Palm Beach is gearing up for a federally supported renourishment of its Midtown shoreline during March and April.
Some 500,000 cubic yards of dredged sand will be pumped onto the beach through a pipeline, then graded and spread. The project area reaches roughly 3.4 miles from Seminole Avenue southward to Banyan Road.
The beach will be accessed through Sunset Avenue and Peruvian Avenue, the town said. Equipment will be set up near Clarke Avenue.
Sea-turtle nesting season begins March 1. Beach renourishments are not typically allowed during turtle nesting season. The town, however, obtained an environmental permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission that allows the beach to be renourished after March 1 provided there is a sea turtle monitor on site. If a turtle nest is established, it must be relocated outside of the project area, Town Engineer Patricia Strayer told the Palm Beach Civic Association on Friday.
Federal government to cover cost
The federal government is covering the cost of the sand renourishment, which will replace sand lost from the federally engineered beach during Hurricane Nicole in 2022.
Under a 50-year Midtown Beach renourishment agreement announced in 2018 between Palm Beach and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency covers 50 percent of the cost of regular maintenance and 100 percent of emergency sand replacements like the one scheduled for March.
Periodic renourishments are an integral part of the town’s coastal management plan, which also includes dune restorations and maintenance of a sand transfer plant near the Port of Palm Beach navigation channel.
A healthy shoreline helps to protect upland properties from damaging surf during storms, town officials say.
“The beaches are currently eroded due to several storms that we have experienced,” Public Works Director Paul Brazil told the Palm Beach Civic Association on Friday. “They have held up well, but it is time to complete the recovery project [renourishment]. The Corps will rebuild the Midtown project to its original template.”
Future federal aid in jeopardy
But federal aid for Midtown Beach renourishments beyond this year’s project is far from certain.
Palm Beach officials say the town could lose millions of dollars in federal support for future Midtown renourishments because nine beachfront property owners within the project area, including The Breakers resort, are refusing to grant perpetual easements required by the federal government.
Florida law allows property owners to own beach property west of the mean high tide line. Beach land seaward of the high tide line belongs to the public.
At least some of the nine property owners have objected that the perpetual easements will allow public access onto their privately owned beach.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2024 enabled the town to obtain temporary easements from the property owners for the March/April 2026 renourishment. Palm Beach was required to pay about $3 million for the sand placed on the properties under those temporary easements.
The Army Corps is requiring perpetual easements from all property owners affected by renourishments within the Midtown Beach project area after 2026. Without those perpetual easements, the town stands to lose the federal aid for future Midtown renourishments, Brazil and town Coastal Coordinator Sara Gutekunst both told the Town Council at its January 13 meeting.
“Assuming, in the future, they don’t agree to perpetual easements, we don’t expect to have a federal project,” Gutekunst said.
The Shore Protection Board has recommended the town study alternatives for maintaining the same level of shore protection on the section of beach from Clarke Avenue to Banyan Road, should federal support be withdrawn over the easement issue.
Brazil said town staff and shore board members have agreed that the study would be premature at this point.
The sand placement from the upcoming nourishment should last six to eight years, depending on the weather, Brazil said. That gives the town time to revisit the issue with the nine property owners and with the Army Corps.
“Will the property owners change their stance?” Brazil said. “Will the Corps change its stance?”
If the perpetual easement requirement remains in force, and the town fails to secure those easements from all of the affected property owners, “we will more than likely lose Midtown as a federal project,” Brazil said.
Council President Bobbie Lindsay asked Brazil to estimate the financial value of the federal aid the town would lose. Brazil said he couldn’t immediately provide that figure.
Council member Bridget Moran said it’s important that people realize that the town will need perpetual easements from all nine of the property owners.
“We need 100 percent cooperation,” she said. “It’s not just The Breakers. I just want everybody to hear how gravely important this is to the town, for everybody to work together.”
Council member Julie Araskog said that, if the nine owners don’t change their minds about the perpetual easements, they stand to lose shore protection in the future because the town will no longer provide sand renourishments on the beach in front of their properties.
“They will not have protection,” she said. “I really encourage those homeowners to think about what this does for their own properties.”
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