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 Please take a moment...ITS IMPORTANT! We only have until May 13th to alert the Governor and the Cabinet to our concerns.
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Victory on the Beach
Galt Mile Contingent Addresses Governor and Cabinet
Pio Ieraci, Chairman of the Galt Mile Community Association’s Presidents Council, led a contingent of eight Galt Mile residents to Tallahassee in support of rescuing Fort Lauderdale’s disappearing beaches. As a result, the Broward County Shore Preservation Project finally received the long awaited green light from the Governor and the Florida Cabinet at the scheduled May 13th Cabinet meeting. Rose Guttman, Fern McBride, Kathleen Freismuth, Iris and Joe Anastasi, Ron Gresser, and Eric Peter Berkowitz met the Governor and the Cabinet wearing red tee shirts emblazoned with "Save Broward Beaches" in response to the unwarranted delays encountered by the project in Tallahassee.
Former Director Steve Somerville of the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection (DPEP) described to the Cabinet members the county's plan to safely replace sand on Broward beaches lost to tidal erosion, tropical storms, and hurricanes. The project is scheduled to address severely eroded beaches in segments according to the degree of shoreline shrinkage. Somerville assured Governor Bush that Hollywood Beach, the Segment III (3) portion of the project, would start receiving sand within six months to rebuild its devastated beach.
 | | Commissioner Jim Scott |
Time was equally allocated to the proponents and opponents of the project to present their final arguments to Attorney General Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson, and Governor Jeb Bush. The Cabinet Members, having been briefed by their aides who met with the concerned parties the previous week, strictly enforced the imposed time constraints. After Steve Somerville summarized the salient aspects of the County's intentions, Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott, Hollywood Representative Eleanor Sobel, and Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Christine Teel all voiced strong support for the project’s implementation.
 | | Secretary David Struhs |
Pio Ieraci, who also chairs the Broward Beach Coalition, hosted an effective presentation advocating the inclusion of the Fort Lauderdale, Segment II (2), renourishment into the overall project. After explaining the need to address Fort Lauderdale’s eroded beaches, Mr. Ieraci introduced highly respected environmentalist Roy Rogers to the Cabinet. Mr. Rogers has served as the Vice Chair of the Florida Audubon Society and Vice Chair of the Florida Community Trust. In addition, he Chairs the Nature Conservancy and is the Governor's appointee to the Environmental Regulation Committee. Rogers’ portrayal of the entire project as safe, well-planned, and absolutely necessary offset claims to the contrary by project opponents. Mr. Ieraci then directed the Governor’s attention to the red tee shirted Galt Mile residents standing in the audience and introduced Eric Berkowitz as their representative. Mr. Berkowitz alerted the Cabinet to the depth of the community’s concern about losing it’s beach. David B. Struhs, Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, exclaimed his appreciation to Mr. Berkowitz for the clear demonstration of support for the project by the Galt Mile residents.
Governor Bush and the Cabinet voted unanimously to approve, with certain conditions, Broward County’s permit request for the entire project. The Hollywood Segment would proceed immediately. This segment would be monitored for eighteen months to assure its anticipated outcome and use any data gathered from this oversight to refine the process as applied to the Fort Lauderdale segment. The next hurdle for County officials and concerned residents is to gain the required Federal support for the project.
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Federal Findings Favorable
A.C.E. Drafts Final Environmental Impact Statement
 The US Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, has completed the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Segments II and III of the Broward County Shore Protection Project. The proposed Broward County Shore Protection Project involves placement of approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of material along 11.8 miles of Broward County’s coastline. The Statement confirms that “The proposed Broward County Shore Protection Project will be in the National interest and can be constructed while protecting the environment from unacceptable impacts.” In summarizing the project's rationale, the Statement further elaborates, “Federal and County objectives include:
- the reduction of expected storm damages through beach nourishment and other project alternatives;
- reestablishing beaches as suitable recreational areas;
- maintaining suitable beach habitat for nesting sea turtles, invertebrate species and shorebirds; and
- maintaining commerce associated with beach recreation in Broward County.”
This is good news for the millions of South Florida residents and visitors that consider the beach, which is in imminent danger of disappearing, to be an integral part of their lives.
 | | PORT EVERGLADES |
A contingent of Galt Mile Residents attended a May 13th Florida Cabinet meeting (Item 19 on the Agenda) in a successful effort to include Fort Lauderdale in the permit required to advance the project. The Project was approved to be completed in to parts or "Segments". The Southern part, Segment III, extends from Port Everglades through John U. Lloyd State Park, Dania Beach, Hollywood (where the beaches are already gone) and Hallandale to the Broward County/Dade County line. Work on this segment is anticipated to start in June, 2004 and continue for six months to December. A Cabinet-mandated 18 month "observation period" to assess direct, secondary and long-term effects to nearshore hardbottom habitat associated with the proposed project will commence upon completion of Segment III.  | | HILLSBORO INLET |
Based upon the monitoring of these areas in Segment III, DEP would determine the likelihood for adverse impacts to the similar areas in Segment II, and recommend possible modifications and/or conditions to avoid or minimize impacts. The Segment II (Hillsboro Inlet to Port Everglades) fill will be placed along beaches in southern Pompano Beach, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, and northern Fort Lauderdale. Segment II should subsequently start in June of 2006.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement addresses all of the concerns expressed by an assortment of official environmental watchdog agencies in response to the original Draft Environmental Impact Statement drawn in March, 2002. The Project has garnered the support of The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), The Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection (DPEP), The National Marine and Fisheries Service (NMFS), The Florida Audubon Society, The Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District Regulatory Division (ACE), The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), The Florida Communities Trust (FCT), The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) and The Nature Conservancy.
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| | Timeline |
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| Projected Date | Project Progress |
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| June 2004 | Commence Segment III (Port Everglades to Broward/Dade County Line) |
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| December 2004 | Complete Segment III - 18 Month Monitoring Period starts |
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| June 2006 | 18 Month Monitoring Period ends - Commence Segment II (Hillsboro Inlet to Port Everglades) |
 | | Broward County Shore Protection Project Segments II & III Beach Fill Limits |
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Division of Recreation and Parks, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) expressed concern regarding the negative impact of the construction of T-head groin upon sea turtle nesting success and hatchling behavior, and the potential public safety hazard to recreational beach users. Since initial consultation with the FDEP, the groin field at John U. Lloyd State Park was modified from eleven (11) T-head groins to three (3) groins: two T-head structures and one spur. Appropriate sea turtle protection measures will be implemented in Broward County to minimize impacts to sea turtle hatchlings. Of course, if the beaches are permitted to disappear, there will be NO NESTING HABITAT for sea turtles.
The FFWCC expressed concern that sand placement for the Broward County beach restoration project will result in the loss of nearshore hardbottom areas with dense coverage of marine macroalgae that has been identified as important foraging habitat for certain marine turtles. A mitigation monitoring plan has been developed and accepted by the FFWCC and FDEP that involves long-term monitoring of the mitigation reefs to determine the replacement habitat value compared to the natural nearshore hardbottom.
The National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) expressed concern that several issues related to project siting, impact assessment, mitigation proposals and economic analysis were not adequately addressed in the original Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Extensive interagency coordination and additional field investigations were conducted to address the issues raised by the NMFS. The NMFS has withdrawn their opposition to the project contingent upon the construction of 11.9 acres of mitigation reef and extensive project monitoring.
Every environmental impact raised by every mainstream environmental group has been thoroughly addressed and scrupulously responded to in this Final Impact Statement. It clearly demonstrates the Broward County plan to be safe and effective. It includes a comprehensive Cumulative Effects Assessment, a Biological Monitoring Program, turbidity monitoring, a Habitat Equivalency Analysis and a complete Nearshore Hardbottom Mitigation Plan and Shoreline Impact Analysis along with a Broward County Nearshore Hardbottom Fish Study.
There are, however, a small number of radical fringe groups that wouldn't mind seeing our beaches melt quietly into the sea. Some of these groups have political motives behind their opposition to save the beaches. Others have financial concerns. Most of them do not live here. They have a history of making completely irrelevant and unrealistic demands on Project Coordinators, such as their insistence that florida beaches be completely rezoned prior to saving the beaches. Their stated intention is to delay and/or derail the widely supported effort to rescue Broward's eroding beaches.
The Army Corps of Engineers is currently in the process of finalizing the documents and permits that will allow Broward County to begin the renourishment of our beaches. The Final Environmental Impact Statement was first made available for public review on January 2, 2004. This review will be completed by February 2, 2004. During this month-long process, the Broward County community has the right to comment on the plan. Once the comments are all received, the Corps will issue a final Record of Decision.
This is your opportunity to be heard!
Write...Fax...Email by February 2, 2004
Please exhibit your support for the plan to save our beaches. For more information and/or to demonstrate your support, contact Ms. Terri Jordan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Planning Division, P.O. Box 4970, Jacksonville, Florida 32232-0019, phone (904) 232-1817 or facsimile 232-3442. Ms. Jordan Can be reached by email at Terri.L.Jordan@usace.army.mil or by Clicking Here. Tell her that you support the Broward County Shore Protection Project to save our beach! Comments must be received within 30 days of publication of the Final Environmental Impact Statement in the Federal Register... That's February 2. Don't procrastinate...please act now as we are currently one hurricane away from the beach disappearing forever!
If you are pressed for time or can't find the words to express your concern, simply fill in your name and E-Mail address and press SEND in the form below. Your message will be sent to Ms. Terri Jordan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Planning Division. Please feel free to read the included text. To send a different message, use the E-Mail links above.
If you prefer, you can copy and paste the message below into your favorite email program!
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Final Record of Decision
 A.C.E. Completes ROD!
 The US Army Corps of Engineers published its completed Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Broward County Shore Protection Project, Segments II and III, in the Federal Register on January 2, 2004. The 30-day statutory waiting period which affords the public an opportunity to offer comments on the FEIS ended on February 2nd. A compilation of the collected comments called the General Reevaluation Report (GRR) was generated and attached to the FEIS. Once these two documents were reviewed, the Corps issued a Record of Decision (ROD) that serves as the final verdict in judging the efficacy, viability and advisability of the target project.
 | | Brigadier General RANDAL R. CASTRO |
On May 13th, we received notification from the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection that the Record of Decision had been arrived at in the form of a letter from Brigadier General Randal R. Castro, South Atlantic Division Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. The ROD is divided into 6 sections. The actual “Decision” opens the document. It reads as follows:
“We have reviewed the General Reevaluation Report (GRR) and Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the Broward County Shore Protection Project, Segments II and III, Broward County, Florida. We have also reviewed all associated correspondence, including comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and the FEIS. Based upon this review and the views of interested agencies and the concerned public, I find that the plan recommended in the GRR and FEIS by the District Engineer, Jacksonville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), is economically justified, technically feasible, in compliance with environmental statutes, and in the overall public interest.”
The second section of the ROD is entitled, “Project Authority and the Need for Proposed Action”. This section explains the underlying authority that the Record of Decision and its supporting documentation is predicated on. It defines the problem as, “The coastline of Broward County is low-lying and vulnerable to storm event damages. Shoreline recession continues to be a problem along Broward County Beaches. The purpose of the GRR and FEIS was to evaluate alternatives to address these challenges and to recommend a comprehensive, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable solution.”
Part 3, the “Alternatives and Recommended Plan”, outlines the aspects of the project. It describes the National Economic Development Plan (NED) that was recommended by the Corps’ District Engineer and discusses several alternatives that were considered and declined. The NED covers 11.8 miles of the 24 miles of shoreline from Deerfield Beach through Hallandale and includes the following elements:
- Placement of 2.5 million cubic yards of material along 11.8 miles of Broward County's shoreline.
- Segment II (Hillsboro Inlet to Port Everglades), fill will be placed along beaches in Pompano Beach, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea and Fort Lauderdale.
- Segment III (Port Everglades to the south county line), fill will be placed along beaches in John U. Lloyd State Park, Dania Beach, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.
- Fill will be obtained from five discrete offshore borrow areas located in the central and northern portion of the county.
- Development and implementation of an integrated pre- and post-construction monitoring plan was developed in close coordination with Federal and State resource agencies.
 Approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of sand would be placed for the initial construction with a total of 5.4 million cubic yards of sand needed for the life of the project.
 | | Fort Lauderdale's Shrinking Ribbon of Beach |
Three approaches were considered in the GRR and FEIS; “no action”, structural alternatives and non-structural alternatives. “No action” achieved none of the planning objectives. The non-structural alternatives, in addition to not being economically feasible, do not address the loss of land (the existing beach) caused by long-term erosion. The structural alternative described in the NED is fiscally viable and achieves every planning objective.
The fourth part is “Public Coordination”. The month long “comment” period from the publication of the “Notice of Availability” of the FEIS in the Federal Register on January 2nd elicited numerous responses from Federal, State and local government agencies, property owners, environmental organizations, and individual stakeholders. Because no new substantive issues were raised in the FEIS that weren’t previously addressed in the DEIS, the coordination with agencies and interest groups relating to project impacts and adjunctive mitigation was already adequately provided for.
Part 5 of the Record of Decision addresses the “Factors Considered to Minimize Adverse Impacts” that may or may not surface. The most significant area of concern identified during project formulation focuses on the specific measures to offset impacts to near shore reefs and hard bottom communities. The Corps incorporated the recommendations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), other mainstream environmental agencies, various interest groups and members of the public into the plan. The State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has determined the project to be consistent with the existing Florida Coastal Management Program and, as such, issued a Joint Coastal Permit to Broward County on May 12, 2003 for both Segments II and III. To address Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) expressed a Biological Opinion designed to protect Turtles and Manatees. It produced measures that were incorporated into the plan and approved by USFWS on October 10, 2002, in the Final Coordination Act Report (CAR). Those species under the purview of the National Marine and Fisheries Service (NMFS) were provided for previously in a March 10, 2000 correspondence with the NMFS.
 | | EFFECTS OF SEVERE TIDAL EROSION WILL BE REVERSED |
The 6th and final section of the ROD is a “Summary” that reads, “In view of the above, I find that the adverse impacts of the proposed action have been minimized, to the extent practicable, and the proposed action is consonant with national policy, statutes, and administrative directives. In consideration of all pertinent factors, the overall public interest will best be served by providing the improvements as described in the General Reevaluation Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Broward County Shore Protection Project.” The document is dated 11 May, 2004 and signed by “Randall R. Castro, Brigadier General, US Army, Commanding.”
That’s it - its official - the plan has the blessing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all of the environmental watchdogs with authoritative standing and the people that live on the beach. Broward County now carries the ball. They will implement the southern segment of the project first, monitor the effects for 18 months, and complete the northern portion when the southern portion receives a clean bill of health.
The remaining obstacles to the project’s ultimate implementation are two-fold. The vested interest lobby that has supported the disappearance of the beach is still working to bring this strange aspiration to fruition. The second, more ominous, threat emanates from the United States Congress. There is a movement afoot to withdraw support for environmental programs because of fiscal constraints. The Broward County Commission has sent a letter (Click Here to View Letter) to the relevant legislators requesting that they reject any attempt to withdraw support for salvaging the nation’s beaches. That aside, the legal underpinning for the fight to rescue our beach is in place and its renourishment is simply a matter of time!
Additional links to source information web sites:
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Delays and “Poison Pill” Bill
Plague Beach Project
 Broward Finally Secures Permit 
 The Broward County Department of Planning & Environmental Protection (DPEP) spent 5 years addressing the concerns of legitimate environmental groups as a statutory precursor to renourishing our disappearing Broward County beaches. Stephen Higgins, the Beach Erosion Administrator for the DPEP’s Biological Resources Division and the county’s beach renourishment director, ascribed the extensive delays to the inordinate amount of attention given the project by Federal and State Authorities. Despite widespread acceptance of the project by every major environmental group owing to Mr. Higgins’ diligence in addressing virtually all of their concerns, certain fringe elements continue their commitment to derailing the project. They have a history of making completely irrelevant and unrealistic demands on Project Coordinators, such as their insistence that Florida beaches be completely rezoned prior to saving the beaches. By delaying the project through a continuous spate of frivolous demands, they can escalate the costs. “Somehow our project has gotten more scrutiny from agencies and activist groups than any project I’ve ever seen,” explained Mr. Higgins. Total project costs have almost doubled from $30 million to $59 million, in large part from unnecessary delays.
 | REPRESENTATIVE
ELEANOR SOBEL |
The latest delay resulted in the postponement of the July 1st start date for the restoration of the nearly non-existent Hollywood beaches. Angry residents and local officials are demanding an end to these capricious delays.  | ATTORNEY GENERAL
CHARLIE CRIST |
State Representative Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood), frustrated by the project’s plodding pace, asked Florida State Attorney General Charlie Crist to look into the legitimacy of the delays. He agreed, stating “It seems like it has been an issue for quite some time.” Joann Carrin, spokeswoman for Attorney General Crist, elaborated, “We’re just looking into the whole issue, and the delays; we’re going to see what's going on.” The underlying reasons for the beach renourishment are both safety-related and financial. Broward’s share of Florida’s $15 billion beach industry is $600 million. The beach also protects billions of dollars worth of property and tens of thousands of lives exposed to severe storm event damages. Stringing out the project leaves residents and property at risk, skyrockets the cost and undermines the tourism-driven local economy.
| BRIGADIER GENERAL
RANDAL R. CASTRO |
On May 13th, exactly one year since Governor Bush and the Cabinet (including Attorney General Crist) voted unanimously to approve Broward County’s permit request for the entire project, we were notified by the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection that the Record of Decision (ROD) was received from Brigadier General Randal R. Castro, South Atlantic Division Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers.  | | COLONEL JAMES G. MAY |
In the Record of Decision (ROD) - the formal endorsement of the project by the Corps as having complied with every statute and concern raised by legitimate environmental authorities - he states, “I find that the plan recommended in the GRR (General Reevaluation Report) and FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Statement) by the District Engineer, Jacksonville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), is economically justified, technically feasible, in compliance with environmental statutes, and in the overall public interest.” The Corps also asked that 52 additional concerns be addressed. They were.
This heightened focus on project delays seems to have been just what the doctor ordered; the final permit to proceed was received by the DPEP on July 19th. Once the permit is executed by Broward County and Colonel James G. May, the Commander and District Engineer of the Corps’ Jacksonville District, the County can begin the bidding process for contractors, hopefully providing for a November project start date.
