A town contractor has completed the dredging and placement of 750,000 cubic yards of sand onto Phipps Ocean Park, a town official said Thursday.
“The beach is looking really beautiful,” Town Engineer Patricia Strayer told Palm Beach’s Shore Protection Board. “We hope everyone will have a chance to go out and see it.”
The renourishment, which began last month, was successful and the contractor, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, is demobilizing and preparing to leave the job site, Strayer said.
But the Town of Palm Beach may be forced to delay until next year a dune restoration on Palm Beach’s Reach 8 shoreline, immediately south of Lake Worth Municipal Beach, Public Works Director Paul Brazil said.
The town’s contractor has stockpiled dredged sand at Phipps Ocean Park for the Reach 8 dune restoration, which was originally scheduled to begin this month, after the renourishment of Phipps Ocean Park was complete. (The stockpile includes 20,000 cubic yards for the Reach 8 dunes, and another 30,000 cubic yards for dunes in Reach 9 in South Palm Beach and Sloan’s Curve).
But, in December, the City of Lake Worth Beach pulled out of an agreement in which it had granted Palm Beach permission to use the south entrance to Lake Worth Municipal Beach to haul sand by truck onto Reach 8 for the dune restoration.
Lake Worth Beach’s City Commission voted 4-1 to approve the deal on December 3. But the city cancelled the agreement eight days later, saying it had learned the agreement violated a referendum, approved by city voters in 2009, that prohibits the use of the city’s beach for sand renourishments.
The provision was not correctly codified into the City Charter because of an error of the city clerk at that time, the city said.
Mayor Betty Resch told the Palm Beach Town Council at its January 14 meeting that the city could not honor the agreement because it was illegal.
Palm beach owns a 10-foot-wide strip of land that runs through Lake Worth Municipal Beach on the “dry beach” landward of the mean high tide line.
Brazil said the town surveyed the 10-foot wide strip and determined that Palm Beach can legally and safely use it to haul the dredge sand by truck from Phipps Ocean Park onto Reach 8.
But Brazil said he believes Lake Worth Beach would respond with a legal challenge that would prevent Palm Beach from doing the dune project this year, regardless of which side ultimately prevailed in court.
Brazil said attorneys for Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach have been talking but have not resolved the impasse. Palm Beach has taken the position that the 2009 referendum prohibits beach nourishments and dredging projects at the city’s beach, but does not bar a dune restoration project.
But Lake Worth Beach officials are contending with strong opposition from many of the city’s residents to their municipal beach being used for any beach renourishment, including the Reach 8 dune restoration.
“We are trying to convince their attorney that this [dune restoration] does not affect their referendum in terms of beach renourishment,” Brazil said. “We are building dunes … those two activities are very different.”
But Brazil said, “I believe they genuinely feel it would be a problem for them.”
Brazil was asked by a shore board member if Palm Beach has considered taking legal action.
“We considered legal action, but that approach won’t get us our project,” Brazil responded.
He reminded the board that the Lake Worth Beach commission had initially voted 4-1 to grant Palm Beach the easement it desired.
“We know there is some willingness on their commission [to cooperate with Palm Beach], but if we become completely adversarial, we may shut down any future possibility to work together,” Brazil said. “Becoming adversarial doesn’t get us there any faster.”
Over the years, Palm Beach has been given access by the condominium building at 3360 S. Ocean Boulevard on several occasions, and by the building at 3200 S. Ocean Boulevard on one occasion, to haul sand by truck for dune restorations on Reach 8. But neither of those have offered the use of their respective properties for the current project.
The dune restoration can require hundreds of truck trips per day, over a period of weeks, to get the sand onto the beach where it can be shaped by equipment into dunes. The work is noisy and disruptive and there are always concerns about protecting private property from damage.
The condo building at “3360 bore the brunt of this for years,” Brazil said. “They believe they have a structural issue because of the volume of trucks going through their property so many times.”
The property at 3200 S. Ocean Boulevard is problematic because it is such a tight squeeze for the trucks to get through, Brazil said.
More recently, the Town of Lantana has expressed interest in letting Palm Beach use its coastal public park, immediately south of the Town of South Palm Beach’s shore, as an access point for the trucks to haul the sand north into Reach 8. But Brazil said the beach in that area is too narrow.
Fred Kamel, president at The Atriums Palm Beach residential building at 3400 S. Ocean Boulevard, said he would ask his board of directors about granting access for the town to haul the sand for the dune restoration through its property.
Resource
Town of Palm Beach Current Coastal Protection Projects
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