[ricki]

Hello Ian,

Aside from all the inherent direct mechanical destruction of dredge and fill projects and perhaps more critically, impairment of water quality (increase of short and long term turbidity) and the related more enduring impacts, what are the concerns about the project in Miami Beach?

I believe the guys in the borrow areas up north are concerned about impacts on fisheries and benthic communities and water quality of course. What other issues are in play in this?

I was involved in dredge and fill impact studies on reefs and nearshore coastal areas as far back as the mid 70's. We have been routinely trashing benthic communities and water quality for many decades throughout Florida and the World for that matter. Checkout reef impairment in many diving "destinations" for proof. Worse may be impacts from inland dredge and fill work that is carried into the ocean via the inlets. What's new?

The concerns don't deal with temporary impacts on nearshore sand bar structures and related surf in Miami Beach do they? As a side note, continued erosion absent beach renourishment might make those bars vanish eventually. Either way, nothing stays the same for long in nearshore sand bottom bathymetry.

We either have beaches along the developed areas of the barrier island or we allow erosion to strip things off up to the seawalls. This has happened many times in recent decades already. That is a 10 wide beach to none at all at high tide. What do we do? Evacuate the barrier island and demolish the buildings and seawalls? That would be a definite step in the direction of cure. Still, is this going to happen?

Tough questions and choices. We have been through MANY dredge and fill cycles in the last 40 years +. Because of the inlet structures and longshore transport and storm events, we seem to set ourselves up for beach renourishment projects every 10 to 15 years. Now the nearby borrow zones are depleted in many cases. What do you have in mind to change this?