 Booby Trapped Beach Bill
A serious problem has surfaced in the United States Senate. It appears that we may have to repeat the entire approval process... from scratch. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee buried a “poison pill” into a bill labeled the “Water Resources Development Act” (WRDA), S.2554. Section 3301 mandates a rewrite of the Army Corps of Engineers policy and guidance that imposes another bureaucratic layer of restrictions on beach nourishment. Without any public testimony or hearings on the issue, a proposed “Beach Nourishment Advisory Committee” would be created to oversee beach projects. This new committee would create an additional layer of reviews and regulations, adding to the time and cost of each and every project. Beach projects are the ONLY projects specifically targeted in the bill for this type of micro-management by the federal government. Incomprehensibly, the language used in the legislation was submitted by an organization that is fanatically opposed to beach nourishment.
 | | SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE |
The “Beach Nourishment Advisory Committee” would enforce 10 specific revisions to the planning requirements imposed on the Army Corps of Engineers… only with regard to beach projects. Since every requirement is already enumerated in existing legislation, the need for another repetitive layer of governmental regulation is unclear. In addition, the committee will attempt to apply a standardized one-size-fits-all approach to many site- or state- specific conditions. For instance, Requirement #4 states that the Committee shall, “establish standards that ensure that sand deposited on replenished beaches features compatible grain size, shell content, and other geological characteristics of a natural beach”. Since every beach is different, the committee’s ultimate determination of what constitutes the generically correct grain size and shell content of a “natural beach” will be virtually useless. Site-specific considerations determine what sand characteristics are “compatible” from engineering and environmental perspectives. That decision needs to be made locally, on a beach by beach basis. This attempt to generalize standards (make the foot fit the shoe) is thematic in this legislation.
The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), a longtime advocate of the nation’s beaches, has created a Position Paper on the proposed Beach Nourishment Advisory Committee that details the rationale for opposing its enactment. Most responsible beach communities would welcome a revision of the Corps’ policies and procedures in order to
- streamline the project planning process;
- reduce unnecessary planning costs;
- promote regional and/or programmatic planning where appropriate; and
- assure that any short- and long-term environmental impacts of beach nourishment projects are benign.
The “poison pill” that was unceremoniously dumped into the Senate’s WRDA bill, however, accomplishes NONE of these objectives.
Positioned in Senate Bill S.2554 under Title III—Flood and Coastal Storm Damage Reduction, Subtitle B--Coastal Storm Damage Reduction, Section 3301—Shore Protection and Beach Renourishment Projects, the section’s specific provisions are drawn from anecdotal “evidence” which ignores that the Corps already addresses each of the concerns raised in this provision. Without any public testimony, discussion, or any evidence of need, the legislation establishes an advisory committee that will not advise, but rather enforce the redundant requirements in 10 specific areas that are already addressed in existing legislation. In addition to lacking a provision to finance the costs of this committee (another visit to Unfunded Mandate-ville), the decisions of the advisory committee would apply to all existing draft feasibility studies and draft re-evaluation reports that have not yet been issued. This means that studies that have been produced under one set of procedures over a period of several years will have to be redone with the revised regulations, guidelines, and circulars. This retroactive application could effectively double feasibility costs and timetables for all existing projects. Nothing in the provision requires that advisory committee members have water resources planning expertise, nor does the provision include a representative of the Corps of Engineers. Should the unamended legislation be enacted, the cost of beach projects would increase substantially as will their impending timetables due to the responsible lead agencies having to slug their way through another unnecessary layer of redundant governmental regulations.
Please Take a Moment to Avoid a Nightmare
 | | Senator Bob Graham |
 | | Senator William Nelson |
The overt inadequacies and the surprise addition of this unsupported provision becloud the intentions of the Senators that allowed its inclusion. Motives aside, the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) and the Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association (FSBPA) strongly advocate that the establishment of a beach nourishment advisory committee is NOT the appropriate tactic to resolve concerns with the existing process and urge that it be removed from the bill prior to Senate passage.
The Galt Mile Community Association agrees and asks each of its members to contact their Senators and urge the removal of this section from the bill. The idea of re-experiencing the past 5 years of scrupulously performed feasibility studies to accommodate a suspicious and poorly conceived legislative midnight surprise passes from the ridiculous to the sublime. Please contact Senators Graham and Nelson by email and telephone to let them know that the WRDA bill must be improved through the removal of Section 3301 (Click and Scroll Down to 3301). (Senator Graham, incidentally, is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.) As conscientious Florida officials, they are keenly aware of the importance of maintaining the beaches that underwrite our economy. If they receive a reasonable indication of our concerns, they will fight to excise this “Poison Pill”.
- Click Here to send an email to Senator Graham. Please follow-up with a phone call to Graham’s office: Bob Dobek with Senator Graham (202) 224-3041 - Local Tel # is: (305) 536-7293.
- Click Here to send an email to Senator Nelson. Please follow-up with a phone call to Nelson’s office: (202) 224-5274 - Local Tel # is: (305) 536-5999, 1 (888) 671-4091.
The Easy Way
If you don't have the time or inclination to compose an email, you can send one that has already been composed for this purpose! Using this contact will send emails to Senator Graham and Senator Nelson with one click.
- Simply Click Here if you live on the Galt Mile (in the 33308 ZIP code).
- If you live anywhere else, please Click Here, then enter your ZIP code and click.
The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) has developed a Position Paper that clearly addresses the issues at stake. To read the text of the “Poison Pill”, along with detailed explanations refuting the efficacy of each provision, Click Here.
To read the text of the “Poison Pill”, Click Here. (Scroll down to Section 3301 and click!)
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Where’s the Beach 
Hurricane Frances Carries a Warning
 | | Mayor Giulianti |
Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti, comporting herself as a sensitively empathetic municipal guardian during a real life natural disaster, responded succinctly to her interviewer from channel 10, “Well, the situation is extremely dangerous because there is no beach to buffer us from the effects of the storm.” POINT TAKEN! Hurricane Frances was skirting its North Palm Beach landfall at about 4:30 PM Saturday afternoon as her live interview hit the air. The cameras caught sections of Surf Road just south of Dania Boulevard actually dissolving during the Mayor’s evaluation of the damages suffered along the vulnerable beach. The beaches in Hollywood disappeared several years ago, the victim of sustained tidal erosion. The condition is mirrored up and down the East Coast of Broward, as 21 of the 24 miles of the County’s beaches are critically eroded. In 1999, Broward County put the recovery process into motion, hoping to repair the deteriorating shoreline within the two - three year window that a safe, responsible beach renourishment would normally take. Every major environmental agency and organization took the opportunity to institute extensive protective measures and exigent monitoring requirements as the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection (DPEP), Biological Resources Division carefully steered the plan through its statutory paces in an effort to rescue the beach.
 | Frances Pounding beachless sea wall of
Westin Diplomat Resort in Hollywood |
Despite receiving a positive General Reevaluation Report (GRR) and Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Joint Coastal Permits for Segment III (Hollywood) and Segment II (Fort Lauderdale) from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and achieving complete conformity with the protective requirements stipulated by a veritable gauntlet of environmental agencies and interest groups, the plan’s dilatory pace has drawn the ire of thousands of heretofore patient residents of the Barrier Island. For years, County and City officials of beachfront communities have warned of the dangers inherent in the exposed, beachless shoreline. The beach not only protects people from the severity of hurricane events, it buffers $billions in upland property from the full catastrophic impact of “drop-ins” like Frances. Watching city crews using front loaders to relocate tons of displaced sand back to the paper thin beach reinforced Mayor Giulianti’s disappointment and impatience with the sluggish plodding progress suffered by the renourishment effort. “It's your first line of defense, It is vital that it is there.” Giulianti remarked.
Broward County’s beach erosion administrator, Steve Higgins, characterized the loss of beachfront as “potentially dangerous”. Higgins elaborated, “As you lose beach, you lose future storm protection, and you lose the recreational opportunities for visitors,” referring to the basis for Broward’s tourism tax base. “As the beach disappears you’re exposing property to damage, and there is about four billion dollars worth of property that could be vulnerable.” The fact that you may not own any of that property is irrelevant, we will all have to pay for it if damaged - the public portion in our taxes, the privately owned assets in our insurance premiums...which will skyrocket! As of Saturday, September 4th, it would be appropriate to add the cost of rehabilitating Surf Road to that figure. As Mayor Giulianti intimated, what’s next?
 | Sand & Debris in John U Lloyd Beach State Park
AFTER HURRICANE FRANCES |
Two days later (Monday, September 6th), Higgins toured the overall damage to the County’s shoreline. North Broward took the worst hit owing to Frances’ nearby Palm Beach landfall. In Deerfield Beach, beach-stabilizing rock piles that are usually covered were completely exposed. Sand stripped from John U. Lloyd Beach State Park and Fort Lauderdale Beach was painstakingly collected from both sides of A1A using front-loading bobcats and deposited back to the now smaller beaches. Bob Fortier of the Fort Lauderdale Parks Department evaluated Frances’ toll on the beach, “It’s terrible, we’ve lost 40 feet of shoreline, easy.” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle expressed a desire to expand the beach North of Sunrise Boulevard and add dunes. Fort Lauderdale is scheduled for beach renourishment in the second phase of the County’s renourishment project, after the desolated Hollywood beaches are revived. The majority of Dania’s Beach wound up in the adjacent parking lot - closing access for weeks.  | Sand that Frances Piled up on A1A Being Returned to
FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH |
Dania Beach City Manager Ivan Pato admonished, “There is hardly any beach left.” Higgins described Hallandale Beach as, “lower than it was and probably a little skinnier, too, but mostly lower”. Hallandale Beach City Manager Mike Good added, “The beach is usable but there are limited areas with sand.” At Hollywood Beach, which at high tide is devoid of sand, the sea walls took the full brunt of the hurricane’s storm surge. Hollywood residents watched the ocean wash over the Broadwalk and Surf Road all the way to A1A. In evaluating the Hurricane’s county-wide shoreline impact, Higgins said, “It was significant damage - but not surprising for the event. It underscores the need to keep a healthy beach because as you lose beach, you lose protection against future storms.”
The County’s rescue effort is slated for a November start date. Prior to that it was scheduled to start in July - and before that... May. Broward residents and local officials have good cause for exhibiting what has developed into a borderline paranoia regarding the County beaches’ life expectancy. The project was originally expected to begin years ago. Despite the critical importance of the beach to Broward’s (and Florida’s) economy as well as playing a central role in every Broward resident’s (and millions of visiting tourists’) lifestyle, certain officials have chosen to pander to special interests whose stated intention was to delay, and hopefully derail, the rescue effort. The initial delays stemmed from what appeared to be environmental concerns. Although the County meticulously addressed every outstanding environmental issue to the satisfaction of every major environmental agency, the delays persisted. As it became clear that certain bureaucrats were playing politics with the County’s and the State’s well being, angry residents and their local representatives asked Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist to look into the chronic procrastination. The Attorney General’s stated intention to verify the legitimacy of the delays seems to have helped affirm the November start date.
Hurricane Frances crystallized the issue, offering a frighteningly graphic demonstration of the dangers that coastal communities confront when unprotected by a buffering beach. What little protection existed before Frances is now a memory. Years of unnecessary delays to Broward’s renourishment project have come home to roost! Without the beach to “run interference” against malevolent weather events, the potential for visitors like “Ivan” to be reclassified from “dangerous” to “lethal” increases exponentially.
Addressing the urgency to begin renourishment, Beach Erosion Administrator Higgins explained that the beach is the only protection for people, condominiums, businesses, roads and homes during a catastrophic weather event. Broward Beach Coalition spokesperson William Colletti echoed Higgins’ concern. “This should be a wake-up call to federal regulators that beach renourishment is critical.” The Coalition, chaired by Galt Mile Community Association Presidents Council Chairman Pio Ieraci, is comprised of residents, businesses, employees, civic associations, government and environmentalists with a stake in preserving Broward’s beaches. Its membership includes residential and commercial property owners whose homes and livelihoods are at high risk from storm surge in addition to wind and rain every hurricane season. Frustrated by the frivolous delays to the beach restoration, Colletti exhorted, “We shouldn’t have to wait for evacuation routes to be eroded, hotels and people’s homes to fall into the ocean and for there to be no beach for turtles to nest on.” Speaking to the dangerous delays, Mayor Giulianti emphasized, “We have to have all of this done before next hurricane season,” adding optimistically, “which obviously it will be.” We hope she’s right!
Click on Graphic to View Full Size Plates for Segment II
Plates 6 & 7 Represent the Galt Ocean Mile
 | | GALT OCEAN MILE - PROJECTED CONSTRUCTION FOR SEGMENT II OF THE BROWARD BEACH RENOURISHMENT PROJECT |
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South Broward Beaches to Soon See Sand
Hollywood and Hallandale Await Project Start
 | | BROWARD MAYOR KRISTIN JACOBS |
February 8, 2005 - “No one likes to see a project needed so much as this one delayed, but the delay has allowed us to address comprehensively the environmental issues.” Broward County Mayor Kristin Jacobs, whose one-year mayoral term she characterizes as “The Year of the Environment”, offered the statement as magnanimous punctuation to the end of a five-year exercise in delay, distortion and political maneuvering. The Broward County Shore Preservation Project is about to be implemented after a prolonged period of procrastination angst suffered by Beach communities along Broward’s critically eroded shoreline. Every required Federal, State and local permit has been obtained, a stringent environmental protection plan is in place and beachfront communities are relieved that the dilatory approval process is finally completed.
 | | TRAILING SUCTION HOPPER DREDGE |
Broward County inked a $23 million deal with Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., the lowest of three bidders, to serve as the lead contractor for the long awaited beach renourishment project. Attention will first be paid to rehabilitating the meager remnant of beach in John U. Lloyd State Park and the fully eroded beaches outside the high-rises of Hallandale Beach and southern Hollywood. The Segment III section of the project, ranging from John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation area for 6 miles through Dania, Hollywood Beach, and Hallandale Beach to the county line, is slated to receive 50 to 250 feet of new sand. The 1.5 million cubic yards of sand will be dredged from the Segment I part of the project - five offshore deposit sites along Deerfield Beach. Trailing suction hopper dredges will mine the sand which will then be hauled south and discharged through pipelines to the target beaches. Work is expected to start in April, following a 60-day review and mobilization period.
 | | GREAT LAKES DREDGE AT FIRE ISLAND |
Broward’s beach erosion administrator, Steve Higgins, supports the selection of Great Lakes owing to the company’s extensive world-wide experience as well as its familiarity with local factors learned during two previous Broward beach renourishments. They maintain the largest fleet of diversified beach restoration equipment in the United States. Owned by Vectura Holding Company LLC, a CitiCorp venture capital unit, Great Lakes is headquartered in suburban Chicago at Oak Brook, Illinois. Their domestic projects include Atlantic City Beach, Rockaway Beach, Fire Island (Gilgo Beach), Hilton Head, Captiva Island Beach, Venice Beach, San Diego Beaches, Dade County/Miami Beaches, Jupiter Island, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Sanibel Island, Myrtle Beaches, Virginia Beach and dozens of others.  | | ØRESUND FIXED LINK - MAN-MADE ISLAND |
They also deepened Boston Harbor, expanded Freeport Harbor, deepened San Juan Harbor, built the Marina Basin at the Doha Four Seasons Hotel in Qatar, rebuilt the berths in the Port of Oakland, built an island in the Baltic Sea (Øresund Fixed Link) for the bridge and tunnel connecting Sweden and Denmark and recently completed the largest dredging and landfill project in America - the Pier 400 Dredging and Landfill Program in the Port of Los Angeles. Critics accurately point out that they’ve committed several gaffes while compiling their substantial references. In a “Captain Queeg-like” maneuver, they unwittingly dragged some dredge pipes across the seagrass in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. As beach preservation technology progressed, every company in the industry underwent a “learning curve”, as did the Army Corps of Engineers. Higgins noted that project safeguards inherent in the upcoming beach renourishment were specifically designed to avoid past mishaps. The protections were required by the dozens of Environmental agencies and groups that ultimately gave Broward’s project the green light.
| | Mayor Giulianti |
Officials of the Segment III municipalities whose beaches are first in line for restoration have been holding their breath for five years as the project experienced delays resulting from the most intense scrutiny in the history of beach preservation projects. Mayor Mara Giulianti of Hollywood and Mayor Joy Cooper of Hallandale Beach are breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the beaches central to the lives and livelihoods of their residents will finally be reincarnated.  | | MAYOR JOY COOPER |
Along much of their neighboring shorelines, the ocean currently slaps against seawalls where some of the nation’s finest beaches used to attract millions of visitors. The return of their beaches is a welcome reprieve to these and other beach communities such as Dania. During the hyperactive hurricane season, the tiny remnant of Dania’s beach was unceremoniously dumped into an adjacent parking lot. Serendipitously, devastation experienced by beachfront communities during the season’s four-hurricane onslaught drew heightened concern from Tallahassee. The prospect of significant property damage and loss of life evolved from heated political “spin” into cold reality. A healthy beach is the only natural protection from serious weather events for coastal neighborhoods. As nightly media coverage of Florida’s coastal hurricane damage received national attention, bureaucratic foot dragging in Tallahassee slammed to a halt. Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper reflected the sentiments of area residents when stating, “All I can do is breathe a big sigh of relief. This puts the beach back in Hallandale Beach.”
 | | SHRINKING GALT MILE BEACH |
Broward’s remaining critically eroded beaches (Pompano, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Fort Lauderdale) have been mandated to await completion of the southern project segment before being eligible for badly needed restoration. The Broward County Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers agree that the project’s ultimate success is contingent on the problem being addressed as a whole. The project is divided into “Segments” that support one another from an engineering standpoint. As each segment contributes to the overall stability of the shoreline, a positive result depends upon the segments being accomplished in concert. There are two reasons for the project’s segmentation - one practical and one political. Each step of the actual construction is structurally dependent upon the adequate completion of the previous step. Since construction errors carry an environmental price, scrupulous care and oversight are vested in Great Lakes’ contractual responsibilities. The project’s progress - the construction timetable, is therefore parsed by these segments.
 | | CHAIRMAN PIO IERACI |
The political rationale for segmenting the effort is to accommodate a compromise implemented to expedite the project. Despite the overwhelming need for salvaging South Florida’s beaches, certain political interests have consistently attempted to delay or derail Broward’s beach project long after its acceptance by the mainstream environmental community as safe and “in the national interest.” To politically clear the way for starting construction, the State agreed to an 18 month questionably useful “observation period” to assess direct, secondary and long-term effects to nearshore hardbottom habitat associated with the project. Based upon the monitoring of these areas in Segment III, FDEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) would determine the likelihood for adverse impacts to the similar areas in Segment II (Pompano, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Fort Lauderdale), and recommend possible modifications and/or conditions to avoid or minimize impacts. However, the vast majority of gleaned data will be obvious within several months of Segment III’s completion. Many environmentalists feel that while a monitoring period will protect project integrity, an 18 month long delay is excessive. Pompano and Fort Lauderdale officials and civic leaders are concerned that the “monitoring period” could evolve into a political football, affording project opponents the opportunity to again burden the beach renourishment with dangerous and expensive delays (so far – original $26 million jumped to $41 million for Segment III, $30 million ballooned to $58 million for the overall project). Broward Beach Coalition Chair Pio Ieraci exhorted, “While the political interests that delayed the project for years have publicly exclaimed that they now favor saving the area’s beaches, we need to be vigilant in preventing the same scare tactics that added millions to project costs.” Ieraci continued, “Fort Lauderdale and Pompano are dependent on their beaches for survival. There’s too much at stake to permit a repeat of politically motivated irresponsible and dangerous delays.” We agree.
