Bulldozers build up part of Vilano Beach during a renourishment project in 2021. | News4Jax
Published on March 21, 2024 at 2:38 pm
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has delayed the start of a beach renourishment project in St. Johns County, pushing back the start of scheduled beach closures, in order to wait for the necessary equipment to arrive.
Nine miles of beaches in St. Johns County will be beefed up with additional sand as part of a $40 million beach restoration project. Only part of the renourishment — the St. Augustine Beach renourishment spearheaded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — initiative will be pushed back. Work on Ponte Vedra Beach is still underway.
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The delay “will maximize the effectiveness of beach construction in sync with the expected nesting and blossoming activity of coastal fauna and flora,” according to the county.
For the work that was not delayed, the parking area for Mickler’s Landing Beachfront Park is currently closed and will reopen briefly during Easter weekend. Closures will continue intermittently over the next several months while machinery is moved.
The project will require engineering firm Weeks Marine Inc. to pump tons of sand onto the shores of Ponte Vedra Beach to shore up the area against storms and erosion. The plan is to dredge 2 million cubic yards of sand offshore of Ponte Vedra Beach and use it to restore berms and dunes from the Duval County line down to the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve.
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“This project will help to mitigate past erosion,” St. Johns County Coastal Manager Damon Douglas told Jacksonville Today, “which will protect infrastructure, property values and tourism assets while enhancing the environmental and recreational value of the coastal system.”
More than $30 million in funding for the beach restoration project comes from the state, and St. Johns County has committed $8 million.
The work will continue, one chunk of the shoreline at a time, to keep heavy equipment and beachgoers safely apart. The estimated August end of the project is estimated to not be affected by the delay. St. Johns County will post updates on the beach closures here.
This story was updated March 26, 2024, to clarify project delays.
