Hillsboro puts erosion blame on other cities
HILLSBORO BEACH — Keeping Hillsboro Beach from looking more like Hillsboro Cliffs was the aim of a $6.4 million beach renourishment project the Town Commission approved in 2010.
But the sand for what some consider a private beach didn’t stick around for nearly as long as the payments will. Hillsboro Beach’s special sand assessment lasts until 2020. The sand barely stayed around for a year after the project was completed. That was when Hurricane Sandy hit. “It’s like a leased car that was wrecked through no fault of your own and you still have to pay the lease,” Vice Mayor Deb Tarrant said.
Now, after buying enough sand over the last16 years to cover a football field more than 400 feet deep, town officials are exploring a solution beyond simply importing new sand
for its 3-mile stretch of beach. And that solution could cost taxpayers in the cities north of Hillsboro Beach: Deerfield Beach and Boca Raton.
Last month, Hillsboro Beach’s Town Commission hired a $300-an-hour Tallahassee coastal law firm to make the case that the erosion shrinking the town’s sandy stretch is not natural, but rather the result of Boca Raton’s insufficient dredging at the Boca Raton Inlet and Deerfield Beach’s manmade, aging structures that trap sand called groin fields.
These coastal features are sand-starving the eastern edge of Hillsboro Beach, leaders contend. They say data proves Boca Raton should dredge more with a bigger dredge boat to restore the natural flow of sand to the area, as Florida statutes require.
Beach “nourishing is not the answer — nourishing is a Band-Aid,” Tarrant said. “Natural erosion is one thing. ... We don’t have a natural erosion problem. What we have is man-made erosion.”
But Mike Woika, Boca Raton’s assistant city manager, dismisses the idea that Boca Raton is to blame for the neighboring city’s beach woes: “Ridiculous,” he said.
The latest analysis from the state Department of Environmental Protection supports his contention that Boca Raton’s dredging is sufficient. But Hillsboro Beach officials said the state’s most generous calculations of what Boca Raton is dredging annually is a fraction of what it should be.
But Woika said that doesn’t wash.
“We’re keeping clear,” he insisted.
Hillsboro Beach also makes the case that Boca Raton should be dredging directly east of the inlet an-
the
inlet nually — more like natural conditions — instead of once every eight years. But Woika said that’s not practical, considering the permitting involved.
“There’s no way it makes sense,” he said.
Hillsboro Beach is also pointing fingers at Deerfield Beach’s groin fields that extend into the ocean. They trap sand that should naturally drift onto Hillsboro Beach, Hillsboro’s Tarrant said.
“They were permitted in 1958 and many of the groins have deteriorated,” she said. “The first mile of Hillsboro Beach is trapped in the shadow of the groin.”
But from Deerfield Beach’s perspective, the groin fields are working just fine.
“They have stabilized our public beach for 60 years,” said Chad Grecsek, Deerfield Beach’s director of recycling and solid waste management who also oversaw the beach renourish- ment project that was completed earlier this year. “Our beaches are public and they [the rock groin fields] were put in to maintain our public beaches.”
Hillsboro Beach officials contend their beach is public also — if there’s enough sand to sustain one. There’s a public stairway to the beach at the DeerfieldHillsboro line, but beachgoers can’t access the Hillsboro Beach side unless it’s kept buffed up with sand.
The state contributed $700,000 to a $2.1 million beach renourishment project that Hillsboro Beach and Deerfield Beach completed in a joint project earlier this year to reverse damage left by Hurricane Sandy. So, right now, that public passageway is open.
But Broward County has so far refused to contribute to that project, citing, in part, that Hillsboro Beach’s shoreline is closed to the public, according to Deerfield Beach officials.
But Tarrant, new to the Town Commission earlier this year, is undeterred. She said the sand is needed for more than supporting property values along the stretch of tony beachfront properties.
“We have one of the highest population of [sea] turtle nests of anywhere,” she said. “We do a fabulous job for the turtles.”
And, clearly
Hillsboro Beach’s residents expect elected officials to maintain their golden stretch of coast.
“When I moved to my place, I moved there for the beach,” Donna Purre said to the Town Commission earlier this month, after the beach in front of her townhouse disappeared. ageggis@tribpub.com, 561-243-6624 or Twitter @AnneBoca.