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County Celebrates Beach Renourishment
Grateful Pols Relieved that Delays are Over
 | | WESTIN DIPLOMAT RESORT & SPA |
May 9, 2005 - On May 6th, a long-awaited celebration took place in Hollywood. The immediate beneficiaries of the Broward County Shore Protection Project, the municipalities of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach, joined Broward County in throwing a party to highlight the project’s commencement. The State of Florida was represented by the Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) while the Army Corps of Engineers finally saw its six-year old environmental impact statement bear fruit. Civic and environmental groups that spent the past 5 years locked in a frustrating struggle to save Broward’s beaches also attended. A group of Galt Mile residents were invited to participate in the festivities. As much as anyone, they were responsible for the project’s implementation.
At 8:30 AM, Ocean Club President and GMCA Director Rose Guttman picked up Regency Tower residents Fern McBride, Iris and Joe Anastasi, Eric Berkowitz along with Kathy Freismuth of Regency South to arrive at the Westin Diplomat Resort at 3555 South Ocean Drive in Hollywood by 9:30. They were met at the hotel by Broward Beach Coalition Chairman and Galt Ocean Club President Pio Ieraci. Invited by County officials, the Galt Mile residents represent the nucleus of group that convinced the Florida Cabinet to include Fort Lauderdale in the critical project. The beachfront hotel was ideally suited to host this party. The 39 story, 998-room Resort & Spa is one of Starwood’s premier properties. Despite sporting an enormous list of amenities and accommodations of every stripe, the Hotel’s beach is arguably its single greatest asset. After navigating the cavernous lobby and wading through assorted media types and their equipment, a trip to the back patio revealed the reason for the hotel having been selected as the backdrop for this event, its skeletal beach. The thin strip of beach stands in stark contrast to the hotel’s impressive size and scope. The threat to Broward’s huge $billion tourism revenue engine is well represented by the imposing establishment’s bare bones beach.
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|  | | Rose Guttman |
| | | Pio Ieraci |
|  | | Fern McBride |
|  | | Iris Anastasi |
|  | | Joe Anastasi |
|  | | Eric Peter Berkowitz |
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Galt Mile Representives at the Beach Project Kick-off
Not Shown - Kathy Freismuth, Not Attending - Ron Gresser
 | HALLANDALE BEACH MAYOR JOY COOPER
BROWARD COUNTY MAYOR KRISTIN JACOBS
COUNTY COMMISSIONER SUE GUNZBERGER
HOLLYWOOD MAYOR MARA GIULIANTI
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At 10 AM, Broward Mayor Kristin Jacobs stepped to the podium to initiate the proceedings. Joined by Hollywood’s District 6 County Commissioner Sue Gunzberger and officials from Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach, Jacobs ran through some of the obstacles that delayed the project for 5 years and effectively doubled its cost. A small group of self-serving political interests possessed of questionable environmental credentials succeeded in intimidating certain key state bureaucrats from proceeding apace with the project.  | | Colonel Robert M. Carpenter |
Jacobs imparted some of the harrowing experiences that its supporters had to endure prior to nursing the project through to its ultimately successful kick-off. Jacobs and Gunzberger described threats to the project on the local, State and national levels, including one that required the assistance of Senator Bill Nelson to successfully circumvent. They thanked Jacksonville District Commander and District Engineer Colonel Robert M. Carpenter of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for signing off on a final plan that was both comprehensive and protective of the environment. Jacobs gave kudos to Broward Director of Community Services Lori Flynt, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Peggy Kaiser of Congressman E. Clay Shaw’s office and Jacqui Spier (standing in for Hollywood Statehouse Representative Eleanor Sobel) for playing integral parts in overcoming a plethora of obstacles.
Mayor Jacobs briefly touched on an interesting experiment that should kill two birds with one stone. When the Florida Cabinet approved the project permit in 2003, Florida CFO Tom Gallagher inquired about alternative sources of sand, either imported or manufactured. Broward County officials promised to investigate and test alternatives to incrementally depleting existing offshore borrow sites. Inasmuch, Jacobs described a combination of sand and glass, a mixture of silicas, that will be used to stretch renourishment resources. Discarded bottles that represent a disposal nightmare are ground to smooth sand-sized grains and used to dilute the astronomically expensive sand. A successful experiment demonstrated that people and Sea Turtles couldn’t distinguish between the pulverized Miller bottles and the $10 - $25 per cubic yard genuine article. Shells, coral and other silicates erode into the calcium carbonate sand that covers our beaches. Glass is made of sand, soda ash, limestone and other ingredients that are heated, melted, shaped and, if desired, colored. To replicate sand, different colored bottles could be blended into something close to the tan of South Florida sand and ground to an exact grain size.
 | | Sea Turtles OK with Glass Sand |
Last year, Beach Administrator Steve Higgins explained, “It provides a green solution to the disposal of what might otherwise be a waste product and it provides for the sustainability of our beaches, which is an important piece of our economic and environmental infrastructure. We think it’s possible, and we think the material that results will be practically indistinguishable from beach sand.” More importantly, a key adjunct to the renourishment project is the ongoing replacement of lost sand at certain critical areas, obviating the need to repeat another full scale renourishment in a decade. Fulfilling the Cabinet mandate, ground glass provides the sustainable resource without further depleting existing “borrow areas”. “It’s a serious problem,” Higgins said. “We’re going to have to maintain that beach. We can’t let it go critical like it has in the past. To do that, we’re going to have to place sand at various places along the beach on a fairly frequent basis.” Broward County recycling coordinator Peter Foye confirmed that the 13,000 tons of recyclable bottles generated annually wouldn't be adequate for a full scale renourishment. However, it would be perfect for emergency beach repairs resulting from storm damage or to provide continual small scale replacement at bypass areas.
 | HOLLYWOOD MAYOR MARA GIULIANTI
BROWARD COUNTY MAYOR KRISTIN JACOBS
COUNTY COMMISSIONER SUE GUNZBERGER
HALLANDALE BEACH MAYOR JOY COOPER
AND DANIA BEACH VICE MAYOR PAT FLURY |
Dania Beach’s Vice Mayor Pat Flury stated that she was, “excited and grateful for the renourishment of the County’s beaches.” Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper - whose town’s beaches are scheduled to receive the first renourishment - was accompanied by Vice Mayor William Julian, Commissioners Joe Gibbons, Dorothy Ross and Francine Schiller, the city’s Chief of Police and the head of the Parks Department. Obviously delighted that Hallandale's beaches will again be adequately enlarged for residents and visitors, she expressed relief that the project was finally underway. Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti, in addition to thanking Senator Nelson and Representative Sobel, paid a compliment to State Senator Steven Geller for helping to get the project moving. Referring to the televised news reports during Hurricanes Frances and Ivan in which she stood on the beach while huge chunks of Surf Avenue floated by behind her, Giulianti described the ordeal that Broward shoreline municipalities underwent as a “Hurricane Reality Show”. A channel 10 news clip of the Mayor exclaiming, “Well, the situation is extremely dangerous because there is no beach to buffer us from the effects of the storm,” apparently was viewed in Tallahassee. The next day, Governor Bush repeated the Mayor’s desperate call to action. Not surprisingly, the project suddenly grew legs. All three Mayors pledged to support an impending bypass project which will help preserve the County’s beaches. The project will allow the sand to move down the coast instead of losing it out to sea through tidal erosion.
 | | Worker welding 30-inch Pipe to Carry Sand to Beach |
The southern part of the project, Segment III, will renourish 6.2 miles of Broward County’s shoreline, from the Broward County line in Hallandale Beach to the John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation area in Hollywood, just south of Port Everglades. It involves the placement of approximately 1.7 million cubic yards of sand on South Broward’s eroded beaches in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Dania Beach, widening their current width by up to 200 feet. Sand extracted by Hopper Dredges from North Broward borrow sites in Deerfield and Hillsboro is transported to pumpout moorings in south Hallandale which pump the sand through 30-inch pipes to the beach.  | | REMNANT OF WESTIN DIPLOMAT'S BEACH |
The project will quickly move north in 300-foot increments of shoreline until Sea Turtle Nesting Season, after which it will continue north to John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation area. To avoid damaging coral reefs and other marine resources, the dredges will be constantly monitored as they follow designated corridors. To “lock-in” the sand and slow future erosion along the southern part of the project, a spur will be installed on the south jetty of the Port Everglades inlet and 2 T-head groins will be constructed at the northern end of the John U. Lloyd State Park beach. Segment III will be completed either by October 2005 or February 2006, depending on the speed with which the project moves north and when it is interrupted by Sea Turtle Nesting Season. Once complete, an 18-month monitoring period to evaluate the project’s impact on the marine environment will begin. If Segment III cannot be completed before Sea Turtle Nesting Season, the 18 month clock won’t start ticking until after its resumption and final completion in February. Pending a clean bill of health from marine and coastal ecology experts at Nova Southeastern University, the beaches in Fort Lauderdale and nearly non-existent beaches in adjacent communities to the north (Segment II) - such as the Galt Ocean Mile - will finally be renourished in late 2007 or early 2008.
 | | 2000 Feet of 30-Inch Pipe is Connected |
Also at the celebration was the County official responsible for most of the project’s heavy lifting, Steven Higgins. As Administrator of the Biological Resources Division of the Broward County Environmental Protection Department(EPD), Higgins started the ball rolling more than six years ago upon learning that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection considered Broward’s beaches to be “critically eroded”. Citing the dangers to people and property, Higgins contacted the Army Corps of Engineers to compose the “Broward County Shore Preservation Project”. He clearly demonstrated the economic dangers attendant to the beach erosion. The impending disappearance of world famous South Florida beaches would undermine the County’s (and the State’s) tax base. South Florida’s huge tourism industry and protection for billions of dollars in property value is contingent on the health of its beaches. After creating a viable plan to save the County’s beaches while protecting the environment, Higgins ran into a political minefield designed to sabotage the project.
Beach Administrator Higgins acknowledged that it was important to accommodate legitimate environmental concerns. Higgins addressed hundreds of environmental issues as framed by dozens of mainstream Environmental Agencies and groups. His Division has developed a mountain of authoritative scientific data, mitigation plans and redundant safeguards in support of the project’s successful outcome. Unfortunately, he has also had to respond to capricious requests designed only to delay the project and drain precious resources. Self-appointed “protectors of the environment” crawled out of the woodwork, intimating that the project would wreak havoc on the environment. Skittish politicians had official agencies look into the claims, all of which were addressed in detail. Higgins characterized his frustration at having been made to wade through this bureaucratic swamp by stating, “Somehow our project has gotten more scrutiny from agencies and activist groups than any project I’ve ever seen.” Despite the statement by every mainstream Environmental agency that delaying the project was the real threat to the environment, Tallahassee fell into a dilatory trance.
 | HOUSE SPEAKER ALAN BENSE, SENATE
PRESIDENT TOM LEE & GOVERNOR JEB BUSH
CONVENE SPECIAL SESSION IN TALLAHASSEE |
By July of 2004, the delays became so overtly political that Hollywood Statehouse Representative Eleanor Sobel asked Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist to investigate their source and intent. “It seems like it has been an issue for quite some time,” said Crist, “We’re just looking into the whole issue, and the delays; we’re going to see what’s going on.” While the spurious claims seemed to dissipate, the State continued its “sleepy” progress despite the County’s cry for help. Hurricane Frances was their “wake-up call”. | | Mayor Giulianti |
As depicted by Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti, watching the ocean claim large sections of South Florida real estate on the nightly news while listening to reporters describe the danger to barrier island voters unnerved State officials. Governor Bush, Senate President Tom Lee and House Speaker Alan Bense called for a special session of the legislature to address Hurricane matters. State officials expeditiously compiled the 2004 Hurricane Recovery Plan for Florida’s Beach and Dune System. Although it acknowledges that Segment III should address the problems facing South Broward beaches, it recommends additional funds for the pre-Segment II monitoring effort and the subsequent Segment II (Fort Lauderdale) permit costs. State policy clearly conceded that the impact of coastal damage is directly connected to the health of the area’s protective beaches. The political see-saw again tilted in favor of rapid renourishment.
 | GMCA PRESIDENTS COUNCIL CHAIR PIO IERACI
CREDITS SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY EFFORT
Broward County Commissioner SUE GUNZBERGER
Broward County Mayor KRISTIN JACOBS and
Hollywood Mayor MARA GIULIANTI |
 | Crist, Bronsen, Bush, Gallagher
THE FLORIDA CABINET |
Mayor Jacobs introduced Pio Ieraci, Chairman of the Galt Mile Community Association Presidents Council and the Broward Beach Coalition, who blamed the unnecessary doubling of project costs on the shadowy political coalition that haunted Mr. Higgins. In early 2002, neighborhood residents were invited to attend a public hearing to elicit their true feelings about losing their beach. Over a hundred Galt Mile residents attended the hearing at the Hollywood Beach Community Center to offset the false claim by a group of anti-beach vested interests that they “spoke for area residents.” While the event clarified that local support for the project was overwhelming, anti-beach proponents continued to exert pressure on state officials in Tallahassee to block participation by Fort Lauderdale in Segment II. In response to concerns by Broward officials about the anti-beach group again misrepresenting themselves as “community spokespersons”, a group of Galt Mile residents flew to Tallahassee in support of Fort Lauderdale’s inclusion into the overall project. Donned in red t-shirts displaying, “Save Broward Beaches” while addressing the Governor and the Cabinet, the group gave lie to the assertion that area residents opposed the project. On May 13, 2003, a vote by the Florida Cabinet to permit the Segment II (Fort Lauderdale) part of the plan following an 18-month “monitoring period” put the project back on track. Ieraci pointed out that “without the participation of these residents, the County’s effort would have been unrequited and futile.”
 | | 30-Inch Pipe Set to Carry Sand to Beach |
Mayor Jacobs thanked Project Manager Jackie Larson from the Beach and Ecosystem Management Section of FDEP’s Beach Erosion Control Program (BECP) and Florida Atlantic University for its watershed study of The Impact of Beach Restoration on the Economics of Florida Beaches. Broward’s Mayor finally announced that the pumpout moorings would be in place and ready to start feeding sand to the beach on May 7th, the next day. In a discussion with area residents, Steve Higgins confirmed that the first sand was scheduled to be pumped onto the hotel’s beach within a few days. When asked about the 18 month monitoring period that Fort Lauderdale’s barrier island residents would have to endure before being eligible for the protective renourishment, Higgins stated that he thought it was excessive. If the experts at Nova Southeastern University and the County can agree on an expedited review period without sacrificing diligent oversight, Galt Mile residents may dodge the complete elimination of their disappearing beach if hit by another 4-hurricane bullet. Alexander Dumas may have had a project like this in mind when he stated, “All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.”
Higgins conveyed that Broward County set up a special web site to keep the community posted on the project’s progress. The site explains the technology behind the construction in “user-friendly” lay terminology, easily understandable by the average resident. The municipalities whose beaches are being salvaged naturally installed links from their official web sites to the Broward Beach renourishment page. The official Broward Beach renourishment site offers an up to the minute Weekly Update. An Online Beach Renourishment Brochure is a pictorial essay that was published by Broward County to explain the project to its residents. A Segment III Beach Renourishment Plan Map lays out the southern part of the project. The coolest part of the site is undoubtedly the access it provides to a live beachcam. The camera is mounted atop the Westin Diplomat Resort facing the beach to capture a current picture of the beach as it is rehabilitated. Residents who have been put through an emotional wringer awaiting the project start will stare at the pictures in disbelief. IT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING! Check it out for yourself!
Many thanks to Broward County photographer Scott Medvin for sending us copies of the pictures he took of the event.
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Wilma Batters Broward Beaches
Northern Beaches Slammed Southern Beaches Skate
 | | OCEAN FRONT BUSINESSES SHOVEL BACK BEACH |
November 16, 2005 - The poor get poorer - the County’s most eroded shorelines lost the most beach to Wilma. Like everything else in Broward County, its beaches took a beating from Hurricane Wilma. The Broward County Beach Renourishment Project was planned around salvaging the shorelines of those communities most afflicted by tidal erosion. In keeping with the project’s priorities to address “the worst first”, the County’s devastated southern beaches were the first targets for rehabilitation. Dania, Hollywood and Hallandale Beaches were all but gone by the time that project opponents finally succumbed to public pressure and allowed the project to proceed. Segment III, ranging from the Broward/Dade county line to the John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation area in Hollywood - just south of Port Everglades - was 90% complete by the time Wilma rolled in. The project stalled north of Franklin Street in Hollywood, near the Dania Pier. Construction of the erosion control structures at John U. Lloyd Beach State Park was scheduled to begin in November. Work on three rock groins designed to prolong the effects of the renourishment was already underway.
 | | BEACH BLOWN OVER WAVE WALL ACROSS A1A |
The municipalities lining Broward’s southern shoreline were given new leases on life by their widened beaches. Hotels, resorts and hundreds of businesses whose lifeblood flows from the regions beaches were revived after years of an existence based on cloudy memories of when their beaches were world famous. In 2004, before the project started, each hurricane that hit Broward’s southern shore devastated the municipality behind the beach. Following Hurricane Frances, the world watched Surf Road just south of Dania Boulevard break up on television as Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti declared “Well, the situation is extremely dangerous because there is no beach to buffer us from the effects of the storm.” Frances also pushed all the remaining sand from Dania Beach into a parking lot across the street from the beach. 2005 was a different story. The widened beaches protected the properties and infrastructure in Dania, Hollywood and Hallandale from Katrina, Rita and now Wilma. Broward County’s beach renourishment administrator Steve Higgins said, “We really didn’t see a lot of erosion in the south end of the county.” The northern beaches weren’t as fortunate.
 | | INTERSECTION OF LAS OLAS & A1A COVERED WITH SAND |
Large stretches of the shoreline along the Segment II part of the project - Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Pompano Beach and Hillsboro Beach - have experienced deterioration equal to that of the southern beaches prior to their renourishment. After Hurricane Wilma, Fort Lauderdale’s famed Ocean Highway, State Road A1A, was reminiscent of Surf Road in Hollywood after Hurricane Frances. In Deerfield Beach, Wilma blew huge segments of their beach onto and across Ocean Way, the street running along the ocean. When asked to evaluate the loss to their Beach, Deerfield’s Director of Parks and Recreation Vince Kendrick responded, “We’re trying to evaluate how much sand we’ve lost. We [bulldozed] 40 truckloads of sand over just three blocks.” Hillsboro and Pompano Beach suffered identical dilemmas. In addition to losing the sparse remnants of the north Broward coastline, exposed shorefront communities suffered heightened damage to their coastal properties and infrastructure. From Fort Lauderdale to Hillsboro Beach, the unprotected barrier island was literally covered in sand.
| SALVAGED SAND PILED UP ALONG A1A BEING
RETURNED TO FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH |
Along the Galt Mile, sand and ocean flotsam filled swimming pools. Huge drifts covered parking decks and penetrated the lower levels in several condos. When some sixth floor Galt Ocean Club residents finally opened their balcony doors, they discovered large sand dunes covering their balcony floors. Galt Towers, Regency South, Royal Ambassador and many other Galt Mile Associations also reported large accumulations of sand covering balconies as high as the tenth floor. In the weeks following the storm, Fort Lauderdale cleanup crews removed hundreds of reconstituted sand dunes on Galt Ocean Drive and A1A. In contrast to the one-time protection provided by the Galt’s wider beach of the 1980s and early 1990s, our now-shrunken shoreline afforded a negligible cushion against Wilma’s storm surge. The two-year meteorological onslaught has whittled our beach to less than ten feet in several spots along the northern Galt Mile - at low tide. When the tide comes in, the beach disappears completely in these areas.
