• Trouble logging in? Send us a message with your username and/or email address for help.
New posts

BlueMtnBeachVagrant

Beach Fanatic
Jun 20, 2005
1,331
394
Dear Reader,

I offer my apology to everyone for the "underhanded" technique that I employed regarding the "class warfare" point I was making.

I know many of you were drawn in (some a little too easy).

My intent is not to belittle those of you who read and post. My point, and I hope you now see it, is that there is an underlying current of negative activism in our little area of Blue Mountain Beach of which I have been a part of for about 6 years (BMB, not negative activism :D ).

I love this area. I love MOST of the people I meet down here. That's why this is where our second home is.

But with that said, I believe "we" have a perverbial fly in the ointment. Perhaps I'll bring that to light in due course. For some of you that really understand some of the "politics" in our area, you probably can appreciate what I'm saying already.

PLEASE accept my apologies for my stooping this low to make a point that I thought was VERY IMPORTANT.... that is there are others out there, not me, that would bias you into believing our current issues regarding retaining walls, sand, etc., is a result of the "haves" as opposed to the "have nots".

I just see myself as a "have not" who just happens to own gulf front property.

Again sorry to have "intentionally" ruffled some feathers.

Sincerely,
BMBV
 

katie blue

kt loo
Mar 11, 2005
1,068
25
in perpetual motion
You're the one who keeps on bringing up class warfare, even when 'cleverly' disguised as sarcasm, bait, irony, or a set-up. Hey, <sniff>...do I smell a dead skunk?

Let the games go. We're talking about the beach. Please, BMBV.

Oh: :D
 

BlueMtnBeachVagrant

Beach Fanatic
Jun 20, 2005
1,331
394
katie blue said:
You're the one who keeps on bringing up class warfare, even when 'cleverly' disguised as sarcasm, bait, irony, or a set-up. Hey, <sniff>...do I smell a dead skunk?

Let the games go. We're talking about the beach. Please, BMBV.

Oh: :D


Hi Katie Blue,

I never brought up "class warfare" as an underlying cause for the current and ongoing debate regarding retaining walls.

Check my posts very carefully. If you can find a reference, I WOULD APPRECIATE your pointing it out. If found, I will ASBSOLUTELY and HUMBLY APOLOGIZE to everyone here.

What I did bring up in one of my posts when I did mentioned the words "class warfare" is that LIKE "class warfare", religion and abortion, no one ever seems to win the debate over the retaining wall issue. I never implied that there was class warfare going on in these threads (although others have). I'm open to being shown where I am wrong.

I'm afraid the words "class warfare" are used too loosely these days. Again, within the news article that started this thread, a stand-alone paragraph states the following:

"On Walton beaches, extravagant homes for the rich and connected dominate the landscape."

This type of rhetoric totally detracts from the acticle's substance. One would seriously have to consider whether the rest of the article was written OBJECTIVELY. For everyone's benefit, there is some decent factual information within the article however.



Here's what's really yanking my chain right now....

The newspaper article wasn't just published here in Florida, as you might have expected. My renter, this past week, told me his father-in-law called him from Muncie, Indiana and asked him what was up with all the retaining wall stuff in BMB based on an article he read up there. The fact that Gannett saw a need to spread this on a national scale, well, concerns me.

And it should concern "most" other readers in our area.

Why?

Read this exerpt from the same artcle....
"On a recent day, waves lapped at the base of the fortification."

Sounds a lot like ecopal and his totally biased photography techniques that he "shared" with us the other day. I called him down for it. To this day, he still hasn't acknowledged my concern for his "one sided" slant on things to support his agenda. (see his post SoWal Beaches Forum - View Single Post - Study on Geotubes in Texas and my reply SoWal Beaches Forum - View Single Post - Study on Geotubes in Texas)

With such visualization, who would want to come to our area?

Tourism, in case anyone has forgotten, is the bread and butter of the local beach economy.

