Engineering

Beach renourishment projects for Anna Maria Island are on the fall calendar. Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department, updated county commissioners Feb. 12 on beach renourishment plans, including the area from 79th Street in Holmes Beach south to Longboat Pass.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers takes the responsibility of managing our Nation’s water resources seriously, especially when it comes to planning for the increasing magnitude and frequency of hazards that impact our coasts. That is why USACE Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, including Buffalo District, are pursuing the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency study.

Almost seven years have passed since Hurricane Sandy left its mark in the city. Neighborhoods like the East Village and Lower East Side were severely impacted by flooded streets and loss of electric power. Beyond the loss of life and the price of rebuilding, the storm also delivered a warning about what the city can expect as sea levels rise.

The impact of Hurricane Matthew is still being felt by the county finances, even for at least one project that had already started.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -While the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have sparked one of America’s worst environmental disasters, it provided an ironic opportunity for restoration.

It’s time to order new signs and update the brochures, because for the first time in 50 years, there’s no longer a Camille Cut or an East and West Ship Island.

ORLEANS -- The hurdles are plentiful on the regulatory road to dredging Nauset Harbor, where shoaling has become a formidable obstacle to commercial fishermen and recreational boaters bound for the inlet.

CAROLINA BEACH - The Carolina Beach Town Council received an update from Jim Medlock of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers on a project to pump sand on to the beach front in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach during their February 12th, meeting.

DUXBURY, MASS — With temperatures in the high 50s and sunny skies, a steady procession of visitors took advantage of an April-like afternoon during the first week of February.

Falmouth Board of Selectmen on Monday, February 11, approved beach nourishment and construction of two groins at Menauhant Beach. The combination of beach nourishment and groins is expected to extend the life of the beach and Menauhant Road, which otherwise would be lost in less than 40 years due to erosion and sea level rise, Director of Public Works Raymond A. Jack said.

Western Carolina University’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines will conduct a vulnerability assessment of a North Carolina coastal community touted as a premier beach vacation spot near important ecosystems and estuaries.

Over the last decade, fish­er­men and guest house own­ers in Man­zanil­la have looked on in awe as the wa­ters of the At­lantic Ocean claimed huge ar­eas of land along the coast­line.

The beach renourishment project is in progress for Marco’s Central Beach. It will continue from dusk to dawn, Monday through Saturday and will be completed before sea turtle season, which begins April 15th. Nighttime dredging activities may occur, but will be limited to an area along the water’s edge.

Coastal erosion is causing rubbish from two historic landfills to spill down a cliff face and onto a beach near Oamaru. The two rural landfills are located along a steep coastal cliff between Beach Rd and the Pacific Ocean. They sit on Waitaki District Council land, but were never opened or approved as landfills by the council.(Oamaru is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand).

The ‘hot spot’ of beach erosion in front of Longbeach Condominiums and 360 North Condominiums has long been a challenge for Longboat Key beach engineers. The town’s beach maintenance plan which currently consists of spot beach renourishment and five groins at the north end, is moving forward after this week’s commission workshop, but it may not be fast enough for some beach residents.

The project is planned south of Causeway Boulevard in East Bay, an estuary with a history of dredging going back to the 1960s. The environmental group Tampa Bay Waterkeeper opposes the plan.

A new bridge over the Chesapeake Bay could begin on the Western Shore anywhere between Harford County and St. Mary’s County, according to maps of potential new bridges created by the Maryland Transportation Authority and the Federal Highway Administration.

The Army Corps of Engineers and Texas General Land Office on Feb. 8 announced the public comment period on the Coastal Texas Study has closed. All comments will undergo review and be considered for the draft proposal, according to a press release.

SUNSET BEACH, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) - On Oahu’s North Shore, residents with beachfront properties are breathing a sigh of relief after this past weekend’s powerful storm wasn’t as destructive as they feared. But they’re not out of the woods just yet.

