Emergency Dune Repair Project
At the Town Council meeting held on November 29 (rescheduled from November 10), the agenda included a discussion regarding the state of the dunes and the damaging effects of the dual Hurricanes Ian and Nicole to impact the beaches in our Town late in the 2022 Hurricane Season. This detailed discussion lead to a determination that an emergency dune repair project be pursued by the Town.
For the meeting, Town staff had obtained beach and dune survey data post-Ian, and again post-Nicole, to compare with data from the regular such surveys earlier in the year, as well as data evidencing the impacts of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and the subsequent repair. The post-Nicole survey affirmed the conclusions of the post-Nicole visual assessment conducted by Town and County staff with the Town’s coastal engineering consultant on November 10. As many of you have seen for yourselves already, the combined impacts of Ian and Nicole eroded almost all the sand from the dunes built in 2021 by Indian River County as part of the Sector 3 Phase 1 major renourishment project. In some places, the escarpment has eroded back to the “old” dunes reaching the established vegetation. Following the latest storm, the berm of the beach is elevated, which is somewhat advantageous to the protection of the remaining dunes as well as to the design template for repair of the dunes. Although natural berm building may be possible, the dunes are not able to be restored through natural processes alone.
Importantly, Indian River County is not anticipated to undertake any beach renourishment or dune repair work outside of County-owned beach access parks in response to these storms at this time. Therefore, immediately following both hurricanes, Town staff worked diligently to obtain pertinent information for the Town Council to consider in its efforts to protect the community. Following particularly Hurricane Nicole, staff began an intensive effort to position the Town for a potential emergency dune project, including discussions with contractors for acquisition, hauling and placement of sand, Indian River County for beach access and permitting, local governmental entities for piggybacking opportunities, and the Town's coastal engineer for project design and anticipated fill requirements.
At the public meeting on November 29, the Town’s coastal engineer gave a comprehensive presentation and recommended that the Town Council proceed with an emergency repair project. The Town Council was in unanimous agreement. The project, expected to take approximately two weeks, will add at least a protective slope in front of the current dune face and is likely to include some additional high dune restoration, particularly around crossover structures where more sand loss occurred. However, the Town’s project will not come close to replacing all the sand that was lost in these dual storms and will not reach the extent of the County’s major dune renourishment project. This is an emergency measure to protect the established dune prior to the start of the next hurricane season.
Although this type of interim project is undeniably a costly means of dealing with recurrent dune erosion, it is the only means available to the Town under current regulatory restrictions imposed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. More durable alternatives, such as various dune armoring measures, are not currently permissible for our beach and dunes. If regulatory relief were granted, such solutions would involve significant cost upon installation, but would be more financially feasible long-term and would avoid the disruption of repetitive interim sand replenishment. The Town Council is interested in exploring opportunities to collaborate with neighboring communities on the barrier island to cooperatively achieve amendment of current state regulations to allow such alternative solutions in the future.
Over the past years, the Town Council established a healthy reserve balance in order to respond to coastal events such as those experienced this year. As recently as this summer, the Town Council investigated the economic influences on the price of emergency repair projects to be able to take into account inflated costs of labor, fuel and sand in setting the Town’s reserve target. Of course, the dual impacts of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in such quick succession could not be specifically anticipated. But the Town Council has prepared the Town financially to respond decisively to protect our dunes, which in turn protect our community.