If you see it differently (or even if you agree), I would love to hear from anyone regarding their opinion on my observation.
 

Smiling JOe

SoWal Expert
Nov 18, 2004
31,644
1,773
BMBV, I reread the article. Other than the "connected and wealthy" comment, are there more points in the story with which you disagree? The article sounds pretty straight forward and similar to what I understand is happening with the permits for the temporary walls.
 

katie blue

kt loo
Mar 11, 2005
1,068
25
in perpetual motion
Something must have yanked my chain too yesterday to have even posted about that. (I'm finding that I should just refrain altogether from late afternoon weekday posts, as that seems to be the time I might get stressy about anything. Regretting even posting. I'm a lover, not a fighter ;-))
 

BlueMtnBeachVagrant

Beach Fanatic
Jun 20, 2005
1,331
394
Smiling JOe said:
BMBV, I reread the article. Other than the "connected and wealthy" comment, are there more points in the story with which you disagree? The article sounds pretty straight forward and similar to what I understand is happening with the permits for the temporary walls.



Dear Smiling JOe,

I've taken the task to answer your question. Here's the article in its entirity. I've "bolded" certain words with note "numbers" which I list at the end. I hope it's easy to follow this way.

Thanks,
BMBV





Seawalls in Walton County face storm of bureaucracy
Barriers focus of dispute between state law and homeowners
Paige St. John and Larry Wheeler
Gannett News Service

BLUE MOUNTAIN BEACH -- Beachfront homeowners in Walton County are taking desperate measures (1) to keep their luxury homes (2) from sliding into the water, and state officials seem either unable or unwilling to stop them.

Since Hurricane Dennis blasted ashore last July 10 at nearby Navarre Beach, construction crews have thrown up steel girders, buried giant sand tubes and erected dozens of seawalls along that 26-mile stretch of sugar-white beaches.

Although much of the construction appears to be illegal (3) , bureaucrats appear reluctant to invite a showdown and are seeking ways to let the barriers remain.
(Related: Interactive audio slide show from a Walton County citizen journalist and activist.)

Coastal advocates are alarmed at the more than 200 seawalls installed with so little oversight.

They fret that the unchallenged building frenzy will spread statewide as hurricanes erode more of Florida's shrinking beaches and more property owners opt to wall themselves off from the advancing surf.

"You only have to look 10, 20 years down the road until the rest of Florida is walled in," warns David Godfrey, executive director of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation & Sea Turtle Survival League, whose organization has been active in preserving Florida sea turtles and beaches since 1959.

They also worry that the walls signal, in the chaos following Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Dennis last year, that anything goes.

"Are we becoming like other areas where we are going to have walls but not beach?" asked Anita Page, executive director of the South Walton Community Council. "I'm frightened we may have created a situation where we are ultimately going to harm the beach itself."

On Walton beaches, extravagant homes for the rich and connected dominate the landscape (4) .

Three years ago, Georgia builder Tony Burton bought a sand-cliff lot for $1 million and erected a three-story house with faux-Greek stone columns. (5)

He was horrified when storms later tore off the side of the bluff, moving the precipice 45 feet closer to his patio. Some of his less fortunate neighbors saw their homes slide into the water.

Burton was determined to take action, legal or not, before the next hurricane season.

He and adjacent homeowners are paying $700,000 to erect a 400-foot "temporary" sheet-metal wall in front of their bluff (6) . The barrier is buried under landscaped sand that could wash out in the next storm. (7)

The man-made berm ties into a network of variously colored sheet-metal walls (8) that protrude from sand piles stretching along the bluff in both directions as far as the eye can see.

On a recent day, waves lapped at the base of the fortification.

"We paid our money for the beach. We need to do something to protect our property," Burton said.

County creates 'permit mill'

Days after Dennis made landfall, Walton commissioners voted to take unprecedented advantage of a state emergency law aimed at helping beachfront homeowners.