| BEFORE BEACH RENOURISHMENT
WESTIN DIPLOMAT HOTEL'S BEACH |
In a monument to understatement, beach administrator Higgins described the damage to north Broward’s beaches, “Areas that were thin to start with got beaten up a little bit more. It chewed up the beaches as much as you’d expect in a serious storm.” Contrasting the damage sustained by Broward’s southern and northern beaches, Higgins said, “Beaches in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Dania Beach fared better because they are being widened as part of a $45 million renourishment project expected to end in January. However, wind and surf lashed sections of beach more in parts of Fort Lauderdale, Hillsboro Beach and Deerfield Beach, where erosion has eaten away the shoreline and left it more vulnerable to storms.”
 | AFTER BEACH RENOURISHMENT
WESTIN DIPLOMAT HOTEL'S BEACH |
At the May 13, 2003 Cabinet hearing that resulted in the County receiving the green light to salvage south Broward’s beaches (Segment III), opponents of the County’s Beach Restoration Project downplayed the predicted damage to properties left unprotected by tidal erosion, characterizing it as, “a scare tactic created by special interests.” Supported by federal, state and local environmental agencies, highly respected environmentalist Roy Rogers contradicted the anti-renourishment claims, stating that, “The State should anticipate billions of dollars in unnecessary incremental damage to the beaches and collateral damage to the municipalities they protect if they’re left in a critically eroded state.” Mr. Rogers has served as the Vice Chair of the Florida Audubon Society and Vice Chair of the Florida Community Trust. In addition, he’s chaired the Nature Conservancy and was the Governor’s appointee to the Environmental Regulation Committee. As if scripted in a three-act play, every word of Mr. Rogers’ warning to the Cabinet came true. Although strange bedfellows, environmental experts and insurance officials agree that the projected $10 billion in Wilma-related damages would have been substantially less had the northern beaches benefited from the same protection afforded those in southern Broward.
 | FLORIDA CABINET - ATTORNEY GENERAL CHARLIE CRIST
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE CHARLES BRONSON
GOVERNOR JEB BUSH, CFO TOM GALLAGHER |
When environmental authorities told the Florida Cabinet that the unprotected Broward coastline from Fort Lauderdale through Hillsboro Beach invited the same catastrophic damage as the County’s southern beaches, the Cabinet agreed to extend the Project permit to include the northern coastline (Segment II). In a political compromise designed to expedite emergency renourishment of the County’s nearly non-existent southern beaches, the Cabinet agreed to an 18-month observation period following the completion of Segment III. The effects of the Segment III renourishment would be monitored to avoid “direct, secondary and long-term effects to nearshore hardbottom habitat” when renourishing the County’s northern beaches (Segment II). The Governor took note that the Army Corps of Engineers stated in their Environmental Impact Statement that the success of the project’s individual segments depended on the successful completion of the project as a whole. They warned that eliminating any part of the project would undermine the engineering basis for the project’s overall success.
The $45 million price tag on the nearly completed Segment III project component is double projected costs. The original cost of rehabilitating the beaches in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach was approximately $23 million. Certain vested interests enlisted the assistance of a few fringe environmental groups to intimidate specific Tallahassee bureaucrats. At first, they claimed to be beach residents representing the majority of people that lived along Broward’s shore. | REPRESENTATIVE
ELEANOR SOBEL |
This tactic backfired when thousands of barrier island residents and their municipal representatives demonstrated overwhelming support for the project. Their new tactic was simplicity itself. If they could deplete the resources earmarked for the project, they could increase the project’s burden on taxpayers, burning out public support. Despite the project’s acceptance by the mainstream environmental community as safe and “in the national interest,” opponents used the media to foment doubt about the project’s environmental safeguards. By loosing a virtual blizzard of baseless allegations, they systematically drained resources and delayed the project.
| ATTORNEY GENERAL
CHARLIE CRIST |
To fulfill his responsibility as Project coordinator and beach administrator, Steve Higgins had to scientifically discredit the continuous slew of “red herrings” drummed up by project opponents. “Somehow our project has gotten more scrutiny from agencies and activist groups than any project I’ve ever seen,” explained Mr. Higgins. Despite his having earned the backing of the environmental community, delays seemed to take on a life of their own. It wasn’t until Representative Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood), supported by almost every coastal municipal administration frustrated by the project’s plodding pace, asked Florida State Attorney General Charlie Crist to look into the legitimacy of the delays. Sensing that the underlying motives for their tactics were dangerously close to being uncovered, project opponents tried to elicit several questionable concessions from both State and County officials. Suspicions were aroused, for instance, when they asked the State to rezone all of Florida’s beachfront property. At the end of the day, this abuse of the system cost taxpayers $22 million extra and delayed the project for six years.
 | | BEACH FLORA ROOTS HOLD REMAINING SAND IN PLACE |
This data, however, doesn’t reflect the true cost of the politically motivated delays. According to insurance industry estimates, if the beaches in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach were widened on schedule, the added protection would have spared those communities tens of millions of dollars in incremental storm damage, primarily on the barrier island. Since the original project timetable also anticipated Segment II’s completion well before 2004, the damage suffered by residents of Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach and Hillsboro Beach during the 2005 and 2006 hurricane seasons would have been similarly moderated. As such, the net cost of delaying the project is closer to $100 million.
We’ll soon enter the 18 month monitoring period. Some project opponents have stated that they intend to practice the same tactics when Segment II beaches become eligible for renourishment. Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach and Hillsboro Beach shorelines can be made whole at an estimated cost of $22 million if Segment II starts in 2008 as scheduled. That is, of course, unless Tallahassee allows the beach to again become a political football.
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“Turtle Magic”
Enchantment on Call
 July 23, 2006 - On July 14th, Playa del Mar resident Phyllis Carter awoke to experience one of those surprise thrills unique to beachfront homeowners. Every Galt Mile resident has blankly gazed at the ocean horizon, awed by the natural beauty in our back yard. Despite the relative brevity of these intermittent “Discovery Channel” moments, they serve to remind many of us why we moved here to begin with.
Ms. Carter’s early morning rendezvous with one of the Galt Mile’s longtime native legacies inspired an email to friends and neighbors describing her witnessed incident. To underscore her delight, she entitled the email with a phrase lifted from the libretto of “The Music Man”. It reads as follows:
“A Beach Event Right Here in River City”
 | TURTLE TEAM ON GALT MILE BEACH BETWEEN
PLAYA DEL MAR AND REGENCY TOWER |
“This morning at 7 AM I noticed the turtle tracks in the sand on our beach and by the time I got my camera, a team of ‘turtle conservationists’ were upon the scene to do their thing. They worked very carefully to locate the eggs, each creating a hole in the sand with their bare hands until the eggs were found. When that was determined, two remained while the others continued up the beach in search of more turtle tracks.
Each egg was gently removed and placed in one of those buckets in a bed of sand and my guess delivered to a sanctuary of some kind for protection. Such an amazing event. About midnight Tuesday and Wed nite I had seen people on the beach with flashlights and now the mystery is solved. They must have been on the look for turtles but this turtle outsmarted them and delivered in her own time, unobserved.
Then the team circled around the site repeatedly to disguise the tracks and excavation. So coooool! Felt like I was watching a NOVA special.”
Later,
Phyllis
 | TEAM PREPARES RESCUED EGGS FOR TRANSFER
VIEW FROM 24th FLOOR OF PLAYA DEL MAR |
Operating under the aegis of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Marine Turtle Program, “Turtle Teams” have several possible objectives. Some are licensed to protect the nests on site through an assortment of venues such as caging or, if necessary, move the eggs to beaches more appropriate as safe nesting sites. They consider an assortment of factors including coastal littering, beach furniture, nearby construction, seawalls (coastal armoring), and beach lighting that could be misinterpreted as moonlight and lure disoriented hatchlings away from the ocean.
 | | SEA TURTLE TRACKS TO AND FROM THE NEST |
Other authorized teams have permits to perform research surveys and gather data. The state of Florida, through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, coordinates two sea turtle monitoring programs: the Statewide Nesting Beach Survey and the Index Nesting Beach Survey. The Statewide Nesting Beach Survey (SNBS) program was initiated in 1979 under a cooperative agreement between the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Its purpose is to document the total distribution, seasonality and abundance of sea turtle nesting in Florida. They track the nesting habits of five species listed as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act; the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), the hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii). The Index Nesting Beach Survey (INBS), a monitoring program performed in conjunction with SNBS, was established to measure seasonal productivity, allowing comparisons between beaches and between years.
The data from these surveys provided strong support for the beach renourishment currently underway in Broward County. Miles of vanishing Marine Turtle nesting habitat that fell prey to tidal erosion is being restored. Additionally, the Biological Resources Division of the Broward County Environmental Protection Department (EPD) carefully timed the project to avoid dredging and shore restoration activities during the sensitive nesting season.
 | | PHYLLIS CARTER - PLAYA DEL MAR |
After reading Phyllis Carter’s prosaic tribute to an event she characterized as “amazing”, I casually imparted her anecdote to several friends and neighbors. Universally, they smiled knowingly and agreed that “enchantment on call” was an unexpected benefit of life on the Galt Mile. I requested her permission to publish the email. Her response was couched in concern for the fate of our endangered carapace-covered neighbors. She wrote:
“It was such an event for me but old hat to many that I emailed it to on the Mile. I found it fascinating as did my family and friends up North. I am on turtle watch every morning but alas, my view is limited to our two buildings (Playa del Mar and Regency Tower – editor). I am sure that this is happening all along the coast line. Actually the eggs were laid in front of your building as the site was just past your first set of cabanas. I know they are a protected species but I’m not familiar with the laws governing them so it would be nice to mention that if you like.”
Thanks, Phyllis, I think you just did!
 Phyllis Carter is the editor of the Playa del Mar Newsletter. Along with Harriet Healy, Richard Solewin, Lance Shaw and a host of other contributing Playa del Mar residents, she created and now fuels Playa del Mar’s new vehicle for keeping her neighbors “in the know”. To view their handiwork, Click Here to see the Playa del Mar Newsletter on the Association’s web site!
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Galt Mile Outfall Pipes Meeting
Stephen Higgins  Discusses Plan
 September 17, 2006 - When the Galt Ocean Mile was under development, the oceanfront luxury housing projects utilized structural technologies which were considered “cutting edge”. With time, these systems sank into obsolescence. When the diminished integrity of these aging structural elements presented safety threats or their growing inefficiency increased operational costs, Associations would adjust their budgets to include upgrades. Over the years, backup generators, elevators, fire safety systems, roofs and video security were modernized with second and third generation improvements. In certain cases, wholesale upgrades were motivated by unexpected environmental changes such as the serial hurricanes prompting the need for improved window and door protection. As plumbing risers fell prey to internal erosion, attendant leaks and floods were cured by the installation of replacement pipes.
 | | OUTFALL PIPE |
In South Florida, air conditioning is not an amenity; it is a necessity. All along the block, the original equipment used to provide cooling deteriorated from age and wear even as its underlying technology became obsolete. As these systems broke down, most associations opted to upgrade to newer, more efficient replacements. Following the one-time expense attached to the installation of one or more cooling water towers, operational and maintenance costs plummeted. As an added benefit, the owners occupying higher floors who were long deprived of adequate cooling were finally made comfortable. Facing other expenses or engineering obstacles, some associations left their original systems on life support, subjecting themselves to huge maintenance and repair bills while holding things together with truckloads of crazy glue.
 | | OUTFALL PIPE DISCHARGE |
These original systems required that every Galt Mile association vent its HVAC condensate and/or water utilized for heat exchange into the ocean through large outfall pipes that were buried under the beach. As tidal erosion washed away the sand, the exposed pipes became increasingly prominent tripping hazards and offensive eyesores. As these deteriorating systems were replaced by more efficient ones based on cooling towers, most associations removed these obsolete rusting safety hazards. Some did not. For a variety of reasons, five Galt Mile associations are still using them.
 | STEPHEN HIGGINS &
ILENE LIEBERMAN |
Several years ago, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) contacted oceanfront buildings, alerting them to new permitting requirements for these structures. Conveying a laundry list of environmental concerns, any association insisting on maintaining these pipes had to submit accurate and current engineering and environmental feedback about the outflow composition, ambient water temperature and reams of ancillary data. After meeting with DEP officials, several engineers retained for this purpose reported that DEP’s wish list included ridding the coast of these dinosaurs. Evidently, they suffered bad experiences with similar structures in other parts of the State. While the Galt Mile pipes discharge innocuous condensate, stormwater runoff or well water subjected to heat-exchange, other pipes drain all manner of offensive materials into the ocean. Coral reef advocates claimed that the pipes were adversely affecting water quality and carving significant gullies into the beach and ocean bottoms. Testing by retained engineers and the Broward County Environmental Protection Department (EPD) dispelled these allegations as they apply to the Galt Mile outfall pipes.
 | | PLAZA EAST ROOF - ROOM FOR WATER TOWERS |
Last December, a decidedly hostile notice was received from DEP reaffirming their concerns. Several affected Galt Mile associations contacted the DEP Southeast District Office in West Palm Beach and communicated with Linda Horne, the District’s Environmental Administrator of Water Resources. Pending a successful outcome of the reef impact monitoring, Segment II (Fort Lauderdale) of the beach renourishment is scheduled to drop about 100 feet of additional sandy beach over the existing Galt Mile shoreline, completely covering any remaining outfall pipes. While the pipes could conceivably undergo an expensive 100 foot extension, the attendant construction would require a permit from the State. Florida DEP, whose approval would be required for such a permit, is strongly averse to the perpetuation of these pipes. Despite the absence of any real environmental indictment, it became apparent that their days were numbered.
 | FOUNTAINHEAD
MANAGER CARL ELLIS |
Stephen Higgins of the Broward County Environmental Protection Department’s (EPD) Biological Resource Division is the main architect of the Broward Beach Protection Project. A jurisdictional agreement between Florida DEP and Broward EPD has empowered Higgins to represent DEP in certain matters wherein they share mutual interests. In that he was wearing the hat of every environmental agency involved in this conundrum, Higgins agreed to act as liaison between the affected associations and the DEP. On September 11th, the Galt Mile Community Association sponsored a 6:45 PM special meeting at the Ocean Club Condominium to address the issue. Representatives of seven Galt Mile Associations with outflow pipes in varying states of functionality met with Mr. Higgins to formulate an effective plan of action.
 | PLAZA EAST PREXY
RICH LOARIE |
Co-Chaired by GMCA Vice President Pio Ieraci and Secretary Eric Berkowitz, the meeting began with every attending association describing the status of their existing outfall structures. Galt Ocean Club President Pio Ieraci said that with the installation of water towers on their roof, “the pipe behind Galt Ocean Club had been relegated to a non-functional remnant.” President P.D. Foster and Manager Herb Santiago of meeting host Ocean Club claimed two pipes that were currently operational. Accompanied by Treasurer John Toklucu and Director Ismet Baker, Plaza East President Rich Loarie described their two operational pipes as performing different functions. He stated, “Cool salt water from a well is discharged into the ocean after being warmed by an air conditioning heat exchange. The second pipe drains collected stormwater into the ocean.” Ocean Summit Director Russell Bailey said his association has one operational outfall pipe. Plaza South’s Andy Surdival stated that they had two operational pipes. Accompanied by Marlene Katkin, Fountainhead Manager Carl Ellis explained that since they recently installed a water tower, he anticipates that their one pipe will be rendered non-operational in about a month. Edgewater Arms also has a non-operational pipe.
 | | NEW FOUNTAINHEAD WATER TOWERS |
Beach Erosion Administrator Higgins explained that since the land below the mean high water line belongs to the State of Florida, DEP had significant jurisdictional standing in determining the fate of the outfall pipes. Since they represent an irresolvable obstacle to the Beach Protection Project, the pipes would have to go by the time that the project started up again in 2008. Higgins elaborated, “Other considerations aside, the DEP can hold the Beach Project hostage to the removal of these structures.” Rich Loarie asked Higgins about the underlying rationale for performing beach renourishment. Higgins responded, “While the beaches are a critically important recreational resource and provide a unique environmental habitat, their greatest value derives from the protection they provide to lives and property in coastal communities. They are our best defense against storm damage.”
 | STEPHEN HIGGINS
AT GMCA MEETING |
When asked by several attendees, Mr. Higgins discussed alternatives to outfall pipes. When Herb Santiago expressed interest in replacing the pipe’s discharge function with a well, Pio Ieraci, Carl Ellis and Eric Berkowitz all agreed that, given the cost and the potentially erratic performance of wells, water towers were clearly a preferable option. Carl Ellis explained that after Fountainhead performed an extensive study of their alternatives, they determined that the advantages of the water tower option were overwhelming. Eric Berkowitz explained that the 190-foot exfiltration well recently installed in Regency Tower was connected by a system of French drains to association catch basins, relieving the garage of stormwater floods suffered even during moderate rain events. Since Regency Tower has a rooftop water tower, the well need not contribute to any cooling function. Rich Loarie and Ismet Baker concurred, stating that Plaza East is favorable to installing water towers.
 | | OCEAN SUMMIT ROOF - ROOM TO SPARE |
When Andy Surdival asked Higgins what Broward County would do if still faced with remaining outfall pipes when the project recommences, he responded, “The County would have to remove them prior to installing the sand.” He admonished that he couldn’t confirm whether or not the County would pass the cost to the Association. Since the existing pipes all extend past the mean high water line and are partially located on State-owned land, a DEP permit is required prior to their removal. Broward County’s direct or indirect participation in excising these outfall pipes will be an invaluable asset when contending with the mind-numbing DEP permit process. When asked about the cost of removing these structures, Higgins recounted an incident wherein the county removed old groins extending 150 into the ocean. He said, “The cost of removing 40 of these structures and hauling them away via dump trucks was $300,000.”
 | | OCEAN CLUB ROOF - NOT ENOUGH SPACE |
Since permits to extend these structures appear to be unattainable, every association relying on them for cooling or drainage must have an alternative in place by the time that Broward sees to their removal. According to manager Carl Ellis, it took about a year from their initial feasibility study before Fountainhead could install their water tower. While most Associations can safely install water towers on their roofs, two exceptions were considered. Due to their extreme weight when filled, they are generally situated directly above accessible building columns. Absent that configuration, either additional I-bar support must be constructed to redistribute the weight or the water towers must be relocated to ground level. Herb Santiago expressed Ocean Club’s unique dilemma. Since their roof is already covered with a basketball court and a swimming pool, installation of a water tower would have to be at ground level. Given that water towers are somewhat noisy, additional sound insulation would be required.
In conclusion, with Fountainhead’s impending outfall pipe deactivation next month, only Plaza East, Plaza South, Ocean Club and Ocean Summit face the beach renourishment removal deadline. While they are in varying stages of contending with this unavoidable requirement, Mr. Higgins conjectured that there is enough time to perform any preliminary studies, develop a scope of work and complete construction prior to commencement of the Segment II renourishment. On the bright side, it is conceivable that Broward County may actually remove any remaining pipes at that time. That is an enormous benefit to associations that ordinarily would be forced to navigate a difficult DEP permit process prior to an expensive extraction procedure. The unit owners of those associations facing the systems upgrade will realize a secondary benefit already enjoyed by their neighbors. Simply put, they will spend less money for cooler air!
