http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/science/earth/09surfers.html?_r=3

Surfers Deal a Blow to a Beach Dredging Project
Michael McElroy for The New York Times


Aquatic life was an interested third party in the court challenge.
The New York Times

Palm Beach is looking to stop erosion on a section of beach.

“The reefs here in this area, and the sand bars that attach to them, form these perfectly shaped waves,” he said. “When it’s good, it’s incredibly good.”

So when the Town of Palm Beach proposed a beach repair project that Mr. Gibson thought posed a threat to those prized breaks, he and other surfers challenged the project in court.

Last week they succeeded in blocking — at least temporarily, on environmental grounds — a strategy widely used against the beach erosion that threatens most of the nation’s coast and is accelerating as global warming fuels the rise of sea levels.

In ruling against the project, the administrative law judge who heard the case, Robert E. Meale, criticized its potential environmental effects and denounced as “worthless” some of the engineering behind it. Advocates of the project, a sand-pumping effort known as beach nourishment, called the ruling misguided and said they feared that if it held up it would drive coastal towns to remedies that are more environmentally dangerous, like constructing seawalls or other coastal armor.

But the surfers and their supporters were delighted.

“These things are claimed to be so beneficial, but not if you don’t do the due diligence,” said Ericka D’Avanzo, who surfs regularly on the beach, which is known as a center of competitive surfing where many champions have trained. She is the Florida regional manager for the Surfrider Foundation, an organization of surfers that backed the challenge. The Snook Foundation, a group of anglers, also joined.

The beach, a section of Palm Beach shoreline known as Reach 8, comprises a park owned by the nearby town of Lake Worth, which supported the surfers, and beaches immediately to the north and south.

“It’s one of the most beautiful areas to surf,” Ms. D’Avanzo said. “It’s like going to the Bahamas — how clear the water is and how much life there is at the reef.”

Mr. Gibson, the fishing editor of Outdoor Life magazine, said surfers also prize the beach because it offers relatively easy public access.

The Reach 8 project would be the latest in a number of beach nourishment efforts Palm Beach has made against its chronic erosion problem. As is typical, the project would involve dredging sand from offshore, mixing it with water and pumping it in a slurry onto the beach and into the nearby surf zone.

Like other critics of beach nourishment, the surfers and their allies argued that unless replacement sand is well matched to the beach, which is hard to do, the sand causes problems, interfering with nesting sea turtles and small animals like sand fleas that form the bottom of beach and marine food webs.

If the sand is too fine — a particular issue in this case — it can cause the water to become cloudy. And because the replacement sand moves around after it is pumped onto the beach, it can end up covering underwater rocks and coral reefs that are important to surfers, divers and anglers.

There are also growing worries about environmental damage where replacement sand is dredged. And the projects are heavily criticized because they often do not last as long as engineering models say they will.

Critics of such models were exultant at the judge’s harsh language about them.

“I am absolutely exhilarated,” said Orrin H. Pilkey, a coastal geologist at Duke University and a longtime critic of development in erosion hazard areas.

Robert S. Young, a coastal geologist who succeeded Dr. Pilkey as head of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, now at Western Carolina University, said that the models “are really useless for prediction.”

Dr. Young, who testified for the surfers, said in an interview that such beach projects were nevertheless rarely challenged. “For a small, underfunded group to have a permit pulled because the project was poorly designed and there is potential environmental damage — this is the first time,” he said.

But Robert G. Dean, a coastal engineer at the University of Florida who testified for Palm Beach in the case, said in an interview that Florida offered abundant evidence for beach nourishment as an erosion remedy.

“This experiment has been done in Palm Beach County and it has been successful,” Dr. Dean said. In the last 50 years, he said, beach nourishment has restored many heavily eroded Florida beaches, much to the benefit of the state and its economy.

He conceded that one model, called Genesis, used in planning the Reach 8 project displayed serious deficiencies in the design process, but said it had been abandoned in favor of another that worked better.

Anyway, Dr. Dean added, “whatever models may say, we have a demonstrated record of success on the east coast of Florida. Absolutely.”