The law allows counties to approve temporary, 60-day structures to shore up a crumbling foundation or prevent a house from collapsing. Anything more permanent requires a state permit.

The commission's vote essentially created a permit mill for beach owners who wanted to bolster their crumbling pieces of paradise using heavy equipment, corrugated metal sheets and gigantic textile tubes. (9)

The construction tore up the beach so thoroughly (10) that county code inspectors said they had trouble getting through to carry out their sole enforcement duty -- making sure a county permit sticker was affixed to each wall.

Little of the construction looks temporary.

"We never envisioned this number of walls," said county planning director Pat Blackshear. "People got really afraid they were going to lose their property."

Twenty-eight of the 30 permits issued in the first 24 hours went to a company owned by Rosier "Ro" Cuchens, one of the county commissioners who voted to take advantage of the emergency law.

Cuchens eventually recused himself from further votes but only after taking on 65 of the projects, more than any other contractor in the county. (11)


Cuchens said he did not violate state ethics laws. A clerk with the Florida Commission on Ethics declined to say if the panel is looking into the matter.

Walls are in limbo

State records show 250 permits for temporary structures were issued in Walton in the aftermath of Dennis, but a walk along the shore suggests the activity is more widespread.

Less than half of those homeowners have applied to make their erosion-prevention structures permanent. (12)

Even fewer reside in the older slab-foundation homes that are so close to crumbling slopes they are automatically eligible for approval. (13)

Some "armoring" along the beach was constructed in front of newer homes that were built to tougher coastal construction standards. They presumably were designed with wave action in mind and are technically ineligible for armoring.

Some seawalls were even erected to protect empty dunes that one day may support a house or building, a pre-emptive measure not addressed in the statute.(14)


Defiance and finger pointing

State officials encouraged Walton commissioners to use the Florida law that allows temporary beach armoring after a natural disaster.

Cuchens said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection helped Walton property owners fill out applications for the projects and told them all they needed to do to make their walls permanent was hire a contractor to come up with engineering drawings and send an application within 60 days.

DEP spokesman Anthony DeLuise confirmed that Colleen Castille, who heads the agency, attended a workshop in Destin where she encouraged homeowners to apply to the state for permanent status for their seawalls.

Burton and other homeowners are defiant at the possibility they could be ordered to remove their expensive new barriers.

"It would be political suicide to tell people whose houses are jeopardized to remove their protection," he said.

State regulators are a long way from doing that.

"We first have to determine with certainty that would be the only recourse," said Mike Barnett, chief of the DEP's Beaches and Coastal Systems Bureau.

Even then, Barnett said, the final responsibility falls to Walton County.

"They issued the temporary permits," he said.

The emergency state law that Walton invoked allows 60-day structures but doesn't define "temporary," said Kevin Hargett, the county's building code enforcement coordinator.

He said that's the reason he ignored the clearly permanent nature of the structures beachfront homeowners were building.

" 'Temporary' is a word that can be interpreted in several ways," Hargett said.

For now, the DEP is trying to persuade the coastal residents to voluntarily seek state approval for the "temporary" structures now sprouting decks and stairs.

The agency has not said what might happen if it decides to deny approval.

So far, state regulators have yet to order a single sand tube or steel girder removed.

Lax beach policy blamed

Florida's own beach policy set the stage for the dilemma unfolding on Walton beaches.

With no setback line for beachfront homes, the state instead relies on coastal construction rules that perch houses above the reach of storm surge, without paying heed to shoreline erosion rates. (15)

Homes on stilts are allowed, but hard armoring, as a policy, is not. (16)

Beach engineers cite the sheet-metal battlements being erected in Walton as the second-leading, man-made cause of erosion in Florida, behind dredging. (17)

The better path, say state regulators, is to rebuild the beaches.

But Florida's beach renourishment program can't keep pace with development (18) , even though state officials have spent about $100 million a year -- and $300 million in 2005 -- hauling huge quantities of sand ashore to create new beach.