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Turtle Lighting Notice Controversy
City Clarifies Unintentional Threat
 May 4, 2007 - In mid-April, Fort Lauderdale’s Department of Building Services contacted oceanfront buildings within its jurisdiction. Accompanying a correspondence addressed to “property manager or owner” was a red, pink and white legal size Inspection Report generally used to support the building department’s contention that some ordinance(s) had been violated. The body of the notice containing ordinance and/or statute numbers, brief textual descriptions and the expected corrective actions all remained blank. Immediately below, in the five lines reserved for a description were two cryptic phrases, “6-51 Artificial Lighting Violation” and “Please See Attached”. Just above the Inspector’s name and identification number is the number of days available to correct the violation couched in the enabling legislation and the prescribed penalties. 14 days were allotted to cure the violation alluded to in the attached document.
 Earlier, academicians from Nova Southeast University took an evening stroll along the Galt Mile shore. As they passed each building, they rolled videotape of their view from the beach. While the camera jockey captured the east side of every structure, an environmental peer scripted what they saw. They saw lights - bright and dim; directional and ambient; white, yellow, red, blue and green. Carriage lights, flood lights, spots, uplights, mushrooms, wall mounted, posted or suspended from every building they passed.
They were sent by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on behalf of Sea Turtles. Sea turtles are either endangered or threatened (the loggerhead is the only species that has a population high enough to be only threatened in Florida). They are protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 and Florida’s Marine Turtle Protection Act (370.12, Florida Statutes). The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) together review permits for coastal construction under Chapter 62B, F.A.C. (Florida Administrative Code) that affects Marine Turtles. The state of Florida developed a model lighting ordinance (62B-55, F.A.C.) to guide local governments in creating lighting ordinances.
 | | TURTLE HATCHLING DEATH TRAP |
For millions of years, nesting female sea turtles have been laying their eggs on our beaches. Their hatchling turtles were guided to the ocean by an instinct to travel away from the dark silhouettes of dune vegetation and toward the moonlight-illuminated open ocean. In many highly populated coastal areas, artificial lights near the beach are brighter than the moonlit ocean, reversing the turtles’ biological compass. Nesting females seeking the darkened shore instead head out to sea where they cannot lay their eggs. If they find the shore and successfully deposit their eggs, the disoriented hatchlings travel inland, toward the artificial lights, where they often die from dehydration or predation by fire ants and ghost crabs. They also become “road kill” on local thoroughfares.
 Broward County adopted Chapter 39, Article IX, Sec 39-107 in 1989. Ten years later, Pompano Beach followed their lead (Ords 99-18, 2000-64), Deerfield Beach in 2000 (Chapter 34, Article V, Sec 34-96), Hallandale Beach in 2001 (Ch. 6, Art. I), Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in 2002 and Fort Lauderdale in 2003 (Chapter 6, Article III). Fort Lauderdale’s official contact with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is Al Lovingshimer (954) 828-5118 – a code inspector whose name graced the bottom of every violation Inspection Report.
 | | TURTLE HATCHLINGS LEAVING NEST |
Mr. Lovingshimer’s attached document introduced the issue to the addressee, “For the protection of threatened and endangered species of sea turtles, a lighting compliance survey of Fort Lauderdale Beach was recently conducted. During this inspection, violations on your property were identified as noted below.” It was followed by a thinly veiled threat, “Your cooperation in correcting these potential threats to threaten and endangered species of sea turtles in the time indicated on the accompanying ‘INSPECTION REPORT’ is greatly appreciated and will avoid the necessity of further enforcement action.” Potential enforcement actions include a Chinese menu of three options. The first allows the City to fix the problem and charge any cost to the property owner. If determined by the Code Enforcement Board or a Special Magistrate that the violation exists, the property owner is fined $250 per day until remedied. The attendant debt becomes a lien on the property. A more drastic action is reserved for the City’s third option, wherein an arrest may be effectuated, a summons from the City Prosecutor served, and exposure to fines up to $500 per day joined by a jail sentence from 0 - 90 days. This disclaimer of sorts is designed to marshal the property owner’s undivided attention. The attached letter also describes as the “Source of Violation” every light on the property visible from the beach, including light emanating from the windows of unit owners. It ends with the admonition, “Please remind everyone to close blinds, shades etc.”
Lastly, a copy of the City ordinance governing lighting standards for existing development is attached (Chapter 6, Article III, Div. 2, Sec. 6-51). “It is the policy of the City of Fort Lauderdale that no artificial light shall illuminate any area of the incorporated beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. To meet this intent, lighting of existing structures that can be seen from the beach shall be in compliance with the following:” The 3 following provisions describe how lights illuminating the beach for any purpose are to be mollified during the March 1st through October 31st nesting season.
Darkening the rear of every building will foment serious insurance and security repercussions. Trip and fall incidents on darkened association property will be unceremoniously dumped onto the City. The wholesale subrogation of medical damages, especially from elderly victims, will become a municipal budget line item. Unaddressed security consequences also threaten beachfront homeowners. Our sparsely illuminated beach areas have historically been security “black holes” to nervous residents. If half of every building is plunged into darkness for 8 months of the year, crime behind condominiums will become a growth industry. The anticipated “Galt Mile Security Patrol” will have to be trebled and fitted with night vision equipment.
Within 48 hours, twelve angry GMCA member associations contacted the neighborhood association with questions about the surprise violation notice. On April 26th, GMCA Officials Pio Ieraci and Eric Berkowitz met with Lovingshimer to ascertain how associations could best comply with the ordinance without creating on-site danger zones or sending their budgets into a tailspin. After exploring the intention of the ordinance and realistic options available to associations aspiring to comply, Mr. Lovingshimer agreed to address member concerns at the May 7th Presidents Council meeting.
 Fortunately, Mr. Lovingshimer is unwilling to test the downside of completely darkening peoples’ homes. During a discussion about compliance with the municipal ordinance, Lovingshimer stressed the importance of finding a viable balance between residents’ safety and improving the survivability rates of an endangered species. Through the judicious use of motion detectors, screens, shields, downlights and fixtures incorporating light-management techniques, compliance is achievable while minimizing some of the safety impacts. Since the ordinance was first passed, research has improved the lighting options available to address the problems of both people and turtles.
 To reduce the effects of artificial lighting on sea turtles, it is first essential to understand how sea turtles perceive light in their environment. First, and most importantly, strategies to resolve lighting problems must recognize that man’s common notions of brightness and color do not apply, because sea turtles and humans perceive light quite differently.
 | | HOW COLOR (WAVELENGTH) OF LIGHT SOURCE IMPACTS TURTLE BEHAVIOR |
Both the color (wavelength) and relative brightness of light sources are important in the sea-finding capabilities of hatchling sea turtles (Witherington and Martin, 1996; Lohmann et al., 1997). Green turtles are strongly attracted to light in the near-ultraviolet to yellow region of the visible spectrum (360 to 600 nm) but are relatively indifferent to light in the yellow-orange to red region (630 to 700 nm; see diagram at right). Loggerhead turtles are also strongly attracted to short wavelength light, but unlike green turtles, have an aversion to bright light in the green-yellow to yellow spectrum (560 to 600 nm); loggerheads are only moderately attracted to longer wavelength light in the orange and red spectra. The relatively high sensitivity of turtles to short wavelengths is not surprising considering that they live in a medium, the ocean, which selectively filters out long wavelength colors.
 | | HOW COLOR (WAVELENGTH) OF LIGHT SOURCE IMPACTS HUMANS |
The relative attraction of hatchlings to different colors is a function of brightness. Relatively low intensities of ultraviolet to green light (short wavelengths) are needed to elicit an orientation response in loggerhead hatchlings, whereas much higher intensities of long wavelength light would be required to elicit a similar response (Witherington and Martin, 1996). Hatchlings can be attracted to even long wavelength red light at very high intensities.
Most light sources are composed of many wavelengths, each representing a different color. However, since we are unable to distinguish among the spectral components; we see only a single color. The same is true for sea turtles. Nevertheless, due to differences in spectral sensitivities, the color emitted by a particular light source may not appear the same to humans as to sea turtles. Similarly, two light sources appearing very similar in color to humans may appear dramatically different to sea turtles. This has important implications for effective light management. For example, a source emitting monochromatic (single wavelength) yellow light is unattractive or only weakly attractive to hatchlings. Yet, another source, which also appears yellow to humans but contains both green and red spectral components, can be highly attractive to hatchlings because of the green wavelengths present. Consequently, we cannot rely solely on color when determining whether or not a light is likely to attract hatchlings.
 | | TURTLES PERCEIVE LIGHT THRU CONE OF ACCEPTANCE |
In addition to their spectral sensitivity, hatchling sea turtles also are sensitive to the directional component of light (Witherington and Martin, 1996; Lohmann et al., 1997). As hatchlings assess the brightest direction, they integrate light through a broad, relatively flat cone of acceptance (See Diagram). For loggerhead turtles, the cone of acceptance is about 180° wide and only from about 10° to 30° above the ground. This implies that light reaching the hatchling from all sources combined (illuminance) is more important in influencing orientation than is the brightness of light emanating from a particular source (luminance). Furthermore, light near the horizon plays the greatest role in determining orientation direction. Thus, color, brightness, proximity to the beach, and broadcast characteristics combine to determine the relative attractiveness of a light source to a hatchling.
  Given the relentless financial burdens faced by every association during the past few years, ranging from storm related damage repairs, huge insurance increases, windstorm mitigation construction and the planned assessments required to rehabilitate any 30-year old structure, association members are financially shell-shocked. Sympathetic with the fiscal strain currently plaguing association residents, Lovingshimer made suggestions that were accommodatingly moderate. Some fixtures could be modified with screens costing between $20 and $40. Bollards, mushrooms and downlights fitted with special bulbs constitute an inexpensive replacement for some of the most offensive lighting violations. In fact, the Florida Fish and Game web site offers links to companies whose products have been approved as compliant turtle-safe lighting.
 More importantly, Lovingshimer exclaimed that compliance standards are conditional on improvement, not perfection. If each beachfront structure addressed the most egregious violations, Fish and Wildlife will have chalked up a major victory. Many of these adjustments simply require altering the direction of high intensity lamps. Carriage lights are correctable through the use of inexpensive semicircular deflector screens installed between the bulb and the fixture lens. Associations experiencing serious budgetary shortfalls can hand-fashion these products if necessary – although purchasing them for a few hundred dollars will better preserve aesthetic integrity.
 Last year, MB Lighting Specialists, Inc. proprietor Michael Boiteau demonstrated some wildlife-safe lighting products at a GMCA Presidents Council meeting. Unfortunately, his presentation was prologue to a meeting convened primarily to address the crippling insurance crisis. As such, most attendees were looking past this issue to the more critical insurance update that followed. Following the blizzard of angry association telephone responses precipitated by Lovingshimer’s violation notices, Boiteau was again contacted by GMCA. He said that each association could comply with the regulations at a variety of price points. He agreed to provide any interested association with a spectrum of solutions ranging from less than $100 to several thousand dollars for high-end lighting strategies.
 | | OCEAN MANOR CONDO-HOTEL DECORATIVE LIGHTING AT NIGHT |
At the May 7th Presidents Council event, Code Inspector Al Lovingshimer intends to convey that Florida Fish & Wildlife’s initiative requirements can be met without sacrificing safety, security or the association budget. When queried about the abbreviated compliance time frame described in the violation notice, Lovingshimer acknowledged that 14 days is unrealistic. “As long as we know that an effort to comply is underway, we will extend the time as needed. I will work with every GMCA member that requests assistance,” said Lovingshimer. Addressing the heavy-handed manner in which associations were notified, Lovingshimer said “We regret any confusion caused by the threatening tone of the notices, we simply wanted to improve the survival rates for hatchlings and their nesting mothers. It is unfortunate that half the boilerplate notice is devoted to non-compliance penalties. That was not the message we wanted to get across.” Understandably, the structures facing the block’s biggest challenges are the beachfront hotels and condo-hotels such as GMCA member Ocean Manor. Also affected by the notice, Galt Merchants Association member Ocean Sky Hotel was granted permission to attend the meeting.
Lovingshimer explained that a meeting about turtle-safe lighting was held in the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Town Hall last year. Expressing frustration with the disappointing turnout, he admitted, “Since the Galt Mile Association has agreed to help us get the word out, this won’t happen again. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify that our objectives are limited to reasonable adjustments; we intend to avoid any security complications.”
 | INTERNATIONAL DARK SKY
OKed LIGHTING FIXTURES |
For example, Lovingshimer referred to that portion of some notices identifying the light from unit owner windows as sources of violation. “We don’t expect people to walk around their homes in the dark. If the association posts a reminder requesting that residents turn off their lights upon leaving the house and close the shades on windows overlooking the ocean, we will consider the association to be in compliance with that aspect of the notice.” He said the request might be added to an existing newsletter, posted on a bulletin board, placed on an association web site or sent out with the maintenance notice. As he stated, Lovingshimer isn’t looking for perfection, just improvement. Sounds reasonable!
More information regarding sea turtles and the local conservation program is available from the County’s Environmental Protection Department, Biological Resources Division (954) 519-1230 or www.broward.org/bio/seaturtle.htm. To elicit turtle info from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, call (850) 922-4330 or MyFWC.com/seaturtle. To reach code inspector Al Lovingshimer Fort Lauderdale’s official contact with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, call (954) 828-5118. The links below offer access to Turtle-Safe lighting informational websites, organizations that discuss relevant products and companies that sell them.
 Presidents Council Meeting
May 9, 2007 - On May 7th, Fort Lauderdale Code Inspector Al Lovingshimer, accompanied by a host of environmental and lighting officials from the City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, illuminated participants about the plight of Marine Turtles and the measures required to prevent their extinction. Representatives from almost every GMCA member association were first introduced to Natural Resource Specialist Lou Fisher from the Biological Resources Division of Broward County’s Environmental Protection Department. Lou works with Broward Beach Administrator Stephen Higgins, a primary engineer of the Broward County Shore Protection Project.
 | BROWARD BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES DIV
STEPHEN HIGGINS AND LOU FISHER |
Fisher explained how artificial lighting disrupts the biological compass evolved by Sea Turtles over millions of years. He also described how various types of lighting affect Sea Turtle behavior. Fisher distinguished between light sources that, “while similar in appearance to humans, differ in the way they are perceived by Sea Turtles.” By way of example, he strongly recommended low pressure sodium bulbs that appear yellow. Other yellow lighting, depending on the wavelengths that comprise its net color, may present a danger to hatchlings by luring them inland where their chances for survival drop precipitously.
Lovingshimer introduced Fort Lauderdale Building Department Community Inspections Manager Catherine McCaffrey to attendees. Ms. McCaffrey apologized for the harsh correspondences that initially stirred community ire and created a good deal of confusion about the City’s intentions. She said that the boilerplate forms available for corresponding with potential scofflaws were inappropriate when aspiring to enlist support for a productive program. McCaffrey assured GMCA members that the snafu wouldn’t be repeated. She stated that new forms created for that purpose were already ordered and will replace the threatening documentation inadvertently sent to GMCA members.
 McCaffrey was joined by City officials from the Public Works Department. Facilities Manager Tom Terrell and Environmental Services’ Kris McFadden stressed the importance of making reasonable efforts to reverse a trend that threatens Sea Turtles with extinction. When asked why this effort was necessary since environmental teams identify any nests on Broward beaches and move the eggs to safe nesting beaches, they clarified that the emergency nest transfers are temporary measures. While useful for delaying the species’ demise, simply moving the eggs will never meet the recovery plan objectives envisioned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
 | | FALSE CRAWL BY ROCKPILE |
The statewide effort to move the eggs to protected beaches was instituted as an emergency measure. Marine turtle authorities agree that a successful species replenishment can only be achieved with an effective “Hands Off” policy, not by rescuing one egg at a time. Fisher interjected that “moving nests out of harm’s way only partially solves the problem and creates new ones.” Hatchlings from overlooked nests will continue to suffer disorientation from artificial beach lighting. Fisher continued, “Notwithstanding how skillfully the eggs are moved, transferred clutches of eggs have significantly poorer hatching rates. More importantly, moving the nests does nothing to prevent lighting from deterring nesting turtles and interfering with their orientation on the beach.” When nesting females find a beach unsuitable due to the lights or items blocking a potential nesting area (A.K.A. Coastal Armoring), they return to the sea in what is called a “false crawl.” This event represents a 100% loss of prospective hatchlings.
 | BEACH FURNITURE BLOCKS NEST ACCESS
A.K.A. "COASTAL ARMORING" CAUSES FALSE CRAWL |
Despite the efforts of the Turtle Teams, disorientation events are increasing at an alarming rate. Moving the eggs will simply postpone the ultimate loss of several Marine Turtle species. Preserving their nesting habitats affords Sea Turtles their only real opportunity for the numerical proliferation necessary to secure their statistical survival. Since all new beach construction must implement a Turtle-Safe lighting plan consequent to receiving a permit, new buildings are not anticipated to inflame the problem.
Lovingshimer emphasized that it is not necessary to sacrifice safety, security and peaceful enjoyment of our homes to accomplish the objectives denoted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The adjustments required to mollify the effects of artificial lighting are inexpensive and effective. Code Inspector Lovingshimer closed with an invitation to any association interested in a free evaluation of their lighting requirements. “Feel free to contact me at 954-828-5118,” said Lovingshimer.
At that point, GMCA President Pio Ieraci introduced lighting specialist Michael Boiteau. Boiteau, proprietor of MB Lighting Specialists, Inc., demonstrated several examples of inexpensive equipment available to address the problem. “It isn’t necessary to change every fixture behind your homes. Many of the offending lamps can be adjusted with a sheild or a deflector. Others may simply require changing the bulb.” Boiteau also said that he would be glad to perform free evaluations for any interested building. He can be reached at 954-788-7658.
