Without beach access, Palm Beach dune nourishment project risks yearlong delay, staff warn

Palm Beach is running out of time to complete a dune nourishment project for the town’s southern coastline, Public Works Director Paul Brazil said during a recent Shore Protection Board meeting.

With turtle nesting season starting March 1, town staff are grappling with how to move forward with the project to replenish the dunes on the coastline from Sloan’s Curve south to Lantana Municipal Beach. A recently unearthed 2009 voter-approved change to the city of Lake Worth Beach’s charter invalidated an interlocal agreement that would have granted coastline access via the city’s municipal beach, he said.

Brazil told board members during the Jan. 30 meeting that since then, town staff have considered exercising Palm Beach’s right to use a 10-foot-wide stretch of land connecting the town’s coastline north and south of the Lake Worth Beach Municipal Beach as a pathway for the sand-filled trucks targeting the beach south of the Lake Worth Pier.

The proposal was met with stiff resistance by Lake Worth Beach officials and residents. Brazil warned that the town could face a legal dispute if it chooses to follow that path.

“I believe that they genuinely feel that it would be a problem for them. So, a legal challenge would be a reasonable next step on their part,” Brazil said. “That legal challenge, even if we were successful, stops us from doing it this year.”

Brazil said Palm Beach’s attorney is discussing the issue with Lake Worth Beach’s attorney in hopes of persuading its officials that the 2009 referendum prohibiting beach nourishment and dredging projects at the city’s municipal beach does not bar the project because it is a dune restoration project, and as such, is a different process.

“They are, by permit, by definition, (by) the engineering …. those two activities are very, very different,” he told the board.

Part of the issue with that argument, Town Engineer Patricia Strayer said, is that the interlocal agreement referred to the project as a beach nourishment project, not a dune nourishment project.

“Hindsight is always 20-20,” she told board members. “If we were aware that the terminology was critical, maybe we could have avoided it.”

Considering Lake Worth Beach’s opposition, Board Member James McKelvy wondered why the town doesn’t take a more aggressive stance.

“Because it won’t get us our project,” Brazil said, highlighting that Lake Worth officials originally voted 4-1 in favor of the agreement. “If we become completely adversarial, we could shut down any future ability to do business together … I think that possibility does exist and becoming adversarial doesn’t get us there faster.”

Board Member Ronald Matzner agreed, noting that a legal challenge likely would drag on for years.

“This is a political issue, and it needs to be treated that way,” he said. “I think over a period of time with our communication program, (we) can show them how important (this program) is for them.”

Matzner highlighted the more than 150,000 cubic yards of sand that have been added to the Lake Worth Municipal Beach since 1990, when the town first began measuring the island’s coastline, which is more than 12 miles long.

Board Member Peter Matwiczyk asked whether there is an additional offer Palm Beach could make to persuade Lake Worth Beach officials into reallowing access. The Palm Beach Town Council could be open to that, Brazil said, noting that the original agreement would have seen Palm Beach donate $80,000 to Lake Worth Beach for renovations to its municipal beach.

Because the state grants the town has received were based on Lake Worth Beach Municipal Beach’s inclusion in the town’s coastal nourishment plans, Brazil said he would be in favor of increasing the donation amount.

“So, spending some of that (grant money) on some of their beach accesses, seemed like the proper thing to do,” Brazil. “So, if the request got larger to accommodate their true inconvenience for doing this, I’d take that request to the Town Council.”

McKelvy asked about the financial impact of the pause. Strayer said the impact is light because the trucking contractor is willing to delay its payments by a year if the project remains stalled.

“So, as of right now, our costs are minimal,” said Brazil.

Are there any other options?

The town also has searched for a different access point it could use to replenish the dunes along the coastline between the Ambassador Hotel and la Bonne Vie Condominium, known as Reach 8, Brazil said.

For example, town staff have reached out to the town of Lantana to see if its municipal beach could be used as an access point. However, upon further review, Palm Beach staff realized that Latana’s coastline is too thin, he said.

If the town were to use the beach as its staging area and stockpile sand there for the project’s southern scope, waves could easily sweep some of the sand onto the federally protected hard bottom sea floor, which would violate the project’s permitting, Brazil told the board.

Also, considering how narrow the coastline from Lantana to the town of South Palm Beach is, Brazil said trucks could likely find themselves stuck during high tide. Brazil said Palm Beach is left with one other option, reaching out to the condominiums in the town’s South End to see if any would be willing to host the project’s staging area.

However, that comes with its own set of challenges.

“At many of the condominiums, it’s just not physically possible,” since there isn’t enough space, Brazil said.

If the town finds a willing condominium that has enough room to host the staging area, Palm Beach could move the sand onto the beach one of two ways, he said.

The town could have trucks pick up the stockpiled sand at Phipps Ocean Park and have them dump it over the condominium’s seawall, after which another truck would collect the sand before placing it at the target location. Palm Beach could also stockpile the sand onto the beach via a conveyor belt.

However, the latter requires the town to build a stockpile at the condo that would then be shoveled onto the conveyor belt, he said, noting that it would cost the town more time and money since the process is inherently slower and requires the town to build a larger staging area and rent additional equipment.

That’s without mentioning the cost to repair damages the condominium incurs during the process. “If a condominium agrees to this, the restoration cost is going to be very, very high,” Brazil said.

Regardless, Brazil encouraged interested condominiums to reach out to the town.

“We are running out of time,” Brazil said. “Building dunes in Reach 8 this year is going to be very, very challenging and the window is closing quickly.”

Fred Kamel, president of the condominium association for Atriums of Palm Beach, 3400 S. Ocean Blvd., told Brazil during the meeting that the building might be able to host a conveyor belt-based staging area.

“At the end of the day, I’m not promising anything. All I can promise is that I can bring it up to my board, and ownership of the building, with a proposal,” he said.

Dorchester Condominium Association President Irwin Meisler, who appeared last February before the Town Council to notify the town of the dune erosion experienced at the condo’s beachfront, pleaded for the town to do whatever it takes to replenish the dunes.

“If we have a hurricane, we will have catastrophic damage to Reach 8,” he said. “I think that, and maybe I’m being over-simplistic, the Town (Council) should be going to Lake Worth, and offering them more money … see if you can make a deal.”

Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach dune nourishment project stalls following scrapped deal