The long-proposed sediment dredging at the Scusset Beach Basin north of the canal will be costly, Sandwich Town Manager Bud Dunham told selectmen last week.

The effects of rising sea levels and climate change on coastal assets are hard to predict. One of create‘s Most Innovative Engineers is working on a development approvals framework that’s agile enough to change with the times.

SURF CITY, NC (WECT) - The town council elected Friday to move forward in addressing sand issues on the beach strand.

When speaking to non-Louisianians about the causes and possible solutions to my state’s coastal crisis I usually end up facing some embarrassing questions. Such as: Why do residents in the area most threatened by climate change elect politicians who fight against the carbon regulations that could help save them?

More than 1,600 homes and 400 businesses have better protection from flooding after the successful completion of a new £67.4million tidal flood barrier for Ipswich.

North Carolina's Outer Banks are known as a haven for history buffs and beach bums alike, and there will soon be a new way to visit.

A large portion of the February 4 Kitty Hawk Town Council meeting saw Ken Willson, with APTIM Coastal Planning and Engineering of North Carolina, Inc., provide council members with an overview of the shoreline monitoring report following a 2017 beach nourishment project.

This is the time of year when we start thinking about those spring, summer and fall trips to the beach. As we endure winter’s alternating personalities, we look ahead with a smile to days or weeks along the shore.

Both Surf City and Topsail Beach plan to begin more than $10 million worth of post-Florence recovery projects beginning in March.

A plan has been devised to help safeguard the Wellington seaside village of Makara Beach from future severe weather events after it was left scarred by ex-Cyclone Gita.

The City of Encinitas will receive 45,000 cubic yards of sand just south of Ponto State Beach as a result of the Encinitas Beach Hotel Project. The city's Opportunistic Beach Fill Program finds opportunities to obtain beach-quality sand from upland or dredging projects in the region.

TONINGTON, MAINE A project to assess the flooding vulnerability of one of Maine's most important lobstering ports is among a slate of improvements that will receive state funding.

Florida Sen. Debbie Mayfield has introduced a bill that would overhaul how state funding for beach preservation projects is decided.

Widening the full length of the beach in Southern Shores would cost between $9 million and $13.5 million if it is done at the same time that neighboring towns renourish their shorelines in 2022, a recently completed assessment says.

This is the time of year when we start thinking about those spring, summer and fall trips to the beach. As we endure winter’s alternating personalities, we look ahead with a smile to days or weeks along the shore, enjoying ocean breezes, sand between our toes and cooling, salty water.

It is hard to believe, but April of this year marks the ninth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon (a/k/a BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Those nine years have involved not only the unprecedented response efforts in the immediate aftermath of the spill, but also settlement negotiations, and the implementation of projects to help restore the natural resources and the economy of the Gulf of Mexico region.

CAROLINA BEACH - Equipment and pipes were delivered to the beach front on the North End of Pleasure Island earlier this week in preparation for a Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project - commonly called beach renourishment - which will pump sand on the beaches in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. Hurricane Florence eroded the beach front in both Towns. A project was already scheduled in the spring of 2019 to pump sand onto the beach front.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock will begin mobilizing land- and water-based pipe, heavy equipment, personnel, etc. towards the latter parts of February, and although the schedule is tentative, the Post Florence Renourishment Project could begin the first week of March, reports the Carteret County Shore Protection Office.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) awarded a $92 million construction contract to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company LLC to deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel (CCSC) from the Gulf of Mexico to Harbor Island, as part of the Channel Improvement Project (CIP).

The Navy is considering erecting a 14-foot flood wall around the Washington Navy Yard to protect the historic complex along the Anacostia River from rising sea levels, internal Department of Defense documents show. Established in 1799 as a shipbuilding facility and port, the Navy Yard is the service’s oldest installation.

FAIRHOPE, Ala. ( WPMI) — Since 2014, the city of Fairhope has spent more than $94,000 dollars in sand and labor to restore one of the city's most popular public beach fronts. The city is waiting for more than 6 million dollars in BP restore act money to come their way for shoreline projects.

