Jane
Beach Fanatic
Just wondering after reading this below? Are beachfront owners so greedy they won't let us take of the beach?
The National Weather Service determined the storm (Hurricane Ivan 2004) cost more than $14 billion in damage across the Gulf Coast from Mobile Bay to Panama City Beach. Highway 98 in Okaloosa County partially washed away on Okaloosa Island and Destin. Neighbors helped one another remove downed trees from homes and wrangle floating furniture. Power crews from out of state took up the task of clearing downed lines from streets and subdivisions.
But the destruction Ivan wrought would not stop with the cleanup. It would advance and accelerate the conflict between beachfront property owners and local and state governments. After Hurricane Opal made landfall in 1995, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection – in an effort to protect the Panhandle’s beach tourism- began an effort to replace the sand that had been lost due to erosion from the storm. As a consequence of that process, called renourishment, the State argued that they now owned the land closest to the water. Beachfront owners argued that, no, the state did not. The additional erosion caused by Ivan increased the case’s urgency – and the Supreme Court would eventually decide it in favor of the State’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Though the decision clearly decided that land created by the beach renourishment process became property of the State of Florida, the “sand wars” have only escalated. Beachfront property owners have rejected efforts by the state to renourish beaches in front of their homes and have worked within the state legislature to restrict public access to sand in front of their beaches. To this day, it could be considered the single-largest local issue in Walton County politics.
The National Weather Service determined the storm (Hurricane Ivan 2004) cost more than $14 billion in damage across the Gulf Coast from Mobile Bay to Panama City Beach. Highway 98 in Okaloosa County partially washed away on Okaloosa Island and Destin. Neighbors helped one another remove downed trees from homes and wrangle floating furniture. Power crews from out of state took up the task of clearing downed lines from streets and subdivisions.
But the destruction Ivan wrought would not stop with the cleanup. It would advance and accelerate the conflict between beachfront property owners and local and state governments. After Hurricane Opal made landfall in 1995, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection – in an effort to protect the Panhandle’s beach tourism- began an effort to replace the sand that had been lost due to erosion from the storm. As a consequence of that process, called renourishment, the State argued that they now owned the land closest to the water. Beachfront owners argued that, no, the state did not. The additional erosion caused by Ivan increased the case’s urgency – and the Supreme Court would eventually decide it in favor of the State’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Though the decision clearly decided that land created by the beach renourishment process became property of the State of Florida, the “sand wars” have only escalated. Beachfront property owners have rejected efforts by the state to renourish beaches in front of their homes and have worked within the state legislature to restrict public access to sand in front of their beaches. To this day, it could be considered the single-largest local issue in Walton County politics.