Martha Collins, a lawyer who represented the surfers, said each side had 30 days to comment on the ruling, which would then go to Michael W. Sole, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Mr. Sole must accept or reject the ruling, in toto or in part, by June, she said.

Ms. Collins is not a surfer but said she decided to become an environmental lawyer when, as a high school student in Marco Island, on Florida’s west coast, she saw a beach nourishment project leave a beach she loved “more or less destroyed.” She said Judge Meale’s decision to bar the project on environmental grounds was a first.

Peter B. Elwell, the town manager of Palm Beach, said the Town Council would meet with lawyers who argued the town’s case “to review the options and prospects for appealing all or some of this decision.” Until then, Mr. Elwell said, “it would not be appropriate to talk about it.”

Dr. Dean said challenges like in the Palm Beach case would only make a bad situation worse, as people whose buildings are threatened turn instead to seawalls or other hard structures known to damage beaches.

Many communities that rely on sea walls or the like have seen their beaches vanish under rising waters.

Dr. Dean said he had spoken to the Palm Beach Shore Protection Board shortly before Judge Meale issued his decision.

“They are hell-bent on structures now,” he said. “Anything they try to do in the water, there is just so much weight lined up against them.”

A previous version of this article misstated Robert Young's middle initial. He is Robert S. Young, not Robert G. Young.


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http://www.nantucketindependent.com/news/2009/0311/PDF/Page_05.pdf


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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?&entry_id=36745


Gnarly Break For Florida Surfers

Surfers aren't just athletes, or potheads, anymore: They're environmental activists. Locally, Santa Cruz's Save the Waves Coalition has made news with its efforts to protect famous local breaks. The Surfrider Foundation, founded in 1984 in Malibu, has gone national, and just won a major victory in Florida.

As development exacerbates beach erosion, many communities are looking to "beach nourishment"—or pumping sand from offshore, mixing it with water, and dumping it on the beach—to save their beaches. The method is less environmentally destructive than sea walls (one of which is under consideration in Malibu).

But beach nourishment also has a substantial environmental price tag of its own and a patchy record of success. Nourishment can interfere with nesting birds and turtles on the beach, and can bury the coral reefs that create breaks and sustain marine life. Surfrider was able to get a permit to conduct beach nourishment on Palm Beach revoked after questioning the quality of the Environmental Impact Report.

Meanwhile, however, nourishment projects continue at San Francisco's Ocean Beach and at several SoCal beaches.

With sea levels rising and 86 percent of California's coastline actively eroding, we've got to start thinking seriously about how to handle beach erosion in more effective, less destructive ways. Unfortunately, setting development back further is a key recommendation, so tough decisions lie ahead.

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http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/content/news/2009/03/02/reach8web0303.html

Judge rules against town on Reach 8
Listen to this article or download audio file.Click-2-Listen

By WILLIAM KELLY
Daily News Staff Writer

Monday, March 02, 2009

Reach 8 Debate
Full coverage of the Reach 8 hearings, along with related news and opinion.




Dealing a heavy blow to the town's effort to combat beach erosion, an administrative law judge has recommended against a state environmental permit required for reconstruction of Reach 8.

In a decision released Monday, Judge R.E. Meale said the town in its request for the permit failed to provide reasonable assurance that water resources would not be harmed and failed to mitigate environmental damage.

The sand the town proposes to dredge for the beach fill project would be excessively fine compared to existing sand on the beach, Meale wrote in the decision.

Meale did not recommend, however, against a dune-only reconstruction in the southernmost 2,764 feet of Reach 8.

Meale's decision is a recommendation to state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael W. Sole, who can be expected to issue a final order within 45 days, according to Kelly Russell, the DEP's assistant general counsel.

Town Councilman and South End resident Richard Kleid said he was surprised by Meale's decision because he thought the town had made a strong case for the beach project during a hearing before Meale last year.

Meale's recommendation is certainly not good news for the town, Kleid said.

"If no permit is issued for Reach 8, we'll have to see whether an alternative permit could be issued," he said. "Unfortunately that could set us back to square one. It's a process that could take years."

