0918.

Chris Mitchell: 850-832-9830 channel 13 WMBB/ABC Panama City reporter.

Although Brad Pickle is helpful on many issues regarding the beach he is only responsible for the County's beach accesses, nourishment, etc. He has no regulatory or enforcement abilities regarding individual actions- those are planning and code enforcement. As Kurt said, Code Enforcement is who needs to be contacted.

Code Enforcement has been contacted and they gave a very interesting summary of the situation.

The county apparently was issuing permits to use the low quality 6.2 grade sand (dark sand) prior to August 1 2005. The owners of the Gulf front property on Montgomery street apparently got approval from the county prior to the August 1 2005 deadline. Since August 1 the requirement is upgraded to a better 7.2 grade sand. In either situation the lower grade sand has to be covered with a three feet layer of the the whiter grade 8.1 sand.

So it is apparently the position of the Montgomery Street Gulf front owners that they can use the poorer grade sand because they are "grandfathered" in before the rule change . This is loosely analogous to the county allowing all of us long time residents to ignore the new HWY 98 stop lights because we were "grandfathered in". Such faulty reasoning would result in harm to others in both situations.

This low grade dark sand will contaminate the natural beach sand forever. Even though it is suppose to be covered with 3 feet of white sand the next time we get a storm it will all be mixed together. This will then contaminate the beach all along the shore-particularly to the west such as Seaside. This is a "dirty" shame because Seaside has been very careful not to contaminate their beach with low quality sand.

We all need to contact the county and tell them this is not acceptable

Code Enforcement has been contacted and they gave a very interesting summary of the situation.

The county apparently was issuing permits to use the low quality 6.2 grade sand (dark sand) prior to August 1 2005. The owners of the Gulf front property on Montgomery street apparently got approval from the county prior to the August 1 2005 deadline. Since August 1 the requirement is upgraded to a better 7.2 grade sand. In either situation the lower grade sand has to be covered with a three feet layer of the the whiter grade 8.1 sand.

So it is apparently the position of the Montgomery Street Gulf front owners that they can use the poorer grade sand because they are "grandfathered" in before the rule change . This is loosely analogous to the county allowing all of us long time residents to ignore the new HWY 98 stop lights because we were "grandfathered in". Such faulty reasoning would result in harm to others in both situations.

This low grade dark sand will contaminate the natural beach sand forever. Even though it is suppose to be covered with 3 feet of white sand the next time we get a storm it will all be mixed together. This will then contaminate the beach all along the shore-particularly to the west such as Seaside. This is a "dirty" shame because Seaside has been very careful not to contaminate their beach with low quality sand.

We all need to contact the county and tell them this is not acceptable

I don't know with whom you spoke, but I think they are incorrect regarding the information they gave you. That is not what I remember the County Commissioners ruling. They said that any new sand brought in would have to meet the new standards of whiteness. They also said that people who had already filled with the darker sand that met the old standards, but not the new, would have to be removed. There was a big debate about this and Commissioner Ro Cuchens was very scared that he would have to pay for it, since he had several jobs which he used the darker sand. The decision, as I remember, was that since the County changed the standards, the County would pay for the removal.

If what you state is true regarding the response from the Code Enforcement, the county commissioners should be contacted. FYI- the commissioner for that district is Chairman Scott Brannon, and he was conveniently absent from that meeting so he may not be as informed as Comm Meadows, or Comm Jones, who actually make the motion which was approved.

I hope the county is not going to have to pay for its removal-this sand has been deposited in an ongoing basis for over the last 2 months in front of these homes on Montgomery Street.

I hope the county is not going to have to pay for its removal-this sand has been deposited in an ongoing basis for over the last 2 months in front of these homes on Montgomery Street.

The County will not pay for it if it was deposited after their ruling on the sand color.

So I had to check it out for myself today. That dirt is brown as topsoil. I took some photos and ran out of time to meet with the right people today. Perhaps in the morning.

Here are some of the photos I took showing more of what ecopal's photo clearly shows.

Excellent pics!
Looks like the sand is getting darker-must be scrapings from the bottom of the pit.

Below is a picture of excavation on the beach just a block to the west(on the beach at the intersection of 30A and 395) of where SJ took his pics. They are getting ready to coverup up this mess with new sand being trucked in so if you want to take a peek go tomorrow.
(click on it to make larger)

County engineer Greg Graham was very clear on this issue back when we were having problems with all the red sand being brought onto Blue Mountain Beach.

The county did initially approve 6.2 sand. Many people got approval. The standard was later raised because of all the abuse of the 6.2 standard. Developers were not even meeting that low standard. Graham stated all new sand brought onto the beach had to be 7.2 or greater. He said the only thing that was grandfathered was what was already on the beach. Any new sand brought to the beach had to comply.

Graham makes the determination as to what is approved and what is not, not Code Enforcement. Code Enforcement is there to enforce Greg's ruling. I too question Code Enforcement's interpretation of the situation and suggest Greg Graham be contacted about this apparent abuse of the standard.

Where's the best public beach access that's open to go and see this and other examples of seawalls? I can only "beach run" so far, so I resort to the bike paths for longer distances.

Seagrove Villas has a new walkover-but it is private property.
If you use that walkover the dirty sand will be on your left-east and the excavation into the beach will be down a block on our right/west.

If you want to go down a public access you can use the Andalussa street access then walk or run west for a couple blocks.

...
The county did initially approve 6.2 sand. Many people got approval. The standard was later raised because of all the abuse of the 6.2 standard. Developers were not even meeting that low standard. Graham stated all new sand brought onto the beach had to be 7.2 or greater. He said the only thing that was grandfathered was what was already on the beach. Any new sand brought to the beach had to comply.
...

]

Thanks for refreshing my memory Richard.
To clarify Richard's statement in bold above:
Not all sand that was on the beach was grandfathered. That which was already there was still required to be "retested" (and not by Commissioner Roe Cuchens) and meet the minimum old 6.2 standard or be removed. Hence the removal of the red sand in BMB.

I do not have the color chart, but I guarantee you that the topsoil colored dirt being dumped yesterday and days prior does not even meet the old 6.2 requirement. IMHO, Gary seems to be very weak when it comes to being pressured from the Commissioners. I wonder if Commissioner Roe Cuchens was hired for these jobs in Seagrove too.:idontno:

Hi all,
This is my first post, but I read this forum all the time. As for the brown sand at Seagrove, it's very disturbing to me. These people are obviously trying to get away with something they know is wrong. I've emailed Commisioner Scott Brannon, and code enforcement officer Kevin Hargett. What else can we do? Has anyone contacted the newspapers?

That doesn't look like sand at all. It looks like dirt. This must be coming from the sod farm in Freeport. The owner stated several months ago that he could "wash" the sand. Commissioners bought it. They dumped a bunch of the dark sand in Miramar Beach right after Dennis. I don't think it was ever removed.