Beach Restoration Begins this Weekend

At long last, beach restoration in Destin is ready to begin. City engineer Chuck Meister said that after a Wednesday morning meeting with Great Lakes Dock and Dredge — the contractor of the $28 million Destin/Walton beach restoration project — he was told dredging would begin this weekend.

The dredge Liberty Island arrived in Destin on Friday afternoon and Meister said dredging was expected to begin immediately, maybe as early as Friday evening. The project will start at the eastern Destin city limits, near the Okaloosa/Walton County line and Capt. Dave’s on the Gulf restaurant and work its way east, pumping sand onto two miles of Destin beach, east of Henderson Beach State Park.

Meister said the project will take about 60 days to complete. “We hope to be done by the Fourth of July if all goes well,” Meister said.

Controversy and beach restoration have almost become synonymous on the Emerald Coast and this weekend’s restart of the Destin/Walton beach restoration project is no exception. A handful of Destin Gulf- front property owners have requested the assistance of Sheriff Charlie Morris in arresting and prosecuting beach restoration work crews for trespassing on their property.

A letter written to the sheriff by Shannon Goessling of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, on behalf of those property owners, asked the sheriff to arrest any workers or representatives from Great Lakes or the city on their property. “...Our clients may be calling on you for assistance regarding the imminent trespass on their private property by employees, agents or other person associated with Great Lakes Dock and Dredge Company or with the City of Destin,” the letter reads. “Our clients would like any of these persons arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible under the law.” However, no arrests will be made.

In response to Ms. Goessling’s letter, James Murray, attorney for the sheriff, said the sheriff’s office would not find itself in the middle of this dispute and would arrest no one for trespassing. “Because this matter is in the civil court of appeal, the Sheriff’s Office will not insert itself into the controversy of making criminal arrests out of the very issues before the court,” Murray’s letter reads. Murray did say that deputies would respond and document any dispute between the property owners and the city of Destin and would file a report with the State Attorney’s Office.

City Manager Greg Kisela wrote a letter to all interested parties, including Ms. Goessling, stating the city’s position on the matter. “In order to complete this project, the city of Destin has found it necessary to exercise its police powers to provide Great Lakes access to certain upland properties within the project beach fill area,” Kisela wrote. “To avoid claims for damages, we encourage you not to delay Great Lakes completion of this work.”

Kisela said the city will do what it has to do to complete the project. “Those property owners will call the sheriff to file a formal complaint so they have record of it so they can say that we trespassed and I understand that,” Kisela said in an interview. “We are trespassing and if we damage their property while we’re trespassing then we’ll come back and fix it, but giving them free sand is not damaging their property.”

While some property owners are clearly unhappy with beach restoration beginning again in Destin, some of the community’s leaders are trumpeting the return of the dredges. Mayor Craig Barker said the project will bring much needed relief to the eroded beaches of Destin. “The beach is Destin’s best asset and unfortunately a half decade of tumultuous storms has eroded the sand away to the point where our once expansive dunes are almost nonexistent,” he said. “The time is past due that we return our beaches to their award-winning form so we’re all very anxious to get this restoration project completed.”

The Destin leg is the last part of a joint project with Walton County that, when completed, will have restored 5 miles of South Walton beach and 2 miles in Destin. The Walton County portion of the project was completed in January. When finished, the project will have added 80-100 feet of sand to those two miles of Destin beach.

The restored beach was designed to protect upland structures from hurricanes and tropical storms as strong as a Category 3 hurricane, which generates winds of 111-130 mph and storm surge of 9-12 feet. The original cost of the project was $22 million but is now expected to cost about $28 million due to delays.

Published on Saturday, May 5, 2007