Turtle-Safe Lighting Links
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New Obstacles Delay Beach Renourishment
Beach Honcho Higgins Plans Next Steps
| | Brigadier General RANDAL R. CASTRO |
August 16, 2007 - Galt Milers have participated in a long and difficult fight for the promised renourishment of their critically eroded beaches. When opponents of the Broward Shore Protection Project organized an anti-renourishment effort at a 2002 public hearing in the Hollywood Beach Convention Center, more than 150 Galt Mile residents arrived by bus to demonstrate their overwhelming support for the beach rescue. In 2003, responding to politically motivated claims in Tallahassee that the local population opposed saving their own beaches, thousands of neighborhood residents signed petitions supporting the project. Thousands more sent emails and letters to the Governor and members of the Florida Cabinet. Brigadier General Randal R. Castro, Former South Atlantic Division Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, confirmed that the plan was “economically justified, technically feasible, in compliance with environmental statutes, and in the overall public interest.” Environmentalist Roy Rogers of the Florida Audubon Society and Florida Community Trust reported to the Governor that “the entire project was safe, well-planned, and absolutely necessary.”
 | ENVIRONMENTALIST
ROY ROGERS |
Although the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement earned the endorsement of every reputable environmental group and governmental agency, at a May 2003 Cabinet Meeting in Tallahassee, opponents aspired to exclude Fort Lauderdale’s beaches from participation. Abandoned by the mainstream environmental community, they again resorted to the transparently baseless claim that Broward’s beachfront property owners were adamantly against saving their shoreline.
 | | 2003 - 2004 FLORIDA CABINET |
They were expecting the Mayors, City and County Commissioners, Councilpersons and other local officials that spoke on behalf of saving our beaches. After rebuking these elected project supporters for “playing politics” and otherwise demeaning their motives, the anti-beach coalition insisted that they spoke for every beachfront property owner in Broward. However, they were unprepared for the contingent of beachfront homeowners from the Galt Ocean Mile who unanimously testified that saving local beaches was of paramount priority - for them and their neighbors. They were equally surprised when prominent environmentalist Roy Rogers of the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society along with other esteemed naturalists explained the need to repair the shoreline and opined that Broward’s plan was environmentally sound. As a result, the Cabinet voted unanimously to maintain Fort Lauderdale’s status as a renourishment target.
After hurricanes pounded coastal regions that suffered from critical tidal erosion, opponents publicly reversed themselves, agreeing that rescuing Broward’s beaches was an environmental necessity that enjoyed overwhelming local support. In concession, Broward Environmental officials agreed to devote 18 months for the purpose of monitoring the effects of the “Segment III” renourishment in south Broward. The information learned would be utilized to refine protective techniques applied to the subsequent Segment II renourishment from Fort Lauderdale to Pompano Beach.
Following completion of the Segment III renourishment in March of 2006, monitors from Nova Southeast University Oceanographic Center and a coalition of outside engineers joined county scientists to begin examining the environmental effects of repairing the County’s shoreline from the Dade County line to John U. Lloyd State Park. During the 18-month monitoring period, Broward County planned on addressing truckloads of bureaucratic housekeeping required for project continuity.
| STEPHEN HIGGINS
AT GMCA MEETING |
Stephen Higgins, Broward’s Beach Administrator, was assigned the unenviable responsibility of contending with any environmental, structural and financial pitfalls, expected and unexpected, that surface during the hiatus. Positioned on ground zero, he is the only official competent to authoritatively explain the project’s current status, evaluate consequences of unanticipated problems and approximate their influence on the project timetable.
 | | PORT EVERGLADES INLET SAND BYPASS |
Responding to a recent request for an update with respect to commencing the Segment II (Fort Lauderdale) phase of the project, Mr. Higgins sent documentation substantiating the financial and environmental aspects of the project – both of which impact the schedule. The May 2007 report summarizes the fiscal fallout from Segment III (the completed south Broward beaches), the outlook for Segment II (the Fort Lauderdale beaches) and discusses the Port Everglades Inlet Sand Bypassing Project – a separate but related adjunct to the County’s overall beach renourishment strategy.
Project funding is underwritten by a combination of municipal, County, State and federal resources allocated for this purpose. The release of this dedicated financing is contingent on the successful accomplishment of goals outlined in the County’s plan. As of May, 2007, Broward County received from the US Army Corps of Engineers a $2.8 million reimbursement for the federal share of preconstruction engineering and design costs for Segment III.
 | | HOLLYWOOD BEACH BEFORE RENOURISHMENT |
The County has requested from the Corps of Engineers reimbursement of approximately $17 million for the federal share of Segment III beach and structure construction costs. These funds are subject to appropriation by Congress and apportionment and allocation by the Corps. While the Corps of Engineers currently only has available approximately $2 million for Broward’s reimbursement (subject to audit), the County has requested that Congress appropriate $6 million for FY 2008 to facilitate uninterrupted funding.
 | | HOLLYWOOD AFTER BEFORE RENOURISHMENT |
The County has requested approximately $1.6 million more from the State of Florida to cover future Segment III monitoring expenses and engineering design costs for Segment II. These funds are contained in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (FDEP) FY 2007-08 Legislative Budget Request.
Since the shorelines of Dania Beach, Hollywood, and Hallandale Beach have been restored, the participating Segment III municipalities have submitted estimates for their individual shares of the estimated costs. Pending realization of federal and state reimbursements, a final reconciliation will clarify their respective financial liabilities.
In contrast to past projects that were largely neglected once completed, the County’s strategy includes a maintenance component to ensure the ongoing health of the rehabilitated beaches, thereby postponing the need for (and expense of) future renourishments. Although sand naturally migrates south along the coast, intermittent special attention to certain “erosion hot spots” that evacuate at a heightened level could preclude the need for future full scale renourishments. Higgins reports that, “The County is investigating the feasibility of moving between 50,000 and 90,000 cubic yards of excess sand from the upland beach north of Port Everglades to a hot-spot location along south Hollywood and north Hallandale Beach.” Performing smaller, more frequent sand placements at erosion hot-spots only require what he calls “sands of opportunity,” avoiding additional pressure on dredge sites.
In mid-2007, Broward will also be performing a study of the applicability of erosion control structures in order to slow erosion along Segment III hot-spots. Higgins said, “The County is currently monitoring the equilibration of the beach fill to ascertain any impacts that might occur to the nearshore hardbottoms from migrating sand.”
Upon conclusion of the 18-month monitoring period in September 2007, data accrued by biologists and engineers from Broward County, Nova Southeastern University, Coastal Planning and Engineering, Inc. and Olsen Associates, Inc. (a joint venture of coastal engineering consulting firms) will be collated and forwarded to the State. FDEP will prepare a report to the Governor and Cabinet detailing project impacts. Monitoring results will be used to craft permit conditions for the construction of Segment II beaches. Approximately $1.4 million of FDEP’s Broward County funding request is allocated for Segment II engineering, design, and environmental studies.
| | OUTFALL PIPE DISCHARGE |
Of substantial interest to some Galt Mile associations is the County’s concern about their antiquated outfall pipes. Higgins reports that “communications continue with property owners in buildings with drainage and/or air conditioning outfalls under or across the beach to inform them of the need to retrofit these systems such that they do not become buried by future nourishment or adversely impact the beach or public safety.” Steve Higgins met with the few Galt Mile Association members still dependent upon these outmoded structures, alerting them to commence investigating alternatives since the pipes will be rendered useless by the impending renourishment. Any building that ignores his admonition is likely to suffer loss of their air conditioning for months.
Buried in the report was the seemingly innocuous statement, “The County will be investigating the use of sand from other locations, including locations outside of the United States, for future nourishment of Segment II.” Accompanying the report was an email composed to address the original inquiry about the Segment II start date. Identifying its content as disappointing is a gross understatement. In opening, Higgins redundantly confirms the obvious.
“The specially-designed, DEP-required 18-month post-construction monitoring program to determine the impacts to the nearshore hardbottoms of Segment III will end in September. When the results have been reduced and interpreted, a report will be prepared and submitted to the DEP. DEP will digest the report and present it and their recommendations to the Governor and Cabinet as to the permitability of Segment II. We probably won’t know much for sure until late this year or early next.” To evaluate and diagnose 18 months of scientific data, FDEP would reasonably require at least several months. The stage is now set for a “Rolaids” moment.
 Higgins continues, “In the meanwhile, we are close to executing an amendment with our consultants to undertake several tasks in preparation for resuming the Segment II engineering/design/permitting. One important task is to find sand.” Every scrap of relevant documentation, from the Final Environmental Impact Statement to the plan that was permitted by the State, targets the waters off Deerfield Beach as a sand “borrow site” adequate for both Segment III and Segment II renourishments. In fact, the plan terms that particular patch of beach as “Segment I”. Why scavenge for sand in other locations? KABOOM - Thus drops the other shoe!
 | FORMER CABINET MEMBER
TOM GALLAGHER |
“Borrow area No. 1, which has enough material with which to construct Segment II, now has a higher percentage of rock in it after removing sand for Segment III. We’ll need to investigate that. We’ll also look for additional sand offshore, but I’m not confident that we’ll find any significant new deposits. Accordingly, we will also be looking for more remote sources of domestic sand (e.g. offshore central FL and in the Gulf of Mexico) and for non-domestic sand, with emphasis on Bahamian aragonite. When we find the sand we’re going to use, if it’s different from the sand we had proposed to use in our previous plans, we will have to do some re-engineering of the project and redo some of the permitting.” Actually, when the project was undergoing Cabinet scrutiny, former Florida Chief Financial Officer and gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher also recommended that the project’s County supporters consider Bahamian sand as an alternative to the Deerfield Beach borrow site.
Wrapping up his correspondence with a flourish, Higgins said, “Finally, regulatory scrutiny of our reefs has recently ratcheted up due to the listing as federally ‘Threatened’ of a couple of species of shallow-water hard coral, which is prolific offshore of Segment II.” With the President’s ex-governor brother safely sheltered from any political blowback, the Bush Administration has extended their enigmatic environmental policies to the State of Florida.
 | DIRECTOR APRIL GROMNICKI
OF AUDUBON SOCIETY |
The Bush administration and Congress have used the Everglades as a public relations flagship, promoting it as a national symbol of environmental recovery. However, on August 2nd, the White House threatened to veto the long-delayed Water Resources Development Act, a massive state-federal Everglades project that the Administration had adopted as proof of their commitment to the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States. In what appears to be a case of kicking up the dust and then complaining that you can’t see, Administration delays to the project have driven up estimated land purchase costs from $15.4 billion in 2000 to $19.7 billion. Responding to the problem they were instrumental in creating, the White House contends that the bill has become too expensive. Director April Gromnicki of ecosystem restoration at the Audubon Society said, “If this is not authorized, it means more delays, more cost increases, less likelihood of success.”
 | DEPUTY ASSISTANT INTERIOR
SECRETARY TODD WILLENS |
Simultaneously, a mid-level Administration official recommended that UNESCO remove the Everglades from the endangered list. A unique rich tangle of sawgrass marshes, mangrove forests and rare species – the Everglades was added to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) list of the world’s most outstanding sites in 1979 and attributed endangered status in 1993, primarily due to pollution from urban growth, unrestricted agricultural runoff and severe damage from Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In 2000, Congress approved a 40-year recovery project for which the funding would be shared equally with the State. Not surprisingly, Florida taxpayers have paid the vast majority of the $7 billion already spent on the effort.
| FLORIDA SENATOR
BILL NELSON |
Florida Senator Bill Nelson characterized the damaging recommendation as improper meddling by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Todd Willens since UNESCO is supposed to solicit input from the National Park Service and the World Conservation Union, or IUCN, a Swiss-based network that recommended keeping the Everglades on the endangered list. Its removal provides the Administration with a manufactured rationale for reneging on its commitment to support federal funding for Everglades rehabilitation.
 When UNESCO took environmental marching orders from Willens, a controversial irony was unwittingly exposed. The Interior Department’s No. 3 official served as policy director for ex-House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, a California Republican and rancher who unsuccessfully tried to scale back the Endangered Species Act. Willens was also a recipient of Jack Abramoff’s largesse, joining a group of congressional staffers who visited the Mariana Islands on the disgraced lobbyist’s dime.
 Keeping pace with federally engineered environmental moving targets for shallow-water hard coral and being subjected to a new formula governing the availability of sand off Deerfield Beach, Beach Administrator Higgins was forced to deliver the bad news. Consistent with his predisposition for conservative prognostication, Higgins wrote, “Realistically, I don’t see us beginning construction on Segment II until fall of 2009.”
| GMCA PRESIDENT
PIO IERACI |
Understandably, GMCA President Pio Ieraci dashed off a concerned correspondence to the Chief of Broward’s Biological Resources Division, exclaiming, “2009! I feel somewhat ill. It will have taken almost 13 years for this project to materialize (Segment II). Is there ANYTHING we can do collectively to ‘speed up’ this painfully slow process?” The consummate trooper, Higgins answered that upon locating a sand source, he would submit the appropriate state and federal permit modification requests. Having been pummeled with unexpected obstacles by project opponents at virtually every turn, Higgins also told Ieraci that he anticipates requiring additional support from the affected Galt Mile residents in the near future.
As Mr. Higgins prepares to mollify the latest federal obstacles threatening the beach project, we will have to patiently stand by, awaiting his cue to do what we do best – express our honest opinion about the importance of our beach to vested interests at every level of the political food chain. On the bright side, Steve Higgins has displayed a remarkable resilience when confronted by such obstacles during the past decade.
| | Mayor Giulianti |
To date, the project’s progress is largely a reflection of his voluminous scientific acumen, sober penchant for diplomacy and a stoic fortitude that stiffens in proportion to the challenge confronted. While exhibiting patience is a painful proposition for those of us familiar with the project’s history, we are afforded solace in that we are assisting in a strategy created by a point man with the integrity, networking experience, intelligence and unrelenting commitment of Stephen Higgins. We could do worse than to faithfully follow the advice of the man who’s Biological Resources Division has successfully navigated the shifting political minefields in Broward, Tallahassee and Washington that surrounded the beach project. Skeptics need to take a quick trip to the beautifully widened beaches in Hollywood, Hallandale and Dania; close their eyes and imagine the waves lapping against the seawall – an IMAX moment! Alternatively, recalling how sections of Surf Avenue floated by Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti during 2004 Hurricanes Frances, Jeanne and Ivan will serve to stiffen a sagging resolve. More to come…
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Mystery Bugs Bring Beach Ban
Bacterial Infestation  Closes Galt Mile Beach
 February 8, 2008 - At 3 PM on February 8th, City of Fort Lauderdale Public Information Specialist Matt Little got some bad news. He grabbed his directory and picked up the phone. He would spend the afternoon calling every neighborhood contact on his directory list. A few minutes later, GMCA President Pio Ieraci received a call from Matt explaining that “Fort Lauderdale is closing the beach due to a bacterial infestation discovered by Broward’s Environmental Health Services unit.” He continued, “Tests revealed high levels of fecal coliform and enterococcus bacteria from Hallandale Beach to Pompano Beach. Until readings indicate that the threat has abated, the beaches will remain closed.”
 Yesterday, Pompano Beach closed a 50-foot section of its public beach to swimmers after the Broward County Health Department issued a warning that unacceptable levels of fecal coliform and enterococcus bacteria had permeated their Northeast 16th Street beach. Ingestion by swimmers and surfers could result in severe stomach cramps and a wide range of other adverse gastrointestinal symptoms. Allergies to this bacterial onslaught, not uncommon, could seriously heighten the danger for those so afflicted.
 | UNKNOWN SOURCE OF FECAL
COLIFORM & ENTEROCOCCUS |
Broward County Environmental Health Services Director Howard Rosen said the warning was based on samples of marine water taken Monday and Wednesday. The decision to alert beachgoers to the impending danger is made independently by each affected municipality. Rosen has been conducting tests for organic pollutants all week. On Friday morning he exclaimed, “This afternoon we should know the results of yesterday’s (Thursday’s) test, and we’ll continue to sample until it comes back OK.” It didn’t. By mid-afternoon, the City of Fort Lauderdale thought better of risking an epidemic and issued an official alert to get out of the water!
 As of 2:52 PM on Friday, although the City’s Ocean Rescue web site was still painting a picture of an ideal beach day, closer scrutiny hinted at trouble. In describing Ocean Water Conditions, Ocean Rescue clinically admonished, “Moderate chop. Some Broward county beaches have tested high for bacteria.” To help notify residents about beach conditions, the City utilizes the Beach Flag Warning System along its public beaches and on the Ocean Rescue web site. The Green Flag displayed through Friday afternoon indicated, “Low Hazard: Conditions are calm; normal care and caution should be exercised.” The system’s boilerplate caveat took on special meaning in stating, “Remember that ocean conditions can change quickly.” and “The ocean is always potentially hazardous.” Upon deciding to pull the plug on ocean access, the City replaced the green flag with two red ones that mean: Closed to the Public.
At a loss to explain the mysterious bacterial influx, Rosen explained, “There are no septic tanks on the beach, and we usually associate this with rain events and there has not been any rain.” While Pompano Beach was first to react and close their beach, warnings were also issued at other beach sampling intersections, including the Commercial Boulevard Pier, Birch State Park, Sebastian Street, Bahia Mar and Hallandale Beach Boulevard. Municipal officials along Broward’s entire beachfront waited anxiously for Thursday’s test results. When Rosen saw no improvement, he notified Broward’s coastal municipalities.
 | | GALT MILE BEACH CLOSED FRIDAY |
City beach areas served by lifeguards and fixed display locations for the Beach Warning Flag system were quickly and efficiently restricted. However, areas such as the Galt Mile beach lack any official beach life-safety protection or threat notification vehicle. Last year, the Galt Mile Community Association investigated the prospect of installing the Beach Flag Warning system along its shoreline. Each Association would have had to install and maintain their own display - perhaps on the ocean side of their seawall. Upon learning that privately implementing the Flag Warning System would heighten association liability (and already sky-high insurance costs), project momentum ground to a halt.
 Reaching beach areas isolated from municipal oversight, such as the Galt Mile Beach, fell to the City’s Public Information office. After Matt Little contacted the GMCA President, Ieraci sent out email alerts to member associations describing the problem and repeating Little’s promise that tests would continue until the beach receives a clean bill of health.
 Concerned about the adverse tourism fallout, Fort Lauderdale did its own tests and reopened the beaches Friday afternoon. City spokesman Ted Lawson characterized the sudden bacterial spike as “unusual” and that the city wanted to verify the findings by retesting and submitting the samples to its own certified lab. Lawson explained, “We wanted to know for ourselves. It came back fine, so we opened the beach back up.” Given the City’s incentive, it may be propitious to confine the kids to the pool until all parties are on the same page. Click Here to check the State of Florida Department of Health current sampling results for Broward beaches.
For the current beach conditions, visit the City’s Ocean Rescue beach conditions web page or call the Beach Conditions Hotline at 954-828-4597 (updated daily). Public Information Specialist Matt Little can be reached at (954) 828-4732 or emailed at mlittle@fortlauderdale.gov.
Ocean Safety Links
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FDEP Fouls Galt Mile Beach Fix
City Breaks State Malaise - Dumps Ship Wreck
 | | MECHANICAL BEACH RAKING SUSPENDED |
October 23, 2008 - During the September 18th Galt Mile Community Association Advisory Board meeting, several members reported a sudden cessation of the City’s beach maintenance activities. The mechanical rake that ordinarily lumbers across the beach shortly after each dawn has been conspicuously absent. Two members said that while enjoying the beach, some of their residents encountered some beach maintenance personnel and inquired why the service was stopped. They were told that a suspension was instituted to “protect Sea Turtle nests.” Confused by the inexplicable change, the residents never received an explanation clarifying why the previously acceptable standard cleanup procedures suddenly constituted a threat to the endangered Sea Turtles. Association representatives also expressed confusion over whether this policy extended to our individual beachfront associations, all of which perform similar daily beach maintenance activities.