The council was expected to discuss the decision during a special meeting, called to consider another matter, at 7 Monday night.

Reach 8 extends 1.8 miles from the Ambassador II condominium at 2780 S. Ocean Blvd. to the southern town limit, excluding the Lake Worth Municipal Beach.

The town proposes to dredge more than 700,000 cubic yards of sand from offshore and rebuild the beach and dune system to shield oceanfront properties from wave damage during storms.

Meale presided over a hearing in August, September and October to consider a challenge filed by environmentalists who sought to block reconstruction of the eroded South End beach.

The petitioners — the Surfrider and Snook foundations and three individuals — contend the dredge-and-fill project would cover reefs, harm marine life and undermine recreational uses of the beach.

They filed a petition in March 2008 challenging the DEP's notice of its intent to grant a permit for the project.

"We have our experts to thank for their hard work in proving these projects do indeed do damage to the nearshore coastal environment," said Ericka Davanzo, Surfrider's regional manager in Florida.

"This is just an unbelieveable win for Surfrider, the ESA [Eastern Surfing Association], City of Lake Worth and, most importantly, the beach," said Fort Lauderdale attorney Brady J. Cobb, who represents the Eastern Surfing Association, which joined the petitioners in a supporting role.

"The findings of fact and law are pretty strong that Palm Beach failed to meet their burden to show the need for the project and that it won't adversely affect the environment."

Eileen Curran, who lives at The Enclave condominium along Reach 8, said the ocean touches the dunes in front of her building at high tide, and she and her neighbors feel threatened.

The judge's decision is a blow not just for Reach 8 or Palm Beach, but for coastal communities throughout the area, said Curran, who served on the town's Shore Protection Board during the 1990s.

The decision fails to recognize that Palm Beach is losing sand to the Palm Beach Inlet, which interrupts the natural north-to-south drift, she said.

"We feel we have been led to believe that eventually this reach and the other reaches would be given the sand they require to maintain a safe distance between the dune and the high tide line," she said.

Talk of the Town

We appreciate reader comments on this story, but at PalmBeachDailyNews.com, we want to avoid comments that are obscene, hateful, racist or otherwise inappropriate. If you post such comments, we will delete them. If you see such comments, please report them to us by emailing feedback@pbdailynews.com.

Pat Thomas
Editor, Palm Beach Daily News

Comments

By Russell

Mar 4, 2009 3:07 PM | Link to this

Man can only alter, never improve, upon Nature's order. It doesn't take a marine engineer to understand the hydrodynamic effect of prevailing easterly winds, constant northerly current and rapid tidal flow from man-made inlets. Nonetheless, the history of seawalls, groins and "beach renourishment" is one of failure. So much for trying to engineer something as powerful as tidal forces. Every speck of sand pumped during previous projects has moved far from where the project managers predicted they would stabilize, with devestating effect to reefs and fish habitat.

This is a common sense decision from the court. Perhaps people will finally realize that trying to rationalize cost/benefit/loss scenarios always fail the environment.

Kudos to Surfrider, ESA, Snook Foundation... and of course, the always dynamic Florida Coastline.

By Tom

Mar 3, 2009 3:42 PM | Link to this

This is wonderful news! What was not covered in the story was the fact that the judge decided against the Town on each and every part of the case presented by the seven petitioners: Surfrider Foundation, The Snook Foundation, Terry Gibson, Tom Warnke, Danny Barrow, The Eastern Surfing Association and the City of Lake Worth.
Those who decided to just say no to the foolhardy practice of dumping mud on our precious beaches listed dozens of specific, science-based reasons why the methods and material proposed for the dredge and fill project by the Town would cause significant harm, would give residents a false sense of security and would be a complete waste of taxpayer money. On each and every part of the lawsuit, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs. Case closed. So here are the choices: Construct a dune, plant it with native vegetation, and if the ocean moves in, move away from the ocean. All those who buy oceanfront property in the Reach 8 area are already required to sign an agreement at the time of closing, that they are aware that their property is in harms way. That has been a state law for more than 20 years. Buyer beware.

