The town’s beaches are accumulating sand over the long term and are in stable condition, a town coastal engineering consultant told a Palm Beach audience on Tuesday.
Palm Beach’s 12 miles of shore have gained a net of 4.8 million cubic yards of sand since long-term volume measurements began in 1990, according to Mike Jenkins, Coastal Engineering Principal at Applied Technology and Management. That corresponds to an average increase of 43 feet in the width of the town’s shoreline.
Jenkins and other officials were at Town Hall Tuesday for the annual stakeholder meeting of the Palm Beach Island Beach Management Agreement. About 40 people attended.
Established in 2012, the agreement allows for a regional approach to coastal management on Palm Beach Island, which reaches from the Palm Beach Inlet to the Boynton Inlet. Partners include the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Town of Palm Beach, and Palm Beach County, all of whom were represented at the meeting.
The overall gains in sand volume are largely attributed to a mature town coastal management program that includes periodic, large-scale nourishments at Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park. By design, some of the sand deposited at those two public beaches drifts in the ocean current, “feeding” the shore south of it. Dune restorations are also performed along some sections of the coastline.
The coastal program includes the town’s sand transfer plant on the southern tip of Singer Island. The plant pumps sand otherwise trapped by the Palm Beach Inlet jetties onto the northern tip of Palm Beach Island. The long-term interruption of downdrift sand caused by the inlet jetties has frequently been cited as a major cause of Palm Beach’s erosion problems over the years.
The town also has an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for dredging the Palm Beach Inlet’s navigation channel every two years to three years, to deposit that sand onto reaches 1 and 2 of the town’s north shore.
The overall long-term gain in sand volume is down somewhat compared to a year ago, when Jenkins reported a net gain of 5.24 million cubic yards of sand on town beaches since 1990. The average gain in beach width over the same period stood at 47 feet.
Beaches aren’t static. Sand volume can fluctuate because of storm activity, climate patterns, coastal development, seasonal variations in wind and ocean currents, and other factors.
There were no tropical storms or hurricanes that impacted Palm Beach during the last year, Jenkins said. A strong El Nino climate pattern was in play, suppressing storm activity in the Atlantic basin.
But there was significant winter weather activity, which resulted in minor dune loss, Jenkins said.
No major beach renourishments were performed in Palm Beach during the last year.
The town experienced some sand loss in Reach 1, the stretch of beach immediately south of the Lake Worth/Palm Beach inlet, on Midtown Beach, and south of Midtown Beach, Jenkins said.
Phipps Ocean Park/Reach 7’s next renourishment is scheduled for this winter. The next nourishment of Midtown is a federal project scheduled for 2026.
Of continuing concern is the lack of consistent sand distribution throughout the system, Jenkins said. Some areas – particularly those with seawalls of nearshore hardbottom, erode more than others. Some parts of the town’s shoreline, including Reach 2 in the North End and Reach 8 in the South End, cannot be fully renourished because of the abundance of nearshore hardbottom marine habitat.
Other speakers at Tuesday’s meeting included Greg Garis, program administrator for FDEP; Robbin Trindell, biological administrator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission; Andy Studt, program supervisor for coastal resources management for Palm Beach County; and Nicole Dancho, senior marine scientist with Coastal Eco-Group, biological monitoring consultant for the Town of Palm Beach.
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