 Following up on the issue, GMCA President Pio Ieraci contacted the city to elicit a rationale for the service cutback. On Monday, September 22, 2008, He received a digital “multi-mail” that was sent to beachfront neighborhood associations as well as relevant County and City officials. The email was sent by Donald Morris, the City’s Beach Community Director of Development. The emailed letter’s content is as follows:
|
City of  Fort Lauderdale
Dear Beach Resident:
The City of Fort Lauderdale has made a concerted effort to improve the appearance of the beach by expanding our daily cleaning activities. These daily cleaning activities include mechanically raking and smoothing the sand, hand-raking and hand-picking debris not caught by the mechanical rake, sweeping and cleaning sidewalks and shower stalls and promptly emptying trash cans.
 During sea turtle nesting season (March - October), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) restrict our cleaning activities to mechanically raking the sand up to the mean high water line (MHL) and hand-cleaning the remainder of the beach.
| | TURTLE TEAM PREPARES NEST MARKERS |
Recently, the remnants of Tropical Storms Fay and Hanna, and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike severely impacted our beach by washing or blowing away turtle nest markers and causing beach erosion. As a result, the FDEP and FWC prohibited mechanical beach cleaning until all turtle nest markers are replaced. The City is in frequent contact with the FDEP and FWC to closely monitor the progress of this initiative. When all of the markers are in place, we expect to once again be able to mechanically rake and clean the beach.
 In the meantime, City cleaning crews are hand-picking debris (excluding seaweed) for the entire beach from the Yankee Clipper to Oakland Park Boulevard (approximately 4 miles). We will continue hand-picking debris until we are given permission by the FDEP and FWC to resume mechanized cleaning.
If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me at (954) 468-1516 or at dmorris@fortlauderdale.gov.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Donald Morris, AICP
Beach Community Development Director
|
|
Beach Waste Ripens
 | | RIPENING BEACH WASTE |
Within several days, mounds of seaweed piled up along the beach. Waste from Cruise ships and other vessels soon became entangled in the rotting kelp, peppering the beach with organic incubators for bacterial communities. The net result was a mixture of unidentifiable mush oozing from what appeared to be decomposing marine skeletal material adorned with rotting flesh, plastic wrap, rusting construction materials, glass chards and broken bottles, multi-colored prophylactics, decomposing vegetation, broken wooden doweling and planks, tin cans, a rubber glove, cigarette filters, a license plate from Quebec, an oar, rubber hosing, batteries and a bicycle seat.
 | | WASTE ALONG GALT MILE BEACH |
On September 25th, former President Justin Henry of the Royal Ambassador Condominium expressed his disgust with the repugnant wall of organic waste behind his home. He sent an email to Broward Commissioner Ken Keechl – copying Governor Crist – stating that in the 7 years since he moved here, “I have never seen our beach in worse condition.” Following a graphic description of the festering detritus mounds, he complained, “Not only is this an eyesore and a deterrent for anyone to purchase or rent property along our beach, but it also has to constitute some sort of health hazard....with everything from glass bottles to used birth control devices mangled in the mess.” Mr. Henry asks the Commissioner, “How much more do we have to give up for the sea turtles? How much to we have to endanger ourselves and our children to protect these animals?”
 | | VOLUNTEER MARKS NEST EARLY ON |
Justin Henry’s email joined scores of others sent to City, County and State officials questioning the State policy. “Why was it taking so long to mark the nests? Why did the cleanup have to await marking nests containing eggs destroyed weeks earlier by storm surge?” As the passage of time intensified the waste problem, the emails and letters became increasingly bitter, asking why the State changed the nesting policy last year. Until 2006, after marking the nests, trained teams would move the viable eggs to a deserted beach where they would be reinterred. The hatchlings would then set their nesting instincts to return to a dedicated nesting grounds free of man-made beach obstacles (beach furniture, etc), coastal armoring (seawalls, bulkheads, etc), beachgoers and the artificial lighting that disrupts a Sea Turtle’s nesting instincts and a hatchling’s biological compass.
| BROWARD BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES DIV
STEPHEN HIGGINS AND LOU FISHER |
At a May 7, 2007 Galt Mile Community Association Presidents Council meeting organized to inform participating association officials about the new turtle-safe lighting ordinance, Broward County marine biologist Lou Fisher explained the rationale for the revised nesting policy which left turtles to hatch on heavily populated beaches. Fisher said that State Fish and Wildlife Commission officials were concerned about the eggs that don’t survive the transfer. Apparently, a certain number of eggs sacrifice viability when handled. FWC aficionados decided to leave the nests in place and instead, try to mandate a safe nesting environment along the populated beaches.
 | | SEAS A LADY - NO IDENTIFICATION OR ENGINES |
When the city claimed that they were precluded from evacuating an abandoned 50-foot fishing vessel called “Seas a Lady” that washed up on the shore behind the Galt Ocean Mile condos on September 28th, tempers flared. Ordinarily, this would be considered a serious danger to beachgoers and removed immediately. Within days, tidal action started dismantling the boat, distributing large sections of hull and interior equipment south along the shoreline. A demolished refrigerator rolled almost a dozen blocks south before finally embedding itself in the sand just south of Northeast 23rd Street. Sporting an 8-year old Delaware registration, authorities said that since the vessel was intentionally stripped of identification and its engines, they have determined that it was deliberately cut free of its anchor at the Port Everglades sea buoy. When residents realized that the state edict placed the statistical value of non-viable turtle eggs above their safety, the communications began reflecting indignant rage.
Tempers Flare
 | | HUGE HAZARDOUS HULL SECTION |
Galt Mile residents who advocated cooperating with the turtle safe lighting mandate and were willing to patiently await completion of the nest marking procedures suddenly exploded. Regency Tower’s Jim Rigney, a level-headed former New York City Detective, sent out articles about the beach waste to neighbors, objecting to the State having elevated concern for turtles’ safety above that for people. Emails took on an “it’s us or them” tone, framing a threatened “battle of the species” with Sea Turtles or political retribution for those State officials behind the mandate. Local blogs started filling with pro and anti-Sea Turtle comments, recommendations, death threats and other monuments to stupidity. Participating geniuses jockeyed to affix blame on State, County and City officials, FDEP, FWC, radical environmentalists, anti-environmentalists, manatees, Sea Turtles, Condo Boards, Saddam Hussein, Karl Rove and Lee Harvey Oswald.
 | | KITCHEN EQUIPMENT ROLLED 10 TO 12 BLOCKS |
Several enigmatic decisions by officials served to inflame the controversy. Although the nest sites were all identified, Nova Oceanographic Institute volunteers hadn’t completed marking them. Since officials knew where the eggs were located, the large equipment required to remove the dissipated sections of hull could be guided to avoid the nest sites and safely evacuate the beach hazards. However, beach operations foreman Mark Almy said “We can’t take a tractor out there without state and county authorization.” In a strange twist of what appeared to be jurisdictional confusion, Almy also stated in a newspaper article that the city isn’t responsible for removing most of the wreckage from the “Seas A Lady” because it lies north of Oakland Park Boulevard. Galt Mile residents that read the article attacked city officials, threatening to sue and/or withhold taxes. Mr. Almy neglected to explain that responsibility for beach maintenance north of Oakland Park Boulevard falls to a private contractor operating under a different permit, leaving readers to mistakenly surmise they were being abandoned.
Turtle-Safe Lighting Cooperation
 Galt Mile residents are largely supportive of contributing to the survival of the endangered Sea Turtle species. When the city first decided to enforce its version of the State’s turtle-safe lighting ordinance model, it sent out violation notices to every beachfront association in the neighborhood. Attached were copies of the ordinance, which contained confusing language that appeared to require a comprehensive darkening of every property. When the neighborhood association called the City Code Compliance officer in charge of the project to notify him that no building would risk the safety and security of their unit owners by complying with such an insupportable demand, he requested a meeting to discuss the issue. At the meeting, Code Compliance Officer Al Lovingsheimer apologized for sending out the violation notices and quickly affirmed that the city would never require residents to compromise their own safety.
 At the request of then Code Enforcement Manager Cate McCaffrey, a presentation by City, County and State environmental officials to explain their turtle-safe lighting objectives was scheduled at a GMCA Presidents Council meeting. They all agreed to work with associations to maintain safe environments for residents while implementing a plan for appropriate lighting along the beach. During a subsequent meeting with the Code Compliance officer Al Lovingsheimer, a viable working plan was developed. Each association would address the most egregious lighting violations immediately. Instead of trying to force people living in units overlooking the beach to live in the dark for nine months each year, every association would post a notice on their community bulletin board or newsletter asking residents to please turn off their lights when they retire from any room overlooking the beach. If one or more of an association’s main deck lamps was in violation, a permanent change-out would be postponed until the association implemented a new deck lighting plan as part of a scheduled upgrade.
 | | GALT MILE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION PRESIDENTS COUNCIL |
The plan ran without a hitch. The city worked with each association to develop a reasonable set of objectives which were expeditiously met. Al Lovingsheimer later reported that the Galt Mile neighborhood delivered the greatest turtle-safe lighting improvement of any Fort Lauderdale beachfront community. He also expressed concern about some of his counterparts in Tallahassee. Al met intermittently with officials in other municipalities that were implementing turtle-safe lighting plans. He also met with State officials that provided guidelines to assist jurisdictions with this effort.
Lovingsheimer described being disturbed about a potential problem. He told GMCA officials that while most of the FDEP and FWC personnel were reasonable people that aspired to balance the needs of residents with the needs of sea turtles, a cadre of radical project participants in Tallahassee had a different agenda. Several officials in the State oversight program blatantly admitted that their goal is to clear the barrier islands of residents. Privately characterizing this group as “crazy”, Al said that once the association lighting was fully compliant, they wanted the local jurisdictions to wage a campaign against unit owners with windows overlooking the beach. Al said he was approached by two FWC personnel who asked if he would be willing to require unit owners to install “one-way” windows or enforce the shuttering of windows overlooking the beach during turtle nesting season. Lovingsheimer’s concern derived of actual language in the City ordinance that he didn’t consider enforceable – Chapter 6, Article 3, Sec. 6-51. Lighting standards for existing development, (2) “Within one (1) year of the effective date of this division: Window treatments shall be installed in windows and glass doors in rooms in single and multi-story structures with windows or glass doors facing the beach so that lights are not visible from the beach, or filming in compliance with this division shall be installed on the exterior of all such windows and glass doors, so that internal lights are not visible from the beach. Shade screens can be substituted for this requirement.” Describing members of this group as “CIA wannabees,” Al complained that they opposed the City’s successful policy of eliciting cooperation to protect the turtles, instead advocating strong-arm tactics and a series of “sting” operations. Al repeatedly pointed out that most of the State oversight personnel were reasonable and this group was a small, but vocal, minority. He also assured us that the City would only enforce those recommendations that they deemed reasonable.
 Earlier this year, the Code Enforcement Department accidentally repeated last year’s foul-up, sending out violation notices to every association along the beach. Ironically, Cate McCaffrey had been promoted to Director of Business Enterprise and was replaced by Mike Maloney to manage Code Enforcement. Al Lovingsheimer became very ill and passed away, leaving no one in Code Enforcement familiar with the turtle-safe lighting arrangements between the City and the Galt Mile. Maloney discovered last year’s notices lying on a desk and inadvertently sent them out again, unaware that everything cited on those notices had already been addressed. Upon receiving the bogus notices, GMCA officials contacted Maloney to arrange another meeting. Once up to speed, Mike Maloney agreed to continue the cooperative effort that successfully surpassed our mutual goals last year.
 Not surprisingly, Maloney repeated some of the concerns expressed by Lovingsheimer. He confirmed that the City intends to insure a reasonable balance between the needs of its residents and the agenda promoted by Tallahassee. However, he learned that Tallahassee ultimately expected compliance with a much stricter interpretation of the ordinance than the city is willing to enforce. He warned that no matter how much improvement an association accomplishes, certain State environmental officials plan to intensify demands annually with no end in sight. As such, he recommended that each association demonstrate modest annual progress instead of mistakenly believing that comprehensive compliance will deter future state demands. Like McCaffrey and Lovingsheimer, he promised that the City would never enforce overtly punitive interpretations of the ordinance that could jeopardize residents’ safety.
State Agency Reps Drop Ball
 | | DEEMED UNNECESSARY, NEST MARKERS GO UNUSED |
As if to enshrine bureaucratic buffoonery, after mandating that no heavy beach maintenance equipment could be deployed until every nest was marked, the FDEP told Nova volunteers that since turtle nesting season was over by October 31st, there was no reason to expedite the procedure – or even complete it. Forcing Galt Mile residents to live with the beach hazard for over a month caused no loss of sleep in Tallahassee or West Palm Beach.
Given the State’s disinterest in marking the nests after making that a precondition for maintaining the beach, Lovingsheimer’s initial concerns have since gained substantial credibility. Agency actions seemed less driven by their concerns for Sea Turtles than the pursuit of an opportunity to harass local beachfront communities - whether by malicious intent or benign neglect. Recently, other municipal officials have also expressed concern about the callous disregard evidenced by State Environmental Agency representatives. Some have suggested that if their local policy objectives continue to focus less on environmental protection than on capricious jurisdictional interference, a political conflict with certain State agency personnel may become unavoidable.
City Rescues Beach
 | | KIDS PLAYING IN DECOMPOSING WRECKAGE |
When the State finally gave a conditional green light to removing the beach hazards, Galt Mile officials contacted the Pompano Beach private contractor “Beach Raker” to arrange the demolition and extrication of the beached boat. After removing some debris, Beach Raker Operations Manager Bill O’Brien opted to take a shot at the jackpot. Apparently overconfident that the community would do anything to rid themselves of this dangerous eyesore, they quoted an unconscionable estimate of $10,800 - $2,800 for hauling away some boards and another eight grand to dump the remaining structure. Since the removal required a State permit, GMCA President Pio Ieraci asked the attendant State Agency representatives to assume responsibility for the cost. As if adhering to some “Catch-22” action policy, DEP field engineer Wesley Cich declared incisively, “That’s still to be determined” – Agency spin for “You must be joking.” Recognizing a dead end, Ieraci contacted City Commissioner Christine Teel, characterizing Justin Henry’s email as exemplary of the community’s disgust with the State’s deliberate foot-dragging. Commissioner Teel engaged City Manager George Gretsas to help resolve the beach waste and the ship wreck. Gretsas, in turn, contacted Parks and Recreation Assistant Director Terry Rynard and Director Phil Thornburgh.
 | | GEORGE GRETSAS AND COMMISSIONER CHRISTINE TEEL |
On October 7th, George Gretsas and Christine Teel had the City’s Marine Facilities Department contact a private derelict vessel company to remove the wreckage. The next day, they met on site with State Environmental Protection staffers and company representatives. Commissioner Teel and City Manager Gretsas, despite being out of their jurisdiction, double teamed the DEP officials and secured a special permit on the spot. The wreck was finally dispensed with – for $900 (less than 9% of the original bid) paid by the City of Fort Lauderdale!
This incident has crystallized a developing conflict between the City and certain bureaucrats in the State Environmental agencies. This confrontation is not unique, as other municipalities throughout the State have also been burnt by local DEP decisions that are inconsistent with stated Agency intentions. Whether the confusion resulted from some misdirected local agenda or seriously crippled communications, most residents and local officials hope that what happened doesn’t foreshadow future FDEP policy. Since most Fort Lauderdale and Galt Mile residents support many of the agency’s preservation and rescue objectives, a prospective conflict would elicit mixed emotions. Nevertheless, they share the belief that the harassment and/or expulsion of an ecosystem’s people aren’t prolific conservation methodologies.
 | | SEAS A LADY ABANDONNED ON GALT MILE BEACH |
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 Beach Project Stirs Suspicion
Do South County  Pols Covet North County Sand?
November 25, 2008 - Most Galt Mile residents understand that the impending beach renourishment project is the single most critical improvement impacting the future of this neighborhood. According to a 2007 report by Broward beach administrator Steven Higgins, the Segment II beaches along Fort Lauderdale and the Galt Ocean Mile should start seeing new sand by the late fall of 2009. Since that announcement, inhabitants of north Broward beachfront neighborhoods have patiently anticipated the reclamation of their shrinking shoreline.
 | BROWARD COMMISSIONER KEN KEECHL
AND CITY COMMISSIONER CHRISTINE TEEL |
For the past decade, the Galt Mile Community Association has battled misdirected attempts to subvert this project while continuously monitoring its progress. Broward Commissioner Ken Keechl and City Commissioner Christine Teel notify us when city or county issues threaten the renourishment project. Congressman Ron Klein similarly reports on prospective federal funding roadblocks. When some of their overambitious colleagues in Tallahassee try to hijack the dedicated state funding, new Senate President Jeffrey Atwater and Statehouse Majority Whip Ellyn Bogdanoff nail the strongbox shut. As we head into the home stretch, this multi-level oversight by our public officials has intensified. After enduring 10 years of delays and dozens of politically motivated attempts to undermine the project, when a new obstacle arises, community leaders become understandably frustrated and angry.
 | SENATE PRESIDENT JEFFREY ATWATER
HOUSE MAJ WHIP ELLYN BOGDANOFF |
On November 8, 2008, while enjoying Saturday morning breakfast, City Commissioner Christine Teel was reading the November 13th Broward County Commission meeting agenda. After noticing an agenda item entitled “Beach Erosion” and perusing 5 pages of an attached exhibit, she popped off emails to GMCA officials Pio Ieraci and Eric Berkowitz, attaching the following statement that she perceived as a potential project pitfall.
