Florida without beaches: Seawall paves our future
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued an emergency authorization last week that will allow individual property owners in a portion of St. Johns County to build new seawalls without the typical engineering and scientific analysis. This is a terrible mistake for the communities impacted. It is poor coastal management. And it will set a terrible precedent for future storm impacts in other areas of the state.
Let’s begin with why seawalls are regulated in the first place: When a property owner builds a seawall to protect an investment home on the oceanfront, the beach will disappear in front of that wall. Simple as that. The seawall doesn’t halt shoreline erosion. It just prevents the shoreline from moving past a particular “line in the sand.” In addition, seawalls deprive adjacent beaches of sand and increase the rate of erosion on any neighbor’s property. These impacts are well accepted by coastal managers, scientists and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
This is why many states ban oceanfront seawalls altogether. The state of South Carolina banned seawalls with its comprehensive Beachfront Management Act in 1987. Much of the impetus for this ban was the fact that the vast majority of the high-tide beach had disappeared from the state’s most important tourist destination, Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand. In 2013, the South Carolina Blue Ribbon Commission for Shoreline change was charged with reviewing the state’s policy toward seawalls (among other things). This commission, made up largely of conservative legislators, entertained little discussion about revoking the seawall ban. It has, by all accounts, served the state well.
It is instructive to read the legislative findings from South Carolina’s Beachfront Management Act. It states: “These hard structures, in many instances, have increased the vulnerability of beachfront property to damage from wind and waves while contributing to the deterioration and loss of the dry sand beach which is so important to the tourism industry.” To the people of South Carolina, this is not an environmental issue. It is an economic issue.
The same should be true in Florida. This emergency order may be great for the individual, oceanfront property owner who will get to protect an investment by building a seawall, but it will be terrible for everyone else in the community. How many visitors to Vilano Beach stay in an oceanfront home? I would guess the vast majority of Vilano property owners and tourists are staying somewhere off the beach or visiting for the day and going to a restaurant. If the relatively small number of oceanfront property owners are allowed to destroy the beach by constructing seawalls, they will be killing the economic engine that drives the entire community — the recreational beach.
Of course, when the beach is gone, the county and the municipality will have the option of initiating long-term beach nourishment. This is where you rebuild the missing beach by pumping sand from offshore. Many places do this. It will cost you only around $40 million to $80 million every five or six years. Is it really worth it to protect a small number of oceanfront homes?
Finally, not every oceanfront property owner will want to build a seawall, and not every oceanfront property owner will be able to afford to build a seawall. This kind of emergency authorization will result in a parcel-by-parcel patchwork of big walls, small walls and no walls. This is the worst — I repeat worst — possible way to manage the coast. Properties without walls will see increased erosion from their neighbors, and they will file suit. Believe me. Vilano Beach will have no beach (maybe officials can drop the word from the town name), but it will have angry residents suing each other.
This likely impact to neighboring properties is recognized in the Florida Administrative Code. It states, “Coastal armoring, however, may negatively impact the integrity and natural functioning of the beach and dune system, and it may also increase the vulnerability of adjacent unarmored properties to storm damage.” It is hard to imagine why the Florida DEP would assert the need to evaluate these clear, negative impacts of seawalls, and then completely waive those requirements just because a hurricane recently caused some beach erosion.
It is a terrible precedent. In the future, all oceanfront property owners, statewide, will expect the same emergency authorization. Take this to its extreme and you can envision a state with wellprotected oceanfront homes looking down on a beachless oceanfront. Sure, some places with enough sand and money will be able to rebuild the beach with dredge and fill projects. But, many places will not.
Are you paying attention, Vilano?