Pinellas to ask the state for beach renourishment funds

Pinellas County will ask the state to pick up some of a $125 million bill to replenish its beaches.

The renourishment project was approved in June, following last year’s storms that washed away sand from beaches along Treasure Island, Long Key-Upham Beach and Sand Key.

The project was set to be fully funded by the county through tourist tax revenue after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers refused to provide financial assistance.

This was because the agency requires all beachfront property owners to provide access to their land. The county was only able to get permission from 49% of them.

The Army Corps usually funds around 65% of beach-related projects.

John Bishop is Pinellas County’s coastal management coordinator and the renourishment project manager.

He said the county will apply for the Florida Beach Management Funding Assistance Program, which could provide a partial refund for the project – in this case, $49 million.

That effort offers a beach funding assistance program, allowing local communities to apply for renourishment funding which the department appropriates annually.

Help from the state would be beneficial, considering the county typically spends only around $10 million on similar projects.

“This is a major difference, and we need to get whatever support we can to help fund,” Bishop said. “This will help augment those previously obtained grants and add more funding to this project.”

Bishop said he hopes the project will restore some beaches and give the county more time to involve the Army Corps again.

“Our hope is that there’s some [Army Corps] policy changes or obtaining 100% of the public access easements, because at $125 million, these projects are too expensive for us to put the bill on our own,” he said.

“We’ve been trying to get core policy change for 10 years, and it hasn’t happened yet,” Bishop said. “So I’m hopeful that if we keep pushing, we’ll be able to.”

Still, Bishop said he thinks it’s unlikely that the county will be able to get the full $49 million grant from the program.

“They’ll usually fund a portion of the project, and then we can reapply and try to get additional funds for next year,” he said.

Bishop said the program takes into account all the communities that applied when deciding how much funding to allocate for each.

A decision will come out at the beginning of the next fiscal year.

“The FDEP specifically would create a grant agreement with us, and we would be able to submit our construction costs and our monitoring costs for reimbursement,” Bishop said.

Bishop said the county needs more core support to do urgent renovation projects like this.

“If future easement agreements haven’t been secured, and we don’t have any kind of policy change with the core, we will not be renourishing,” he said.

The county will hold a public meeting Aug. 6 from 6-8 p.m. at Belleair Beach, 444 Causeway Blvd. There, people will be able to learn from the staff what they can expect during the project.

“The project is going to happen. It’s already set. Contractors are already getting ready to go out there. The plans are finalized. There really isn’t going to be any changes at this point,” Bishop said.

Clara Rokita Garcia is a news intern for WUSF, the NPR station for the Tampa Bay area.