By the TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers Editorial Board
The sands along Treasure Coast beaches are ever shifting. It happens each day with the ebb and flow of the tides, and it’s particularly noticeable when powerful storms alter the shoreline.
Most often, we notice when significant amounts of sand disappear. Storm-fueled waves sometimes render popular beaches unrecognizable overnight.
It is, however, all part of nature’s plan. Sand might be rinsed away in one busy day, only to gradually return to the same spot over the course of years or even decades.
Not that people are content to accept that’s all part of a cycle we can’t control. As a recent article by TCPalm reporter Keith Burbank noted, Treasure Coast governments have spent well over $100 million during the last five years on beach-renourishment work along our shorelines.
A never-ending battle humans cannot win
Respectively, St. Lucie, Indian River and Martin counties spent $73.5 million, $28 million and $16.9 million during that time. Much of the money comes from state or federal grants, but some local funds are used, too.
Where does all that money go? Mostly into projects to transport sand from inland mines or the ocean floor to beaches that have experienced the heaviest losses.
It’s a little bit more complicated than it sounds. The sand used to buff up beaches must be similar to the kind it’s replacing. Also, there’s an ongoing need to monitor the shoreline, including reefs and sea turtle and bird nests.
It’s a never-ending battle ― maintenance, as one beach-renourishment proponent once called it, as essential as mowing your lawn.
Still, sand that’s placed on Treasure Coast beaches today might be churning its way through the Gulf Stream toward Europe in a matter of days or weeks. Or it might shift only enough to create sandbars that imperil local navigation channels.
It’s fair to ask, why do our government officials keep doing this? This is a question that has been asked repeatedly over many years.
“I’d say it’s pretty much throwing money into the ocean,” Andy Brady, president of the Conservation Alliance of St. Lucie County, said in a TCPalm article from 2012. “It’s pretty much a Band-Aid. All the beach renourishments I’ve seen have lasted a while and, eventually, the sand washed away.”
Are we throwing good money after bad?
In a piece written less than two years ago, TCPalm columnist Laurence Reisman noted how Hurricane Nicole had essentially erased a lot of the work done on a $4.8 million Vero Beach renourishment project that was started in 2019.
Martin County’s Bathtub Beach, a popular spot for swimmers and snorkelers, is currently being restored at a projected cost of $7.1 million. That’s the same spot that had to be closed in 2020 for “repairs” due to erosion damage.
The county’s website notes Bathtub Beach gets this kind of work every three years in order to remain, well, a beach.
Is all of this spending up and down the coast really necessary? Tourism officials would tell you yes, absolutely it is, because beaches attract the visitors that keep the local economy humming. As noted in Burbank’s story, tourists ― many of them beachgoers ― reportedly spent $693.2 million in St. Lucie County during 2022 alone.
Tourism is important. However, it’s also an oversimplification to suggest all tourism spending would evaporate if our communities spent less on beach renourishment.
A national research paper mentioned in Burbank’s article says the federal government gets $230 in taxes for every dollar spent on renourishment projects. That sounds pretty impressive, but could that tax yield be even higher if beach-renourishment funds were spent more judiciously?
This isn’t to suggest local governments should halt all beach-renourishment work. It would be sensible to start performing cost-benefit analyses on these projects.
Instead of taking it on faith that every project is necessary and beneficial, why not approach the process with a bit of skepticism about the wisdom of continually butting heads with Mother Nature?
This is an election year. Candidates for political office often run on platforms that include plans to cut “fraud, waste and mismanagement.”
Fraud and mismanagement are often tough to spot, and one person’s “waste” is another person’s critical government service.
Beach renourishment seems like a line item in local budgets that could indeed use closer scrutiny, though.
Kids love playing in the sand at our local beaches. Yet when adults do the same, it tends to get expensive.
This opinion piece was originally published by TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. Editorials published by TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers are decided collectively by its editorial board.
If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here.