By Surf&Turf

Mar 3, 2009 2:15 PM | Link to this

Obviously the judge saw the big picture and understood the issues put forth Surfrider Foundation and the others. The Town of Palm Beach was out-lawyered, out smarted and again, out of common sense.

My hat is off to those who stood their ground too protect Florida's natural resources, the reason most of us live here today.

By Old Man In The Sea

Mar 3, 2009 1:55 PM | Link to this

It is great that the judge weighed the experts' evidence and chose to not repeat the failures of the past. Hopefully the back biting is over and everybody can work together to find a solution to save our precious coastline and habitat.







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http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story/Judge-rules-in-favor-of-reef-protection/TZfh59XmB0OnC2ec_N9jGA.cspx


Judge rules in favor of reef protection

Reported by: WPTV staff
Email: webteam@wptv.com
Last Update: 3/10 2:22 pm
Related Links

* Surfrider Foudation

PALM BEACH, FL -- A Judge has ruled in favor of reef protection and denied the town's proposal for a beach renourishment project that could have caused significant environmental damage.

The Reach 8 project would have involved dredging sand from offshore drilling, mixing it with water and pumping it in a slurry onto the beach and into a nearby surf zone.

The details of the ruling and the list of charges one could face for harming reefs is below.

Florida judge rules to protect Palm Beach County reefs.



Administrative Law Judge Robert E. Meale, in a 277 page decision, recommended the FDEP deny the Town of Palm Beach a permit to dredge 724,000 cu. yds. of poor quality sand onto local beaches.



Understanding that the silty poor quality sand proposed for the project could result in significant environmental damage the judge took a firm stand on reef protection on page 231 he says: Because of the rare confluence of conditions required for its creation, the Florida Reef Tract cannot be replaced in any timeframe short of geologic time, so its protection, even from remote risks, must be a matter of exceptional regulatory concern. . .the performance of the beach, filled with excessive fines, poses a potential threat to the offshore reef. Storm-driven plumes of unnatural turbidity can carry these particles from Reach 8 to the offshore reef, where they may settle on the coral, obviously harming or killing this critical resource.



Judge Meale determined the engineering models for the Town of Palm Beach project were worthless and unreliable. On page 127 Judge Meale states: CPEs reliance on GENESIS was an embarrassment, and its predicted limits of longshore transport were worthless. Frankly, the main effect of GENESIS in this case is to cast doubt on CPEs other assurances concerning the performance of this project. . .



The ruling reads like a laundry list of potential crimes against nature:



* Palm Beach has failed to undertake a monitoring program to assure that the project does not have an adverse impact on the Florida Reef Tract.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide adequate engineering data concerning shoreline stability and performance, post-construction, and the potential impacts of the project upon the beach-dune system of Reach 8.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide sufficient mitigation to assure the performance of the Permit with respect to the covering of hardbottom.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide reasonable assurance that the direct and indirect coverage of hardbottom will be limited to 6.9 acres, so it has failed to provide adequate mitigation.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide any mitigation whatsoever for the expected deaths of five juvenile green turtles from the loss of 6.9 acres of hardbottom and additional juvenile sea turtles from the loss of additional hardbottom.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide any mitigation for the turbidity that would result from the project and deprive a wide range of species from the use of these beach and nearshore habitats, other than the mitigated hardbottom, for a period of about one year.
* Palm Beach has failed to justify the scope of this project, given the large overfill factor that results from the relatively large discrepancy between the mean grain size of the sand source and the existing beach.
* Palm Beach has failed to establish that Reach 8 is eroding, especially the majority of it that is not designated CEB .
* Palm Beach has failed to justify the use of a limited resource--offshore sand--to restore considerable lengths of nonCEB, especially where they may be other, dissipative beaches that are CEBs…
* Palm Beach has failed to show that the proposed project would produce a net positive benefit to the coastal system. To the contrary, the project would produce a net negative impact to the coastal system, again due to the use of excessive fines in the fill. The impacts from turbidity are unmitigated; the impacts from hardbottom coverage are only partly mitigated.
* Palm Beach has failed to protect all of the environmental functions of Florida's beaches by proposing to fill Reach 8 with fill whose mean grain size is little more than half the mean grain size of the existing beach and will not maintain the general character and functionality of the beach, dune, and coastal system of Reach 8.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide reasonable assurance that the project protects the water resources of the district from harm.
* Palm Beach has failed to provide reasonable assurance that the project is not contrary to the public interest.
* Palm Beach failed to show that the project would satisfy any one of the public-interest criteria except the criterion concerning archaeological and historical resources; even for the criterion of temporary versus permanent, the recurring nature of beach nourishments, on a cycle of probably two or three years, lends to the project a certain permanency.
* The project would affect the property of others in essentially closing the Lake Worth Municipal Beach and Lake Worth Pier for about one year. The project would interfere with public safety by elevating the turbidity of the local waters, so as to raise the risk of shark...



