By D. L. Norris
Roughly 10 years ago, the BOCC, at that time, decided to wash their hands of oversight to the Destin East Pass dredge requirements and placed the responsibility solely with the City of Destin. As the only outlet of Choctawhatchee Bay into the Gulf of Mexico, the East Pass has ecological, military, commerce, and tourism significance that impact the entire county. So, what could possibly go wrong with the county passing the buck to the City of Destin? The answer to that question is forth coming but, first, a brief review of the historical record to get the reader up to speed.
Without getting too technical, the modern history of the East Pass, as extracted from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) East Pass Inlet Management Plan, starts with the 1967 and 1969 construction, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), of two boulder mound jetties and a jetty spur at the landward end of the east jetty in 1977. This hardened pass must be dredged periodically to remove sand that fills in the pass due to wind driven ocean currents. In the East Pass Inlet Management Implementation Plan (2000), the stated first priority was “to place the dredged sand on downdrift beaches, west of the inlet, in areas of greatest need as determined by the Department.” Between 2002 and 2010, approximately 577,254 cy of inlet dredge material was placed on the beaches of Santa Rosa Island (Okaloosa Island) west of the inlet. The Plan’s third priority was to “implement a comprehensive monitoring program to be used in identifying beach placement locations for future dredging efforts.” The results of the monitoring program showed there was both an east to west longshore transport of sand and a west to east longshore transport of sand; thus, revealing a need to place dredged sand on the beaches to the east of the inlet as well as to the west.
Also stated in the Plan (2000), major storms have, and will continue to, significantly impact the East Pass. Hurricane Opal (1995), Hurricane Ivan (2004), and Hurricane Dennis (2005), all caused significant changes to the pass and erosion to areas outside the pass. Separate from the storms, there is always a daily erosion loss of some amount, somewhere along the coast adjacent to the East Pass, because the barrier islands are transient in nature and dominated by a process called island migration. In the Delaware-Surf-Fishing.com article, Is Beach Replenishment a Waste of Money and Natural Resources”, Dennis A. Schirmer, II explains the process: “The belief is that during periods of sea-level rise, barrier islands will migrate inland via erosion and longshore drift, followed by its deposition elsewhere. All of this is enabled by storm-driven wash-over events, that push the barrier island back towards the mainland. Conversely, during periods of sea-level fall, barrier islands will relocate seaward due to reduced erosion and increased near-shore sediment deposition at, and just beyond, the ocean-front margins.”
In 2008, the Florida Legislature amended Section 161.142, Florida Statutes, finding, “It is in the public interest to replicate the natural drift of sand which is interrupted or altered by inlets to be replaced and for each level of government to undertake all reasonable efforts to maximize inlet sand bypassing to ensure that beach-quality sand is placed on adjacent eroding beaches. Such activities cannot make up for the historical sand deficits caused by inlets but shall be designed to balance the sediment budget of the inlet and adjacent beaches and extend the life of proximate beach-restoration projects so that periodic nourishment is needed less frequently…” Also, in 2009, FDEP and the City of Destin sponsored an update study of East Pass as reported in City of Destin, Florida, East Pass Inlet Study & Management Considerations.
In 2013, FDEP adopted a new inlet management plan for East Pass in Okaloosa County based on the recent updated studies and the changes to the Florida Statute. The plan was to be implemented through a combined effort between FDEP, Okaloosa County and the City of Destin, with cooperation of the USACE, U.S. Coast Guard,and Eglin AFB. Here’s what went wrong…there’s a missing party to this agreement, the Condo Alliance of Okaloosa Island (CAOI) & the Okaloosa Island lease holders. They, and Eglin AFB, have been the sole beneficiaries of previous dredging from 2002-2010.
In 2012, CAOI led a successful fight to stop Okaloosa County from executing a beach re-nourishment project using inferior, off-shore sand. The project had been in litigation since 2010. Since that day, CAOI has fought, through legal, channels to ensure Okaloosa Island gets all of it’s necessary sand supply from East Pass dredging.
CAOI is right to fight to preserve the natural quality of the Okaloosa Island sand. This sand is unique because it comes from the Appalacian Mountains. It’s made up of tiney bits of quartz crystals that are carried down from the mountains via the rivers flowing through them. Once the rivers deposit the quartz sand into the Gulf of Mexico, it washes onto the beaches as the tides carry it onto the shores where it is made even whiter by the sun. Okaloosa County beaches are a national landmark worth fighting to preserve.
If the Destin beaches are Okaloosa County beaches and the Okaloosa Island beaches are Okaloosa County beaches, and, all Okaloosa County beaches are worth fighting to preserve their natural state, why is there a legal fight between who gets the sand? Because Destin has authority over Okaloosa Island in deciding where the sand gets placed and, because the Destin beaches are private and the Okaloosa Island beaches are public.
In 2014, a new East Pass Inlet Management Plan written by the City of Destin was approved. The Destin plan allows sand westward to Okaloosa Island; however, the most recent dredge permit requests have been for all the dredge sand to be placed on the Holiday Isle private beaches.
According to an editorial by Rebecca Sherry in the Northwest Florida Daily News, “in 2016, Okaloosa County began plans for an East Pass sand trap, that would collect the high quality sand for Destin’s beaches while potentially robbing Okaloosa Island of more high quality sand.”
Sherry also stated, in the same editorial, that “at meetings in 2018, county staff and consultants described a plan to essentially “blend” dredge permits with the West Destin Beach Restoration Permit to enable the county to divert far more East Pass dredged sand toward private beaches than allowed under existing dredge permits and the current Inlet Management Plan.”
Since spring of 2018, the Destin East Pass need for dredging has been termed “critical”. Attorney’s for the Okaloosa Island lease holders and CAOI filed legal injunctions to stop the dredging of the East Pass unless Okaloosa Island received their fair share of the dredged sand. An agreement between all parties was finally reached which publicly stated the sand would be split 50/50 and deposited on both the east and the west beaches. In May 2019, the USACE dredge barge was on its way when the USACE diverted the barge for a higher priority dredge. The East Pass did not get dredged.
Since that time, four Okaloosa Islanders have filed legal challenges to the proposed USACE East Pass dredge permit and taken other legal action to protect Okaloosa Island’s natural sand supply. Even though the BOCC a decade ago abdicated oversight responsibility of the East Pass dredging to the City of Destin, and the current BOCC did not have to join the fight, at the 3 September 2019 meeting, the BOCC voted unanimously to jump into the legal fight, siding with Destin and against the Okaloosa Island lease holders. District 2 Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel voted against her own constituents.
Millions of Okaloosa County taxpayer dollars have been spent in legal fees alone on this issue; and now, more will be spent unnecessarily by the BOCC entering into a legal fight they didn’t need to join. Let the City of Destin and the Okaloosa Island lease holders fight it out in court.
If the BOCC continues to characterize the current state of the East Pass as “critical” for dredging, how would a drawn out legal fight help the situation? True conservative leadership is lacking at the BOCC. Hopefully, the 2020 elections will bring in new commissioners who are strong conservative leaders that can work with all parties to negotiate a reasonable settlement, out of court, that’s fair for all parties involved, preserves the natural state of all Okaloosa County beaches, and most importantly, gets the East Pass dredged.
Post Script: In the spring of 2020, the East Pass finally was dredged utilizing the City of Destin dredge permit and contracting with a private dredge company. All of the dredged sand was deposited onto the private beaches to the east of the jetties. The public beaches to the west of the jetties received none of the dredged sand, violating of the publicly stated agreement for the 50/50 split.
You can contact the author at dlnorris@theparadisepatriot.com