The eight hurricanes that have hit Florida over the last two years have hastened the inevitable outcome: crumbling sand bluffs and ever-more-imperiled homes dangling over the edge. (19)

Florida need look no further than the concrete coastlines of Texas and New Jersey to see how quickly concrete can replace sand, warned Orrin Pilkey, director of Duke University's Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines. (20)

"I really believe Florida, more than any state, has not gotten hold of its erosion problems," Pilkey said. "Florida beaches are either doomed, or the state is going to have a huge nourishment bill in the future."

State lawmakers aren't interested in paying that bill now.

After two years of beefed-up beach reconstruction, lawmakers are ready to roll the state's beach budget back to $30 million a year. At the same time, lawmakers are hesitant to kill an emergency program that promises relief for hurricane victims.

"The ultimate solution is a well-thought-out, well-planned, well-designed beach-renourishment project," said House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, a coastal developer by trade.

Absent that, Bense said, "If I saw my home was falling off into the water, I would do everything I could to protect it as well. I'd fight the bureaucracy as hard as I could.''

He's sympathetic to the coastal homeowners.

"You can't fault them for trying to preserve their homesteads," he said.

Paige St. John reports from Gannett News Service's Tallahassee bureau. She can be reached at psthon@nettally.com. Larry Wheeler reports for Gannett News Service's Washington, D.C., bureau. He can be reached at lwheeler@gns.gannett.com.



Comments from BMBV (me)....

1. desperate measures
"desperate" in one person's view is logical and necessary in another's.

2. luxury homes
Article forgets to mention all the non-luxury homes, such as original block homes and older condos and townhomes that dot Blue Mountain Beach. The word "luxury" could have been eliminated.

3. much of the construction appears to be illegal
How much is much? 90% ? 50% ? 40% ? 30% ? etc.

4. On Walton beaches, extravagant homes for the rich and connected dominate the landscape .
This is what fueled many many of my posts on this thread. The opinion of the writer(s) comes to the surface tor everyone to see. Correct me if I'm wrong... I thought this was a news article, not an editorial.

5. Three years ago, Georgia builder Tony Burton bought a sand-cliff lot for $1 million and erected a three-story house with faux-Greek stone columns.
A little "pinch" of their above spice. What does it matter how much he paid for the lot and whether or not he has faux-Greek columns?

6. He and adjacent homeowners are paying $700,000 to erect a 400-foot "temporary" sheet-metal wall in front of their bluff.
Factually speaking, it is a composite wall, not sheet metal.

7. The barrier is buried under landscaped sand that could wash out in the next storm.
I'm still figuring what the significance of this statement is. Is the sand going to wash out? OR is the barrier going to wash out. Not very clear.

8. The man-made berm ties into a network of variously colored sheet-metal walls
More of the same error (composite wall, not sheet metal).

9. The commission's vote essentially created a permit mill for beach owners who wanted to bolster their crumbling pieces of paradise using heavy equipment, corrugated metal sheets and gigantic textile tubes.
"...who wanted to bolster their crumbling pieces of paradise...."
This paragraph, in all its negative imagery speaks for itself.

10. The construction tore up the beach so thoroughly (10)
I didn't see any areas in our area that were "tore up so thoroughly" as described here. Perhaps the authoris referring to geotextile tubes, very few if any that were installed in Blue Mountain Beach (see location reference at start of article).

This less than desirable visualization could have and probably does have a negative impact on tourism. We at Blue Mountain Beach probably have suffered some sort of monetary damage (although hard to prove).

When this article is published in news papers across the country, one has to wonder what benefit is served to our area other than negative.

11. Twenty-eight of the 30 permits issued in the first 24 hours went to a company owned by Rosier "Ro" Cuchens, one of the county commissioners who voted to take advantage of the emergency law.

Cuchens eventually recused himself from further votes but only after taking on 65 of the projects, more than any other contractor in the county.