 “A sand search is being conducted to discover new sources of beach-compatible sand for placement onto Broward County beaches, including those of the City of Fort Lauderdale, the Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, and the City of Pompano Beach. These beaches comprise Segment II of the Broward County Shore Protection Project. The search for sand will include not only the seafloor offshore of Broward County, but also areas offshore of other Florida counties and areas outside of US waters. In addition to finding new sand sources for Segment II, the County will reevaluate the Segment II project in the context of current economic and environmental conditions, and will propose a project appropriate to those updated conditions. Finally, a high-resolution study is being undertaken to ascertain whether erosion control structures can be employed along the County’s shoreline to reduce the rates of erosion and help sustain our beach nourishment projects.”
 | | FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH BEFORE STORM |
Of immediate interest was the county’s intention to “reevaluate the Segment II project in the context of current economic and environmental conditions,” and to “propose a project appropriate to those updated conditions.” Since current economic conditions border on the bizarre, Ieraci sent an email to Broward Commissioner Ken Keechl asking about the significance of the agenda blurb while exhorting “If any change is made that will adversely effect this project, the mobilization of beach area constituents will be tantamount to a major revolt.” Verifying that the statement was not bureaucratic county spin for defunding the project, Keechl allayed Ieraci’s concern, “The ‘reevaluation’ is nothing more than a required response to the environmental monitoring report for the earlier southern segment. It shouldn’t affect the Galt in any significant way.”
 | | OCTOBER 31st STORM ERODES 4 FEET OF SAND |
Commissioner Keechl was referring to an environmental impact report summarizing observations made during the mandated 18-month monitoring period following the Segment III beach renourishment in Hollywood and Hallandale. Although the funding fears were quickly dispelled by our Broward Commissioner, the statement still embodied two very real problems facing the Beach project. While circumstances surrounding the sand shortage remain murky, this obstacle was first revealed over a year ago. Secondly, by stating his intention to incorporate aspects of Segment III erosion control into the Segment II renourishment plans, Higgins has fueled concern by coastal residents and public officials from Fort Lauderdale to Pompano Beach. To date, he’s neglected to adequately explain whether or how this would adversely impact the resources and timetable for the north Broward beach renourishment.
 | | OCTOBER 31st STORM UNDERMINES SEAWALL DECK |
Two days later (November 10th), Commissioner Teel distributed some pictures taken of the beach before and after an ordinary rainstorm on October 31st. They demonstrate the extreme vulnerability of the critically eroded Segment II beaches. She also copied some emails among City officials questioning the actual scope of the Segment II beach rehabilitation. Among these correspondences was an email from Assistant City Attorney Carrie Sarver informing City Attorney Harry Stewart that beach administrator Higgins is considering additional areas for inclusion in Segment II based on the report’s findings. Officials from Parks, Legal and Engineering attempting to assess the degree of deterioration for which they had to prepare all seemed surprised to find themselves “outside the loop” with regard to such an important issue.
 | | SEAWALL DECK BECOMES STRUCTURALLY UNSOUND |
When asked about requesting that our county beach administrator convene an informational event for both residents and public officials in the Segment II jurisdiction, City Commissioner Christine Teel said that a meeting with Mr. Higgins and City officials was already being arranged. Unless that meeting is expanded to include local residents, a second “open” meeting should follow the City’s initiative. In particular, Mr. Higgins needs to quell rumors portending additional Segment II delays, especially if they result from political pressure to benefit constituents in Segment III. For the last decade, officials and civic leaders from both areas cooperated closely with county officials to promote the southern renourishment with the understanding that the northern Segment would subsequently enjoy the same unilateral support.
 | THE HOLLYWOOD BEACH
COMMUNITY CENTER |
In 2002, the south county Segment III part of the project was facing fierce opposition from pseudo-environmental groups hastily recruited by the Scuba Industry (which stood to lose $millions during the project’s planned temporary reef closures). Former Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti, Broward Commissioner Sue Gunzburger from Hollywood and former Hollywood Statehouse Representative Eleanor Sobel (who was recently elected to the Florida Senate) pleaded with Barrier Island beach communities to join them in convincing Tallahassee of the project’s necessity. In a testament to irony, the only substantial response came from the Galt Mile Community Association. On April 30, 2002, more than 150 residents of the Galt Ocean Mile (2 busloads) attended a hearing at the Hollywood Beach Community Center in support of the Army Corps of Engineers plan to renourish our shrinking beaches.
| BROWARD COUNTY SHORE PROTECTION PROJECT
SEGMENTS II & III BEACH FILL LIMITS |
As the least observant of us were already keenly aware, our beach was rapidly dwindling from the effects of tidal erosion in the form of high winds (hurricanes) and wave action. Many of the buildings on the Galt had already lost large portions of beach to this onslaught. Broward County’s 24 miles of beach are uniformly under attack as the State of Florida has declared 21 miles of the county’s beaches to be “critically eroded”. The nearly 50 million dollars that Broward County initially pledged to help mollify this impending disaster has doubled due to politically motivated delays.
The county’s plan divided the critical target area into three zones. The North Zone (Segment I) is about a mile of shoreline off Deerfield Beach. The Middle Zone (Segment II) includes the roughly 5 miles of beach running from the Hillsboro Inlet to John U. Lloyd State Park Beach. The South Zone (Segment III) ranges from John U. Lloyd Beach State Recreation area for 6 miles through Dania, Hollywood Beach, and Hallandale Beach to the Dade County Line. The plan entailed the Army Corps of Engineers to supervise the pumping of sand dredged from seven “borrow” areas north of Pompano Beach and transported by ship to target zones awaiting renourishment. This herculean effort would add in excess of 2.5 million cubic yards of sand to our shrinking beaches while widening them by an additional 50 feet to 150 feet depending on the degree of need. The county anticipates recovering almost half of its outlay from the Federal Government.
 A contentious propaganda campaign by project opponents claiming that beach residents were opposed to the beach renourishment was thwarted at the Hollywood meeting. Having failed to stop the southern Segment III part of the project, supposedly local anti-renourishment elements (who were subsequently identified in the Federal Register as scuba industry lobbyists from Cleveland, Boston and the Bahamas) revised their dilatory tactics to instead derail the Segment II component that includes Fort Lauderdale and the Galt Ocean Mile.
| Crist, Bronsen, Bush, Gallagher
THE 2003 FLORIDA CABINET |
In preparation for the Segment II licensing hearing in Tallahassee, Galt Mile residents sent hundreds of letters and thousands of emails to former Governor Jeb Bush, former Attorney General Charlie Crist, former Florida CFO Tom Gallagher, and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson in support of the project. On May 13, 2003, the Florida cabinet met to hear testimony about the Segment II renourishment.
| ENVIRONMENTALIST
ROY ROGERS |
Former Director Steve Somerville of the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection (DPEP) – precursor to today’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD) – described to the Cabinet members the county’s plan to safely replace sand lost to Broward beaches from tidal erosion, tropical storms, and hurricanes. After Somerville summarized salient aspects of the County’s plan, former Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott, former Hollywood Representative Eleanor Sobel (now in the Florida Senate), and Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Christine Teel all voiced strong support for the project’s implementation.
| FORMER FDEP SECRETARY
DAVID STRUHS |
Unable to assert that local officials were opposed to the project, an anti-renourishment Golden Beach resident who identified himself as “a friend of the environment” instead told the Cabinet that Galt Ocean Mile residents were opposed to reclaiming the Fort Lauderdale and Galt Mile beaches “on environmental grounds.” He was unprepared for the contingent of Galt Mile Community Association homeowners that traveled to Tallahassee and uniformly testified that saving local beaches was of paramount priority – for them and their neighbors. Adorned in tee shirts emblazoned with “Save Broward Beaches”, Rose Guttman from the Ocean Club, Fern McBride, Iris and Joe Anastasi, and Eric Peter Berkowitz from Regency Tower, Ron Gresser from Playa del Mar, Kathleen Freismuth from Regency South and Pio Ieraci from the Galt Ocean Club presented the Cabinet members with a 220-page pro-project petition signed and addressed by more than 9,000 area residents. Opponents were equally surprised when prominent environmentalist Roy Rogers of the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society along with other esteemed naturalists explained the need to repair the shoreline and opined that Broward’s plan was environmentally sound. Following the successful Cabinet Meeting, Former Secretary David B. Struhs of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection expressed his appreciation to the GMCA in a televised interview, crediting “community members in their red t-shirts” with salvaging the beach project.
As a result, the Cabinet voted unanimously to maintain Fort Lauderdale’s status as a renourishment target and license Segment II with the proviso that an 18-month monitoring period be implemented to review the impacts of the Segment III renourishment and use the data to refine permit requirements for the Segment II beach construction.
| | Brigadier General RANDAL R. CASTRO |
On January 2, 2004, the US Army Corps of Engineers published its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Broward County Shore Protection Project, Segments II and III, in the Federal Register. In May, Brigadier General Randal R. Castro, former South Atlantic Division Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, sent notification that the official Record of Decision (ROD) stated that every major environmental agency and organization supported project implementation “as soon as possible.” In the ROD, the General also proclaimed, “I find that the plan recommended in the GRR (General Reevaluation Report) and FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Statement) by the District Engineer, Jacksonville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), is economically justified, technically feasible, in compliance with environmental statutes, and in the overall public interest.”
| GMCA PRESIDENTS COUNCIL CHAIR PIO IERACI
CREDITS SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY EFFORT
Broward County Commissioner SUE GUNZBERGER
Broward County Mayor KRISTIN JACOBS and
Hollywood Mayor MARA GIULIANTI |
On May 6, 2005, a long-awaited celebration took place in Hollywood. The first beneficiaries of the Broward County Shore Protection Project – the Segment III municipalities of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach – joined Broward County in throwing a party to highlight the project’s kickoff. Over the next year, the Segment III beaches would be salvaged. The Hollywood, Hallandale and Dania shorelines, where waves previously lapped against the sea wall, would enjoy 150 feet of new sand. The Mayors of the three cities and Broward Commissioner Sue Gunzburger again thanked the Galt Mile Association residents for their critical contribution to project approval and promised to reciprocate by supporting the northern renourishment.
 | | HARDBOTTOM MONITOR |
Following completion of the Segment III beaches in March of 2006, monitors from Nova Southeast University Oceanographic Center, Coastal Planning and Engineering, Inc. and Olsen Associates, Inc. (a joint venture of coastal engineering consulting firms) joined county scientists to examine the environmental effects of repairing Broward’s shoreline from the Dade County line to John U. Lloyd State Park. During the mandated 18-month monitoring period, County officials addressed project housekeeping issues in preparation for the upcoming Segment II construction. When the monitoring period was concluded in September 2007, the accrued data was collated and forwarded to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP).
| SAND BYPASS EROSION CONTROL
AT PORT EVERGLADES INLET |
In contrast to past projects that were largely neglected once completed, the County’s strategy included a maintenance component to ensure the ongoing health of the rehabilitated beaches, thereby postponing the need for (and curbing the expense of) future renourishments. Although sand naturally migrates south along the coast, intermittent special attention to certain “erosion hot spots” that evacuate at a heightened level could preclude the need for future full scale renourishments.
 | STEVE HIGGINS
GIVES REPORT |
In his 2007 report, Broward Beach Administrator Stephen Higgins described the new maintenance concept, stating, “The County is investigating the feasibility of moving between 50,000 and 90,000 cubic yards of excess sand from the upland beach north of Port Everglades to a hot-spot location along south Hollywood and north Hallandale Beach.” Performing smaller, more frequent sand placements at erosion hot-spots only require what he called “sands of opportunity,” avoiding additional pressure on dredge sites. Higgins also studied the viability of using erosion control structures to slow erosion along Segment III hot-spots. Higgins said, “The County is currently monitoring the equilibration of the beach fill to ascertain any impacts that might occur to the nearshore hardbottoms from migrating sand.”
Higgins then revealed two previously undisclosed project impacts. His report continued, “In the meanwhile, we are close to executing an amendment with our consultants to undertake several tasks in preparation for resuming the Segment II engineering/design/permitting. One important task is to find sand.” Until that moment, every scrap of relevant documentation, from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement to the plan that was finally permitted by the State, targeted the waters off Deerfield Beach as sand “borrow sites” adequate for both Segment III and Segment II renourishments. The plan refers to that particular patch of beach as “Segment I”. Why was it suddenly necessary to scavenge for sand in other locations?
 | STEPHEN HIGGINS
BEACH WIZZARD |
He said, “Borrow area No. 1, which has enough material with which to construct Segment II, now has a higher percentage of rock in it after removing sand for Segment III. We’ll need to investigate that. We’ll also look for additional sand offshore, but I’m not confident that we’ll find any significant new deposits. Accordingly, we will also be looking for more remote sources of domestic sand (e.g. offshore central FL and in the Gulf of Mexico) and for non-domestic sand, with emphasis on Bahamian aragonite. When we find the sand we’re going to use, if it’s different from the sand we had proposed to use in our previous plans, we will have to do some re-engineering of the project and redo some of the permitting.”
 | | VARIABLE SEA URCHIN ON RECYCLED GLASS CULLET SUBSTRATE |
It is difficult to believe that Higgins was ambushed by the fact that removing large amounts of sand from the borrow area would increase the ratio of rock to sand. While the simplistic characterization he offered to define this new dilemma wasn’t a paragon of credibility, the sand shortage is evidently real. Higgins is diligently investigating alternative sources of sand for use in Segment II, including the possible utilization of recycled “glass sand” since glass and sand are both composed primarily of Silicon Dioxide. The County hired Coastal Planning and Engineering, Inc. (CPE) to compile a report about the advantages and disadvantages of artificial sand. However, his belated revelation about the sand shortage casts a shadow on his contention that the south county “hot spots” could be addressed with “sands of opportunity”. Admittedly, there are no “sands of opportunity!” The bottom line is simple; any sand that’s used to address erosion shortages in Segment III would likely be hijacked from Segment II.
| STEPHEN HIGGINS
AT GMCA MEETING |
Make no mistake. Stephen Higgins is largely responsible for the continued viability of this project. A unique blend of scientist and technocrat, he successfully nursed it through a minefield of antipathetic scrutiny, responding to literally thousands of agency questions over a decade. His familiarity with the issues surrounding the project is unparalleled. That’s why his explanation for the sudden surfacing of a sand shortage so late in the game was enigmatic.
 | | HOLLYWOOD BEACHFRONT HOTELS HAVE NEW SHORELINE |
Last month, Higgins attended a meeting in Hollywood. South County politicians have been pressing Higgins to leapfrog the project schedule and give their erosion deficit priority over the Segment II renourishment. Certain Fort Lauderdale officials and Galt Mile civic leaders suspect that vested interests are placing Higgins in an untenable position by coveting resources earmarked to save our nearly non-existent beaches in order to add a few more feet of sand to their beaches. While Higgins is a magician when addressing technical issues, as an unelected county official, he is susceptible to political pressure.
| FORT LAUDERDALE'S RAPIDLY
SHRINKING RIBBON OF BEACH |
Galt Mile Community residents rescued the project from political oblivion in Hollywood and Tallahassee, passionately entreating regulatory authorities to support the threatened project at every critical crossroads. Officials representing the south county municipalities that were the immediate beneficiaries of these efforts exclaimed that we were “partners and allies in this enterprise.”
| SOUTH COUNTY POLITICIANS
HOLLYWOOD MAYOR MARA GIULIANTI
BROWARD COUNTY MAYOR KRISTIN JACOBS
COUNTY COMMISSIONER SUE GUNZBERGER
HALLANDALE BEACH MAYOR JOY COOPER
AND DANIA BEACH VICE MAYOR PAT FLURY |
There is no mystery as to why our supposed allies in Hollywood and Hallandale are eying the sand earmarked to enlarge Fort Lauderdale’s beaches. As in Fort Lauderdale, beaches in Hollywood and Hallandale are lined with hotels that help fuel the tourism economies of those municipalities. These resorts also contribute heavily to the campaigns of their local officials. Key tourism venues such as the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa haven’t forgotten how tough it was to fill their rooms prior to the beach renourishment. They also know that each beach is an integral part of the coastal system. Any weakness in the system threatens the entire shoreline. The “hot spots” are sources of sand loss that the hotels want to address at any cost. If they lay claim to the sand that would otherwise nourish the Segment II shoreline, they will have accrued an insurance policy for which we will pay the premium.
To address any attempt to surreptitiously alter the project’s focus, Fort Lauderdale residents and officials must be equally passionate in demanding that the Segment II timetable is scrupulously followed and its renourishment resources are fully dedicated. The correct forum to insure these objectives is a meeting at which Mr. Higgins will hopefully identify these sources of controversy as “rumors” and confirm the late 2009 Segment II start date.
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This is a series of articles and updates related to the effort by the residents of Fort Lauderdale and surrounding communities to rescue their shrinking beach from the ravages of tidal erosion. The ramifications of our beach disappearing are staggering. The beach not only frames a wonderful "environment" in which our families live and thrive, it provides the financial wherewithall that supports our schools, maintains the civic necessities that nourish our neighborhoods, and is the single greatest protection for our coastal infrastructure from the ravages of storms and hurricanes! The articles are offered in chronological order. As such, they represent the historical progress of the project. 
On April 30, 2002, more than 100 residents of Galt Ocean Mile (2 busloads) attended a hearing at the Hollywood Beach Community Center in support of the Army Corps of Engineers plan to renourish our shrinking beaches. The Galt Mile Community Association organized this expedition in response to anticipated opposition to the plan by certain politically motivated outside interest groups.
The science that forms the basis for this project is what it is. The project was carefully planned, was determined to be safe, protects the environment, and enjoys widespread local support. The plans include the strict oversight warranted to ensure that the project is properly executed. The Shore Preservation Project protects our coral reefs, increases scarce nesting areas for the endangered Loggerhead, Green, and Leatherback Sea Turtles, and affords the human population a last opportunity to save the source of Fort Lauderdale's “lifesblood”, its beach. The widened beach will also provide additional storm protection for billions of dollars in property and thousands of lives. By "cherry picking" data from this issue, the opposition to rescuing the beach has introduced enough confusion to threaten the projects implementation.
From a fiscal perspective, consider this financial rationale. Broward’s beaches attract 7.2 million visitors a year, who spend $422 million annually in Broward County. Broward’s beaches contribute $548 million annually to Broward County’s economy, including the creation and sustenance of 17,700 full-time equivalent jobs in the County. Broward’s beaches add $1.4 billion to County property values. Our Broward beaches increase local government tax revenues by $29 million annually, of which the largest beneficiary is the Broward School District, which collects about $10 million annually in that regard. Broward’s beaches result in an $803 million annual input to southeast Florida regional economy, and create 26,000 jobs in the region. Out-of-State visitors to Broward’s beaches have a $598 million annual impact on the economy of the State of Florida, create 19,000 jobs in the State, and produce $19 million in annual State tax revenues. More than 60% of overnight tourists said that they would not have come to Broward County if there were no beaches, and a further 14.3 percent said they would come less frequently (Attention: those businesses that rely on unimpeded access to the coral reefs...how would a 75% decrease in tourist dollars affect your digestion?). Broward’s beaches protect over $4 billion in upland property, structures, and infrastructure. In Florida, beaches protect $150 billion in shorefront structures and infrastructure. Florida’s beaches alone contribute an annual increase of about a half billion dollars in Federal income tax revenues. Florida’s beaches attract 2 million international tourists, who spend about $1.1 billion annually in the State. Need I say more? If so, go to the 
THE GALT MILE NEEDS YOU!
THE BOTTOM LINE: Every issue has its inherent pros and cons. The legitimate concerns of the environmental community had to be addressed. They rightfully insisted that the sea turtles and the coral reefs be protected from the exigencies of dredging and filling. THIS WAS DONE! The plan avoids disrupting the coral reefs and adds miles of additional beach that sea turtles utilize to lay eggs. As previously stated, the environmental community negotiated a SAFE EFFECTIVE PLAN. (For an in-depth analysis and the historical underpinnings of this issue 
A representative of the Galt Mile Community Association is bringing a petition of support for this project to this important Cabinet meeting (see above). If we can demonstrate our concern for our beach with a substantial number of signatures of residents, THE PROJECT WILL CONTINUE UNABATED. Please care enough to WRITE YOUR NAME and stand up for saving OUR BEACH. PLEASE...SIGN THE PETITION that is posted in your building office or at your security desk (ask for it!).
The petitions are an important part of this campaign. They should be supported by DIRECT CONTACT as well. Please locate the “Letters of Support” in your building lobby or office. Attached to the "Letter of Support" is a "Contact List" containing the addresses, telephone numbers, FAX numbers, and E-Mail addresses of the various Cabinet Members and the Governor. Simply separate the “Letter of Support”, choose a “target” from the “Contact List”, sign your name at the bottom, and mail it in! Nothing To It!!!
Please take a moment RIGHT NOW to send 
LOOK...If you're not predisposed to send e-mails to all the addresses below...Just 
The Broward Beach Coalition 