CARTERET COUNTY, NC (WITN) A portion of the Carteret County Occupancy tax is earmarked for beach re-nourishment, and with those funds available to them, the Shore Protection, starting in March, will be able to begin replenishing the beaches after the damage caused by Hurricane Florence.

The Gozo Ministry is still considering at least one alternative to the recently-published design for the proposed Marsalforn breakwater, a spokesman has said.

Before the Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Southern California began operations in 2015, scientists at UC Santa Cruz recognized an important opportunity to study the effects of the high-salinity brine that would be discharged from the plant into coastal waters.

A beach nourishment project at DeBordieu that includes construction of three rock and concrete groins was approved by the state Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management last week. Conservation groups and the Belle W. Baruch Foundation are considering challenges, as they did in 2011 when the state issued permits for a similar project.

The artificial build-up of beaches is buffering the U.S. Atlantic coastline against the effects of sea level rise, but that benefit may not last as sand gets harder to come by in the coming decades.

The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority expects to have 23 levee and coastal restoration projects under construction in Southeastern Louisiana during fiscal year 2020 and another 20 projects will undergo engineering and design work, the authority’s new executive director said during a public hearing in New Orleans Wednesday evening (Jan. 30).

A massive local beach restoration project is now officially over. City leaders gathered on the beach Wednesday to announce the monthslong project was finished. First it was Matthew and then Irma. Both hurricanes pounded Northeast Florida beaches leaving a mess in their wake.

Florida Sen. Debbie Mayfield has introduced a bill that would overhaul how state funding for beach preservation projects is decided.

Local councils are facing a $5-8 billion bill to replace vital infrastructure lost to climate change in the next half-century - and they want a national war chest to pay for it.

A major study aims to improve understanding of the vulnerability of Thailand's shoreline and coastal communities to storms, floods and coastal erosion under future climate change scenarios.

In January, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) and Ohio EPA received approval from the State Controlling Board to begin funding nearly $10 million in projects for dredging on Lake Erie.

There are 6,800 acres of new marshland bordering the Passes of the Mississippi River – land that was created starting in 2011 by a coalition intent on stopping the loss of land in Louisiana at a rate once described as “a football field every hour.”

By late this summer, beachgoers will have much more sand and sun to soak up thanks to a new project from the Galveston Park Board.

Taking a bold opening shot at overhauling policy on the environment, Gov. Ron DeSantis has asked the entire membership of the South Florida Water Management District governing board to resign. The largest of Florida’s five water management districts, the SFWMD covers 16 counties and 8.1 million residents from Orlando to the Florida Keys. The district is responsible for improving flood control, water supply and water quality, and it oversees efforts to restore the Florida Everglades, the largest environmental project in U.S. history.

More than $129 million in federal money from Gulf of Mexico oil leases is coming back to Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes for major coastal projects in the next few years.

Puget Sound has started getting healthier, at least by one measure: A little less of its shoreline is buried under walls of concrete and rock.

BATON ROUGE, LA. -- Louisiana welcomed federal flood-protection money in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in a deal that didn't require the state to begin repaying its share for a decade. But now that bill is coming due, and it has ballooned to a dismaying $3 billion because of accumulated interest.

EMERALD ISLE, North Carolina — All the funds are in place for the planned Bogue Banks beach nourishment project in late winter and early spring, as the county has received the contract for a $5 million appropriation from the state. Greg Rudolph, manager of the County Shore Protection Office, said Thursday he was pleased to have the state money in hand for the $20.1 million project in eastern Emerald Isle, Salter Path and Indian Beach.

CAROLINA BEACH - Hurricane Florence eroded the beach front in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. A project was already scheduled in the spring of 2019 to pump sand onto the beach front. The Army Corp of Engineers consider that erosion an emergency and that funding be secured to help mitigate the impacts of Florence.

The Shore Protection Board in Palm Beach was scheduled to hear a proposal on Thursday, Jan. 24, to combat the erosion stretching from The Breakers to Midtown Beach, the Palm Beach Daily News reported Friday.

