Dredging again in East Pass (Destin Jetties)

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Hooters? If Gulf Shores closes, I can goto Daphne. If P'Cola Beach closes, I can goto the P'Cola Hooters on Bayou. If Destin's Hooters closes, I'll hit Crestview on the way home. If PCB's Hooters closes, I'll goto the PC Hooters a little bit inland.

Hooters planned backups for all their beach locations on the event that people come to their senses and quit wasting tax payer money on building beach to get washed away.

Spoken like a true cave diver!
 
LOL, apparently to no avail! BugMan has contingency plans for Hooter's-related disasters!

He lives in Hurricane country. he has to have a contingency plan.

I bet he's on Hooters "first call list" and shows up with a generator at the closest location to keep the beer coolers powered! :D



The two issues are separate. The beach renovation plan that the second article is talking about has nothing to do with the East Pass. The opposition to the beach renourishment is mainly behind the condos and private house/condos. That battle has been going on for years....I agree with Bugman on that issue. As to the East Pass...if you have a harbor you will have to continue to dredge the point.

Well.... they are sorta seperate. The sand comes out of the channel where they dredge and then they pump it up onto the beach. I guess the other option is that they could go pump it out somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

But I'm sure they'd have someone complain about that also, like burying some crab in the sand forever.

I'm in Destin about every year when this is going on. Part of the argument is that some homeowners think the beach in front of their house is "theirs" and they don't want to share it with anyone. By adding extra sand in front of their house, they don't want to allow any other beachgoers on what they think is their property.

The fact is that very few of them actually have title to the beach in front of their house all the way to the water.

yet when storms come and wash the sand away in front of their houses and under the pilings/stilts, they whine because no one is going to "rescue" their house.

in 2007 on old hwy98 in Destin (the 2 lane beach road along Crystal Beach area), there were whole complexes of houses that I'm surprised didn't fall off into the ocean. the beach was so far gone that the waves were crashing under their houses and had even eaten away some of their parking lots.
 
Part of the argument is that some homeowners think the beach in front of their house is "theirs" and they don't want to share it with anyone. By adding extra sand in front of their house, they don't want to allow any other beachgoers on what they think is their property.

The fact is that very few of them actually have title to the beach in front of their house all the way to the water.

yet when storms come and wash the sand away in front of their houses and under the pilings/stilts, they whine because no one is going to "rescue" their house.

I think Mike called it. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

I have no problem paying for sand that's coming from somewhere anyway, and everyone gets to use, but if the sand's just for some guy who complains all day that people are walking on "his" beach, then he can buy his own damn sand.
 
Well.... they are sorta seperate. The sand comes out of the channel where they dredge and then they pump it up onto the beach. I guess the other option is that they could go pump it out somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

The point I am making is that the sand from the harbor/jetty dredging is not used in the coastal restoration project that the second article you cited is referring too. They pump the sand from the harbor, directly back on to the island between the harbor and the Gulf. I know of no one who opposes this...even people with condos in that area.

I just wanted to make sure that people understood that the complaints from home/condo owners has nothing to do with the harbor project...that is what I mean by separate.
 
The point I am making is that the sand from the harbor/jetty dredging is not used in the coastal restoration project that the second article you cited is referring too. They pump the sand from the harbor, directly back on to the island between the harbor and the Gulf. I know of no one who opposes this...even people with condos in that area.

I just wanted to make sure that people understood that the complaints from home/condo owners has nothing to do with the harbor project...that is what I mean by separate.


ok.. that makes sense now.

The articles came out so close together I thought initially they were using the sand from the harbor for the beaches. but that makes sense if you'll look at the above pics it shows the pumping pipes up on the sandbar peninsular in the pics.

That makes sense also because they did a HUGE restoration on Crystal Beach and Miramar Beach in 2007. (That's the area between Henderson SP and down past Whales Tail towards San Destin). I didn't think it's needed restoration again this quickly.
 
The impact to specific groups is different from the dredging. Each has its own agenda. My agenda is: How will this affect my diving at the finger jetty.

Time had taken sand away from the north side of the jetty. The hurricanes brought tons of sand back to the north side (this took away a lot of shallow rock area for snorkelers). The same hurricanes made a nice flat walk to the dive site! All was fine until the renourishment. They twice made mountains of sand and put them in places that impeded the access to the jetty with mounds to climb over. The first dredging reshaped the south side of the jetty - the boulders it exposed were nice to dive. The problem with that dredging was that it put sand where it didn't want to be. The sand has been migrating back into the pass ever since and the silt that was sucked up with the sand is fogging the water clarity. Things have been covered with sand that are just now revealing themselves again. The sand from the two dredgings that has not made its way back into the pass has blown inland creating some dunes - these are a little larger than the ones that the hurricanes wiped out. I'm not sure if they are good protection but they do not impact my diving. The color of the sand is the right white but it is much coarser than the natural stuff - again no big impact on my diving. The sand than moves into the pass becomes a problem for boaters. They have to use the deeper channel carved near the finger jetty - this impacts my safety when I'm diving under the traffic. I'm all for dredging the pass to keep the boats farther out. I'm all for dredging the harbor to allow the boats in and out. I'm all for renourishing Norriago point because it is part of the harbor system and needs to be maintained like the pass for boat usage. I'm for using the sand taken from the pass to fix critically eroded areas (people are not going to move until their house or business falls into the water). I'm not for the mass renourishing project because it will just keep needing to be done and it makes the water sandy and silty which impacts my dives in a negative way. I think they should decide one way or another about who "owns" the land on the beach. It is silly to leave things the way they are with everyone claiming it. Taxes should not be used to fix private property - let the properties fall into the water if they own it. The water's edge belongs to all, it is too bad some visitors and vendors have overstepped their boundaries and encroached on property owners right to privacy and use of the same beach. This is why the battle happens - we need to all respect each other and the natural cycle of the beach to end all the fuss and allow me to have the best dive conditions.
 
When one finances a house in a flood zone one is required to obtain flood insurance. That flood insurance is subsidized by the US Taxpayers so its premium doesn't represent the real cost of the insurance. With that insurance one can afford to build and live on the beaches. When one lives on the beach one don't want the naturally occuring beach erosion to take away ones house so we have beach remediation. As far as the remediated beach beyond the state property line, hell yeah it ought to be available for public access since my tax money-FEMA-goes to pay for 90% of the cost. Also, FEMA provides insurance for two years on the remediation. If it washes away, they will pay to replace it.
 
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