Save Flagler's Beach

Here are some of the questions we are asked most frequently about Holmberg Technologies’ Undercurrent Stabilizer system.

What are Undercurrent Stabilizers™?

Undercurrent Stabilizers™ are ingenious devices that don’t just halt or control erosion, but actually regenerate the dune and beach using our own sand that’s suspended in the ocean’s waters.

They are custom-designed modular fingers of concrete-slurry-filled geotextile fabric that project outward into the ocean perpendicular to the shore, depending on the local currents. Each stabilizer array can consist of two to five of these fingers, usually spaced about 70 feet apart and projecting 250 – 350 feet outward on the ocean floor.

They are attached to an anchoring system buried at the dune line. The anchoring system is invisible once installed. The stabilizers themselves begin depositing sand and covering themselves with sand almost immediately.

Just how do they do this?

Sand is carried by waves and currents that originate far out to sea as well as along the shore. The stabilizers are positioned to slow down the incoming currents and waves, much as offshore shoals once did before they were obliterated by dredging. These slower waves and currents, with their reduced energy, are no longer able to rush in and scour away at our eroding beaches, but are induced to drop their loads of sand on the shore.

Eventually the entire ocean floor in the vicinity of the stabilizers is recontoured into a gentle shallow slope, just like a native beach, and the currents and waves continue to deliver sand.

Won’t storms wash the sand away again?

Storm-driven waves and currents are particularly useful in building beaches. They churn up the sand far offshore, and drive it forcefully toward shore. When they encounter the Undercurrent Stabilizers™ they lose their destructive power, and the sand they carry is dropped on the shore and toward the dunes.

Will Undercurrent Stabilizers™ protect A1A as well as rebuild our beach?

Yes, Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems™ are designed to rebuild the natural dune as well as the beach itself. We can expect annual increases not only in beach width, but also in beach elevation–– from past experience about two feet per year on average. When there are storms and hurricanes, the larger waves carrying even greater loads of sand will carry this sand up onto the dunes—and not wash it all over A1A as they did after Hurricane Jeanne collateral damage, when there were no dunes to protect the road.

Does anyone else make them?

No. Holmberg Technologies, Inc. is the sole source for patented proprietary Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems™. The system’s inventor, Dick L. Holmberg, holds five patents for the technology.

Undercurrent Stabilizer™ technology is the only method that fulfills all our requirements:

• One-time cost.
• One-time, permanent installation—no need for ongoing “beach management” expense.
• Permanent installation becomes part of beach.
• No need for dredged sand.
• Turtle- and environmentally friendly.
• Promotes dune as well as beach restoration.

Will the Undercurrent Stabilizers™ have trouble being permitted?

Nearly every permit Holmberg Technologies has applied for has been issued. Congressman Mica pledged in a letter that he will assist with permitting.

How much will the one-mile demonstration project cost?

Estimated no more than $2.5 million including permitting. If we were to treat the entire 6.5 miles of beach, it would cost less than $15 million—just over half the lowest estimates for dredging or sea walls.

Who will pay for the project?

Flagler Beach and Flagler County are the primary funding entities to begin the project. It is hoped that municipalities within the county will also support the project. After that, departments within the state will be applied to for funding assistance.

Also, Congressman Mica has said he will “expedite the project using Undercurrent Stabilizers™,” and he is known as a person who keeps his word.

As a last resort, part of the project may need to be privately funded.  Do you think our beach and dunes are important enough to make a contribution?

What’s the difference between funding for Undercurrent Stabilizers™ and funding for the ACOE’s “Feasibility Study” we keep hearing about?

These are two very different things—and it’s confusing. A feasibility study is something required by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of a work-up to a dredging Project  funded by 50% federal funding.

Feasibility studies are paid for jointly by federal and local governments. Flagler’s study, which has already been started, is sponsored by Flagler County, not Flagler Beach. Its total cost, just for the study, is $3.5 million. So far, $300,000 of this has already been paid out from the county’s Tourist Development Council funds, awaiting the federal government’s matching funds.

Undercurrent Stabilizer Systems™ are considered an “alternative” restoration technology. That means alternative funding sources must be found, and opponents of Undercurrent Stabilizers™ (who are found in every governmental department at every level in government as well as private industry and lobbyists) are prepared to use every tool at their disposal to thwart any attempt to use them.

Why? Because the dredging industry and its friends at all government levels are afraid the realization that Undercurrent Stabilizers™ can rebuild beaches and dunes naturally and relatively inexpensively will mean the end of interminable feasibility studies and shockingly costly beach renourishment projects.

Why is the federal government willing to spend federal monies to fund dredging?

Because they know that the Army Corp engineered federal projects for navigational  purposes  which  contributed to the erosion in the first place.

The Army Corps of Engineers try to convince us that Undercurrent Stabilizers™ are only groins. Groins are walls built perpendicular to the shore. They are supposed to trap sand between them as the sand drifts laterally along the shore, but what actually happens is that sand builds up on one side of the groin and erodes on the other.

Unlike groins, Undercurrent Stabilizers™ are designed not to trap sand, but to slow the energy of waves and currents originating in deep water far offshore, causing them to release the sand they contain. The sand builds up everywhere around the stabilizers.

The ACOE KNOWS Undercurrent Stabilizers™ are not groins.

What if Flagler Beach’s stabilizers stop sand from traveling down to Ormond Beach?

Undercurrent Stabilizers™ have been shown again and again to benefit downdrift beaches. This is because they restore the normal sand flows in every direction. Some of the downdrift sand is deposited on our beach. The rest continues its normal flow.

Here are two quotes, from among many. The first from a property owner, the second from an engineer:

“The systems do not cause any downdrift damage such as seen with a seawall. In fact, a few neighbors have commented that our system has helped their beach as well.”

“…the greatest elevation gains were achieved downdrift of the larger… stabilizer installation, at the specific location where the regulators and academicians insist the greatest damages are expected according to their theories.”

What if the method doesn’t work? We’ve had reports that say it doesn’t.

A couple of unflattering reports turned out to be based on completely false information that had been put out by people who favored dredging. They were reprimanded.

• If Undercurrent Stabilizers™ didn’t work, there has been plenty of opportunity over the last 30 years to prove it with pictures—which has not been done.
• If Undercurrent Stabilizers™ were shown not to work, Save Flagler’s Beach would not be in favor of them. Members of this group have extensively researched many different options for coastline restoration for over 5 years, and have found that Holmberg Systems offer the most viable option of proven, sustainable, environmentally healthy dune and beach renourishment.  However we welcome the introduction of any technology that may be studied and proven to be even more superior. . . we just want our dunes and beach back.

Mr. Holmberg’s opponents KNOW Undercurrent Stabilizers™ work. They KNOW they will work in Flagler Beach. That’s why they are throwing so many obstacles in the project’s path.

How can we make sure the project happens?

Get involved. Write to or call your city commissioners, your county commissioners, your state representatives, and the heads of departments like the Florida Department of Environmental Protection [FDEP] and the Florida Department of Transport [FDOT].

You’ll find their contact information here.

You are important. Your voice must be heard. To schedule a 20-minute slide presentation for your club or organization, contact us.

Other websites to visit:
www.erosion.com (Holmberg Technologies, Inc.)
www.sustainableshorelines.org
YouTube