SARASOTA — A repeated attempt by a Siesta Key group to curtail the city’s planned dredging of Big Pass to renourish Lido Beach’s disappearing shoreline has been blocked by a judge.

A consultant used computer modeling to simulate hundreds of tropical storms or hurricanes and the flooding they would unleash upon Palm Beach.

The Philippines Bicameral Conference Committee, working on the disagreeing provisions of the 2019 General Appropriations Bill, has adopted the motion of Senator Panfilo Lacson to scrap the budget for dredging activities.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NSF) - Water protection and restoration projects, including the fight against red tide and the continued cleanup of the Everglades, will account for $625 million of a proposed budget that Gov. Ron DeSantis said he will roll out Friday for state lawmakers to consider.

Federal officials say that the long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study, or FIMP, is finally expected to begin pumping money, and sand, into shoreline reconstruction projects along all of Long Island in 2020 or 2021.

A recent agreement between the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority will fund engineering and design work to protect eligible homes and businesses in Calcasieu, Cameron and Vermilion parishes from storm surge and flooding.

A $20-million-plus effort to restore protective berms along Flagler County’s coastline, one of the longest and most multifaceted projects in the county’s history, entered its home stretch this month.

St. Augustine is trying to decide what to do to defend its wastewater treatment plant against flooding.

Oak Island Town Council agreed Tuesday to make a number of capital purchases, including some earlier than department heads had recommended. Council also instructed staff to move ahead with a months-long process of establishing municipal service districts in anticipation of funding a major beach renourishment effort.

SARASOTA (WWSB) - The City of Sarasota is nearly half way done with it’s Lido Beach renourishment project and beach goers are starting to see the difference.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. LLC, Oak Brook, Illinois, was awarded an approx. $7.8 million modification to contract W912HP-18-C-0006 to increase cubic yards of beach fill work that will be performed in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Suffolk County, NY - January 21, 2019 - Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone today announced the completion of more than $7 million in dredge work as part of the county 2018-2019 Priority Waterway Dredging Program. The Suffolk County Department of Public Works has now completed dredge work in seventeen priority waterways across six towns to ensure safe passage for the commercial and residential fishing and boating industries. Dredged Materials Utilized to Help Restore More Than 11,000 Feet of Shoreline.

State officials are seeking bids to dredge Massey’s Ditch and move the dredge spoils to the north side of the Indian River Inlet. Project will remove and place 100,000 cubic yards from the waterway to the beach.

DOVER – The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Division of Watershed Stewardship in partnership with public and private environmental organizations have introduced the Delaware Living Shorelines Monitoring Framework, a tool to help landowners, professionals, and scientists develop plans for gauging the success of living shoreline projects installed throughout the state.

Last July, Rebuild by Design, a collaborative organization formed to address the affects of climate change, released an RFP for a stewardship partner for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR), a reconstruction of the 64-acre, 1.5-mile East River Park.

(Trinidad Guardian) Al­most a year af­ter the sea swal­lowed three homes and a por­tion of the road near the coast in Ce­dros, vil­lagers are still fear­ful that more hous­es will col­lapse in­to the sea.

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush says he will do what he can to make sure sand dredged from the Mansfield Cut can be used to help re-nourish South Padre Island’s beach.

The Rio Grande Rise is an almost completely unstudied, geologically intriguing, ecologically mysterious, potential lost continent in the deep south Atlantic. And it also hosts dense cobalt-rich crusts.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District, held last week the pre-construction meeting regarding the Carolina Beach and Kure Beach Coastal Storm Damage Reduction project.

Indiana Dunes Tourism has partnered with a consultant for the National Parks Conservation Association in an attempt to shake loose state and municipal funds to combat beach erosion.

Ocean City has been a leader in addressing the backlog of dredging necessary to keep Jersey Shore marinas and channels functional for the state’s boating and waterfront community. That’s crucial to the shore’s character and economy.

