Sand Trucked In To Build Up Broward's Battered Beaches
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FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - Thousands of tons of sand is being trucked to help some of Broward's beaches battered by surf and tides.
County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said approximately 750,000 cubic yards of sand will soon be distributed along a five mile section of beach which includes Pompano Beach, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Fort Lauderdale.
LaMarca said building up the eroded beach will help protect buildings along the coast and the economy.
"We have about 15-million visitors who come to Broward County and about 63-percent of them use the beach and they spent about $13-billion last year, so the beaches are important for many reasons," said LaMarca.
The $55-million project will result in beaches about 75 feet wide and will add sand to areas that haven't been renourished since 1983. This renourishment project is a little different from ones in the past.
"In the past we've had beach renourishment from barges that dredge offshore, that take up the sand pits that are located offshore. That's less environmentally friendly. The issues you have there deal with turbidity, sand basically getting dumped over reefs. So we are doing an upland placement, we are bringing in sand from LaBelle, Florida, there's a sand mine there. If you think back, at one time the whole state was underwater, so its all the same sand."
The cost of the project is being split between several entities. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will reimburse $30 million, more than half the cost of the overall project, and monitor the new sand. Broward County, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the three cities that are part of the project will pick up the rest of the cost.
Trucks will distribute the sand from three access points along the beach. At each access site, 120 trucks will deliver an estimated 2,500 tons of sand six days a week through the duration of the project.