This one bothers me a lot. A lot of people have come down on Cuchens regarding "conflict of interest", etc.

Let's get one thing straight. The Walton Commissioners vote was 5 to 0 in favor of allowing temporary structures. This from one of the meetings...
"Walton County supports property owners and authorizes them to protect their property. Walton County will provide an exemption to property owners from any county ordinance that would prohibit individuals from using temporary protection measures including beach scraping, temporary walls, or whatever temporary measures are necessary. Ayes 5, Nayes 0. Jones Aye, Meadows Aye, Pridgen Aye, Brannon Aye, and Cuchens Aye."


Notice that the vote was 5 to 0. It wouldn't have made any difference whatsover if Cuchens voted for or against or abstained, period. I'm just talking fact here.


12. Less than half of those homeowners have applied to make their erosion-prevention structures permanent.
Again, not sure what the significance of this statement is. It's not qualified by the fact that one does not have to submit application until 60 days AFTER COMPLETION of their retaining wall.

13 Even fewer reside in the older slab-foundation homes that are so close to crumbling slopes they are automatically eligible for approval.
This is true to a degree, however these structures can "qualify" others...see next item.

14. Some "armoring" along the beach was constructed in front of newer homes that were built to tougher coastal construction standards. They presumably were designed with wave action in mind and are technically ineligible for armoring.

Some seawalls were even erected to protect empty dunes that one day may support a house or building, a pre-emptive measure not addressed in the statute.

It is evident that the article picks and chooses (or simply does not have a handle on DEP rules).
This is important... The 250 foot gap rule allows a property or properties (regardless if it has a new home or is an empty lot) to close that gap with a retaining wall or other armoring.... a very important rule. The intent is that there may be accelerated erosion where the wall ends.

15. With no setback line for beachfront homes, the state instead relies on coastal construction rules that perch houses above the reach of storm surge, without paying heed to shoreline erosion rates.
I may be wrong here, but isn't that what the CCCL is all about? Doesn't it (supposedly) take into account the 30 year predicted erosion line? I might be missing something here.

16. Homes on stilts are allowed, but hard armoring, as a policy, is not.
Perhaps I'm missing soemthing here as well. Again, newer structures can close a 250 foot gap as stated in item 14 above.

17. Beach engineers cite the sheet-metal battlements being erected in Walton as the second-leading, man-made cause of erosion in Florida, behind dredging.
There seems to be some disagreement here between the article and DEP's website.
From DEP's website:
... While some of this erosion is due to natural forces and imprudent coastal development, a significant amount of coastal erosion in Florida is directly attributable to the construction and maintenance of navigation inlets. Florida has over 60 inlets around the state, many have been artificially deepened to accommodate commercial and recreational vessels and employ jetties to prevent sand from filling in the channels. A by-product of this practice is that the jetties and the inlet channels have interrupted the natural flow of sand along the beach causing an accumulation of sand in the inlet channel and at the jetty on one side of the inlet, and a loss of sand to the beaches on the other side of the inlet.

I have a question to the author(s). How can "sheet-metal battlements being erected in Walton as the second-leading (man-made cause of erosion)" as stated in the article be true. Until this year, there were very few, if any, "sheet-metal battlements". I'll allow a broad interpretation here and change the words "sheet-metal battlements" to retaining walls. Still the statement would be false because very few existed until now. It's amazing how their future prediction became past fact.


18. But Florida's beach renourishment program can't keep pace with development (18)
I have a difficult time seeing the logic here regarding Blue Mountain Beach. Are they talking about on a state wide basis?

19. The eight hurricanes that have hit Florida over the last two years have hastened the inevitable outcome: crumbling sand bluffs and ever-more-imperiled homes dangling over the edge. (19)
The article implies that hurricanes have just an incidental cause ot the erosion effect. It would seem that our high bluffs would erode anyway even without hurricanes. "Hasten" means to speed up from what I remember. Therefore hurricanes are only speeding up what will happen anyway. Tough logic to swallow.

