The Story So Far

In about 2000–a good starting point for our story–Flagler had a pretty good beach: broad and flat, with plenty of dry sand even at high tide, and a good system of sandbars.

Some who have lived here more than a few decades report that there once were 30-40 yards of dunes between SR A1A and the broad, sandy beach. Others who have watched the beach at various widths are not so worried about the loss of the sand, saying “it will come back.”

But while it is the natural inclination of ocean waves to build beaches, they are now thwarted by man-made obstacles. Jetties. Seawalls. Revetments. And worst of all, dredged inlets and harbors, and dredging for off-shore sand-mining.

These structures and underwater man-made canyons, whether nearby or many miles distant, have seriously disturbed normal flows of sand and are continuing to do so. This obstructs the natural beach-building process and is the root cause of all our shoreline erosion.

Normally, sand does come and go. But on Flagler’s Beach–as on many others on many coastlines affected by man-made erosion problems–sand has been going a lot faster than coming, with the net result that our beach is now critically eroded.

What has been done

In 2002, the Florida Department of Transportation, in an emergency measure to protect a stretch of highway A1A in Flagler Beach, created a revetment (embankment) of boulders where the dune had eroded away. Subsequently, the DOT extended the length of this revetment.

Since the initial revetment was built, the roadway has been closed numerous times so that additional rocks and sand could be poured from dump trucks to replace sand that had been washed away and rocks that had been undermined. Total cost as of the end of 2005: more than $7 million.

The beach face in front of these revetments is littered with rocks, and warning signs have been erected by the city to caution beach-goers about “visible and submerged hazards” in the water.

In January, 2006, following the collapse of part of A1A between South 12th and 13th streets, the DOT constructed a sheet pile seawall at a cost of about $900,000. Additional erosion immediately began at both ends of the wall.

Apart from additional applications of sand and rock to shore up the wall and revetment, nothing more has been done to halt erosion or restore the dunes or beach in Flagler Beach.

Flagler Beach City Commission

In the fall of 2005, Dick Holmberg of Holmberg Technologies, Inc., visited Flagler Beach twice, each time at the invitation of the then-sitting City Commission, to introduce the city to Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems, a method of beach regeneration he invented and has developed over the last 30 years.

His presentations, which included many before-and-after pictures of severely eroded beaches that had been regenerated using his technology, impressed many citizens and commissioners.

But at the second of these visits were also representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Department of Transportation, and several coastal engineers. All of these people were familiar with the success of the Holmberg technology but were and continue to be reluctant to acknowledge its effectiveness in regenerating shorelines. You can read more about this under “Competing Ideas.”

The recommendation of the Army Corps of Engineers is that Flagler Beach actively pursue a course that would allow the completion of its “Feasibility Study,” and ultimately a program of ongoing beach nourishment (a dredged beach).

At a subsequent meeting, the commission hired Howard Marlowe, a congressional lobbyist closely associated with the dredging industry and coastal engineers, to obtain funds for the federal share of the 1.7 million-dollar Feasibility Study.

In the winter of 2006, a group of volunteer citizens calling itself Save Flagler’s Beach began an active campaign to reject dredging and seawalls and lobby for a one-mile demonstration project of Holmberg’s Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems.

These efforts, which include many presentations of an educational slide show put together by the citizens, a petition demanding the demonstration project, and flyers announcing coming events, have raised the citizens’ awareness and knowledge about erosion, its causes, and its possible cure.

In a letter to citizens who signed the petition, Congressman John Mica pledged to expedite the project using Undercurrent Stabilizers.

Still, opposition remains strong. When it seemed likely that a majority of the City Commissioners would vote to go ahead with the project and pay an initial $25,000 to begin the work, a letter arrived from the DEP announcing a non-matching gift to the City of Flagler Beach of half a million dollars that could be used only to help pay for the Feasibility Study.

This letter also stated that Flagler Beach might have part of a $2 million matching grant for “alternative” beach restoration methods–but officials interpreted the letter to mean a coastal engineer must be hired to help draft a request for proposals from companies interested in applying.

At its July 13 meeting, commissioners voted to hire a coastal engineer to proceed with the Feasibility Study and help draft the RFP request.

And the story continues. Please come back to this website for updates and to see how you can make a difference in the future of Flagler’s Beach. After all, Flagler’s Beach is your beach.