Palm Beach will continue a 50-year beach management agreement with the U.S. Army Corps under new guidance from that agency allowing federally funded sand nourishments to occur without requiring privately owned portions to be accessible to the public, Mayor Danielle Moore announced earlier this month.
The modified agreement preserves a federally authorized coastal protection project that entails 3.4 miles of oceanfront from roughly Seminole Avenue to Banyan Road, including Midtown Beach.
The project is worth tens of millions of dollars in federal aid to the town over the 50-year period of the agreement, which took effect about six years ago, town officials say.
“That means we will continue to have a federal project,” Moore said at the April 14 Town Council meeting. “This is huge for the town [and] huge for our taxpayers.”
Under the agreement between the Army Corps and the town, the federal government covers 50 percent of the cost of regular maintenance and up to 100 percent of emergency sand replacements in the 3.4-mile project area. Regular maintenance includes periodic sand nourishments that typically are required every six years to eight years.
The beach management agreement was authorized for the purpose of restoring sand lost to storm damage, and for the protection of coastal infrastructure.
A sand nourishment began in March 2026 and is ongoing. It involves the pumping of 480,000 cubic yards of offshore sand which is being placed on the shore to rebuild the 3.4 miles of beach in the project area. Sand is also stockpiled near Sunset Avenue for placement in front of The Breakers. Completion is expected in early May.
The project cost is estimated at $20 million. The town is paying $3 million and the federal government is covering the rest, according to the town.
Prior to the change announced by Moore at the April 14 council meeting, the Army Corps required property owners who own beachfront property in the project area to provide perpetual construction easements before the start of future federally backed Midtown Beach nourishments.
Nine of the coastal property owners in the area, including The Breakers, refused to sign perpetual easements, which they viewed as a taking of private beach property for conversion to public use.
Since October 2025, Moore and town staff held talks with Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll about revising the perpetual easement requirement, Moore said.
The resulting new guidance from the Corps will instead allow the town to obtain temporary easements from the beachfront property owners, provided that the easements remain in effect for the duration of the remainder of the 50-year agreement.
Severe Midtown erosion
The sand replenishment that began in March was sorely needed. Rough weather and pounding surf have caused significant erosion along Midtown Beach.
On Tuesday, the lifeguard stations at Midtown were relocated from the beach to the area between the seawall and South Ocean Boulevard. The Chilean Avenue access point was closed to the public. The Brazilian Avenue and Gulfstream Road access points were open. Red and purple flags warned of hazardous surf conditions and dangerous marine life. Lifeguards overlooked an abandoned beach with only a narrow ribbon of exposed sand.
Previously buried rock groins, constructed to help stabilize the beach and protect the dunes, were exposed to the surf. Beach reconstruction crews were forced to temporarily halt their work.
The contractor, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, has completed the northern section of the nourishment and progressed southward to the Clarke Avenue Beach, Sara Westphal, Palm Beach’s coastal coordinator, told the Palm Beach Civic Association Tuesday during a visit to Midtown Beach.
“We’ve had quite a bit of weather delays and increased erosion,” she said. “The team is doing the best they can.”
The erosion at Midtown beach is not unexpected or atypical, Westphal said.
“It’s part of the reason why we have a federal project here and why the Army Corps contributes financially to doing these projects and protects our shoreline,” she said.
The Midtown project area and the Phipps Ocean Park/Reach 7 shore are the two beaches in Palm Beach that receive sand through period renourishments for which the town has state and federal environmental permits.
Downdrift sand from those two “feeder” beaches helps to restore other eroded stretches of shore that are not permitted for direct renourishments, Westphal said.
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