20. Florida need look no further than the concrete coastlines of Texas and New Jersey to see how quickly concrete can replace sand, warned Orrin Pilkey, director of Duke University's Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines.
Several times, I and others, have pointed out that our situation in Blue Mountain Beach is very very unique in terms of elevation. Here's a quote from ecopal from another thread...
ecopal said:
I am just glad that we live on 30A which has the highest elevation coastal property south of Maine including all the east coast and Gulf coast.

The Atlantic coast from New York south is all primarily low lands and extremely vulnerable to storm surge and tsunamis. In addition, most structures there have not been built to hurricane standards.

In comparison to south Florida not only do we have higher elevation here but a greater proportion of our structures are newer and thus built to the updated hurricane codes.

Also, we have somewhere to run to when a hurricane comes. The problem with living in south Florida is ?where do you go?? and? how do you get out through the grid lock?? if a ?big one? is coming.

Hooray we are on 30A!


Something I can agree with.


Thanks for reading,
BMBV
 

John R

needs to get out more
Dec 31, 2005
6,777
824
Conflictinator
so are you sending this in as an op-ed reply?

in regards to Ro, even though there was a majority vote with or without him, he should have recused himself before the vote. the ethics committee(if they go after him) may not find him at fault, but it just seem too convenient for him to have so many contracts.
 

BlueMtnBeachVagrant

Beach Fanatic
Jun 20, 2005
1,331
394
John R said:
so are you sending this in as an op-ed reply?
Admittedly, I had to scramble to find the meaning of op-ed reply...
"a newspaper page, usually opposite the editorial page, that features articles expressing opinion".

John R, innocent question: Was their article suppose to be a news article or an editorial? I guess your answer will determine my answer.

If their article is an editorial (which would explain many of the unnecessary and opinionated statements), then yes this is an op-ed but laced with more fact than opinion (in my opinion :D ).

However, if their artcle is suppose to be a news article, then I would be somewhat concerned as to their objectivity.

in regards to Ro, even though there was a majority vote with or without him, he should have recused himself before the vote. the ethics committee(if they go after him) may not find him at fault, but it just seem too convenient for him to have so many contracts.
No argument here, John R. I agree with you. But in the end (as of today), nothing would be any different if he did recuse from the very beginning.

Thank you.
 

Kurt

Admin
Oct 15, 2004
2,303
5,004
SoWal
mooncreek.com
BlueMtnBeachVagrant said:
No argument here, John R. I agree with you. But in the end (as of today), nothing would be any different if he did recuse from the very beginning.

Thank you.

Only if you separate the results from the process.
 

John R

needs to get out more
Dec 31, 2005
6,777
824
Conflictinator
BlueMtnBeachVagrant said:
Admittedly, I had to scramble to find the meaning of op-ed reply...
"a newspaper page, usually opposite the editorial page, that features articles expressing opinion".

John R, innocent question: Was their article suppose to be a news article or an editorial? I guess your answer will determine my answer.

If their article is an editorial (which would explain many of the unnecessary and opinionated statements), then yes this is an op-ed but laced with more fact than opinion (in my opinion :D ).

However, if their artcle is suppose to be a news article, then I would be somewhat concerned as to their objectivity.

No argument here, John R. I agree with you. But in the end (as of today), nothing would be any different if he did recuse from the very beginning.

Thank you.


I honestly have no idea what their article was meant as. but, since you have put so much work into it, i'd figure it wouldn't hurt to send it in. i don't read that paper, but i'm sure the article raised hairs on others, as it did you, and they've recieved their fair share of letters. there, as here, the reasoning behind the installation of a wall might help educate some.

most news articles reflect the views of the editor in chief, so i'm thinking their's is not a GF owner.

jr
 
New posts


Shop SoWal Photos

Sign Up for SoWal Newsletter