Last week, the St. Johns County Commission approved the annual funding request for a long range beach erosion control budget plan with the Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems.
County Engineer Press Tompkins said renewing the contract with the department is a routine item on the commission agenda. The St. Augustine Beach Nourishment project has been underway since 2001. The money for this venture comes from the Tourist Development Council.
"The beaches are our biggest tourist draw in the county," said County Budget Analyst Wade Schroeder. "In order to promote tourism, we need the beaches in the best condition."
The county uses Tourist Development Council monies to fund its portion of the St. Augustine Beach Re-nourishment project. In addition, the county uses a percentage of this money to fund its portion of a matching program with the Army Corps of Engineers and the department for a feasibility study that extends the scope of beach re-nourishment.
This feasibility study is looking at the critical beach erosion from Summer Haven, Vilano and South Ponte Vedra Beaches.
Schroeder said this feasibility study costs approximately $770,000 with about $272,000 coming from state and federal grant money.
Tom Turnage, president of the South Ponte Vedra and Vilano Beach Restoration Association, said the county-funded feasibility study is not scheduled to be completed until 2011. It was due to this timing that Turnage rallied friends and neighbors in South Ponte Vedra in order to fund a feasibility study for the 10-mile stretch of beach between Vilano Beach to the Guana Reserve.
"The county was not putting enough money away fast enough to do anybody any good," said Turnage. "Does anyone really want St. Johns county on CNN Headline News with houses falling into the ocean?"
Turnage and roughly 130 South Ponte Vedra residents raised $140,000 to match the department’s money for the feasibility on the stretch of beach declared critically eroded in 2001.
Turnage said homeowners wrote checks to the Restoration Association in order to meet their half of the $280,000 project cost.
Results of the feasibility study will be available by the end of the year, said Turnage. He added that they hope to start a beach restoration project, like the St. Augustine project, within three years.
"If we had to wait on federal funding, it would be 2017 before anything happened," he said.