We are elated Judge Meale understands the significance of protecting the coastal ecosystem and a 7,000 year old irreplaceable coral reef tract.



We hope FDEP Secretary Michael Sole heeds Judge Meales recommendations and signs-off on the ruling to deny the dredge and fill permit to the Town of Palm Beach.



Congratulations to the Surfrider Foundation, Snook Foundation, the City of Lake Worth, the law firm of Collins & West and everyone who worked endless hours to help achieve this victory.



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Palm Beach County Chapter Wins Major Court Battle
March 9, 2009
PRESS RELEASE

Palm Beach, FL -Administrative Law Judge Robert E. Meale ruled late yesterday that the Town of Palm Beach be denied a Joint Coastal Permit to nourish Reach 8. One year ago in March 2008, the Surfrider Foundation, Snook Foundation, and three individuals filed suit against the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for approving a Joint Coastal Permit for the Town of Palm Beach to dredge-and-fill Reach 8. The Town of Palm Beach intervened on behalf of the DEP, and the City of Lake Worth and Eastern Surfing Association intervened in opposition of the project. The trial lasted three weeks, ending in October of last year.

Reach 8 is one of eleven reaches of beach within the County of Palm Beach. The Town of Palm Beach nourished Reach 7 two years ago costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Reach 7 caused substantial environmental harm to the local coastal resources and has already significantly eroded away.

The Town of Palm Beach was proposing more of the same in their attempt to dredge-and- fill Reach 8. Reach 8 extends 1.8 miles and includes beaches within the Town of Palm Beach and the City of Lake Worth. The Town of Palm Beach proposed dredging offshore and filling in 700,000 cubic yards of fill material on Reach 8 directly burying seven acres of nearshore hardbottom reef.

The City of Lake Worth maintains a public park within Reach 8 and opted out of the Joint Coastal Permit due to the projects' potential to harm their environmental resources and local economy dependent on them.

"This is a tremendous win for Florida's Beaches," said Chapter Chair Greg Lyon. "To our knowledge, this is the first time that any court in the US has flatly rejected the permitting of an approved dredge-and-fill project due primarily to the potential negative environmental impacts."

The five petitioners proved the dredge-and-fill project would destroy the beach and coastal environment by directly burying reefs, killing marine life, including endangered seaturtles, and overall destabilizing fishing, diving, surfing and other valuable recreational uses of the area.
"The Judge clearly grasped the significance of the geological and biological coastal systems in this area and their rarity. His ruling focused extensively on the overwhelming data from numerous experts that supported the denial of this permit," said attorney Jane West, whose firm Collins & West, P.A. represented the five petitioners.

Rob Young, Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University and an expert witness in the case expressed admiration for the judge's ruling. "Judge Meale took a very hard look at the numerical computer model used to predict where the nourishment sand would go, and he strongly criticized its use," Young said. "This same model, GENESIS, is used all over the country for the design of beach nourishment projects. The Judge's ruling is a serious indictment of that practice."

"We look forward to working with our experts and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to re-examine its policies on beach management and realize these dredge and fill projects can be detrimental to the coastal environment they are alleged to be protecting," said Ericka Davanzo, Surfrider's Regional Manager in Florida.

Judge Meale's ruling is an order of recommendation to Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Michael Sole, who will now have 45 days to issue the final order.

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