LIDO KEY- “One of the reasons the city has been working on this project for so long is because this beach really does provide critical protection for habitat, for both turtles and the birds that do nest there regularly as well as for the property along there and also for the roadway,” said City Engineer of the City of Sarasota, Alex DavisShaw.
The city of Sarasota began pumping fresh sand at South Lido Beach mid-July as part of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers’ long-term renourishment project.
“In the 90’s we were hit by a tropical storm, it wasn’t even a hurricane at that point in time and it washed the beach towards the north of the project area and actually began to do damage to Ben Franklin Drive,” said DavisShaw.
City leaders knew the work needed to begin
“The first phase is just putting the sand in, so they’ll continue to put the sand in, grade it, and move up the beach put more sand in, grade that and move further up the beach they’re going to be doing that through December,” said DavisShaw.
Workers could not begin construction of the groins until after turtle nesting season. However, they do have bird and turtle monitors.
“In the morning, Mote will come down and take a look at the area and if there are turtle nests that need to be relocated, they relocate those based on the schedule the contractors put together so they make sure the turtle nests are far enough away that they won’t be impacted during the amount of time it takes for the turtles to hatch,” said DavisShaw.
With this particular design, there will only be a need to renourish every five years.
“In order to keep it on a five-year schedule, is two add those two groins to the south to slow the rate of erosion so that we put in more sand and we hold it there longer so that it stays in place,” said DavisShaw.
Mark Smith Chair of Save Our Siesta Sand claims an environmental statement should have been done.
“It’s unfortunate because without that baseline you don’t exactly gauge how much damage is actually being done,” said Smith.
The Expected completion of the project is May 2021.