The potential cost of a major modernization project at the city's Port of Alaska has nearly doubled, rising from earlier estimates of just over $1 billion.

North Topsail Beach government officials have been busy organizing a myriad of projects to recover from the effects of Hurricane Florence. The barriers that have kept the town relatively safe during a hurricane and tropical storm late last year are essentially gone.

To the relief of Hatteras Inlet mariners, the new year is starting with clear passage on the South Ferry Channel and pending dredge work at the breakwater in Hatteras village, resolving two stubborn problems and providing an upbeat backdrop for the changing of the guard at the first 2019 meeting of the Dare County Waterways Commission on January 14.

The suit alleges the Army Corps of Engineers failed to conduct a vital study to examine the project’s potentially detrimental effects to Siesta Key

The warning signs are increasingly hard to ignore. Sea-level rise is real, displacing thousands of people, destroying millions of acres of land and generating billions of dollars in losses. Due to competing predictions of future global temperatures, scientists are unsure exactly how fast or high sea levels will rise.

City of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa - Vetch’s Pier has been destroyed by mountains of sand being dumped on the beachfront by the municipality, says an activist.

Almost 16,000 desalination plants worldwide produce bigger-than-expected flows of highly salty waste water and toxic chemicals that are damaging the environment, a U.N.-backed study said on Monday.

The beach will have to endure another hurricane season, but the Gulf of Mexico shoreline on Anna Maria Island will be renourished in 2019.

SHALIMAR — A majority of the Okaloosa County Commission on Tuesday approved the latest version of the county project to dredge sand from the East Pass and deposit it on beaches on Okaloosa Island and Holiday Isle.

A year ago, restoring the once-thriving rookery that was Crab Bank was simply a dream without a source of financial reality. Now, the once seabird sanctuary will soon return to a place for wings to flap thanks to some federal financial aid.

In 2016, village residents rejected a proposal to restore a section of the beach using federal funds because of a mandate that would allow public access there. In 2011, a damaged portion of the wall underwent a $2.2 million rehabilitation project by the Army Corps of Engineers. In 2016, village residents rejected a proposal to restore a 2.4-mile section of the beach — including a small section in front of the sea wall — using federal funds because of a mandate to allow public access to private beaches.

Sand dunes on coastal barrier islands buffer the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts from oncoming hurricanes. Every year, millions of public and private dollars fund the restoration of these barrier islands, but managers often focus on the recovery of smaller sand dunes and aim at making them bigger, for better storm protection.

The Danish government has teamed up with Greater Copenhagen mayors to build nine artificial islands near the coast of Copenhagen to rejuvenate land space for sustainable industries and leisure.

WABASHA, Minn. (FOX 47) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with plans to build islands with dredged sediment in the backwaters of the Mississippi River along the north end of Lake Pepin.

January 12, 2019 - Orange Beach, AL - (OBA®) - The widening and improvement of Canal Road, environmental restoration of Cotton Bayou and Terry Cove, the creation of the Gulf Coast Environment Research Station, the designing and planning of the Gulf Coast Wildlife Recovery and Interpretive Center, expansion of the Orange Beach Wildlife Center, seawall repairs at Alabama Point, and sewer main upgrades - these are projects totaling $40 million that the City of Orange Beach is poised to receive from RESTORE Act funds.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WPDE) — Wondering about the new posts along Myrtle Beach beaches? They're being installed to help trap windblown sand.

Victoria, Australia - Summer at Inverloch surf beach is supposed to be about waves, sun and fun. But for locals, the beach is also a cause of increasing angst. Dramatic erosion has seen the foreshore at the local surf lifesaving club recede a remarkable 33 metres since 2012.

SACO — A nearly $4 million project to dredge the lower Saco River is set to begin later this month. The Saco River originates in New Hampshire and serves as a natural border between the cities of Saco and Biddeford, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.

A state program designed to protect the Lake Michigan shoreline is adding a new category this year aimed at helping Chicago-area communities preserve their beaches.