Slip Sliding Away

March 23, 2015, Looking North

Erosion and accretion are natural processes affecting the Lido Key shoreline, but in the weeks following this Spring's dredging of New Pass, our North Lido beach has experienced rapid beach loss. For those who have not had the opportunity to see the current state of the beach, I am posting photos here. At the start of the dredging, we had a smooth sandy beach. The sea turtles had dry beach sand in which to lay their eggs. In fact, we had record numbers of turtle nests last summer. The beach had eroded a little since last summer, but there was still plenty of room to set up beach canopies and get buried in the sand.

Within a week or two of the onset of the dredging, I would estimate we lost about 20-40 horizontal feet of that beach.

March 24 2015, Looking North

Since the dredging started, large branches that were buried beneath the sand have been exposed a little bit at a time.  This has happened before, but over the course of months or years, not weeks.  At this point, approximately 18 inches of vertical tree limb has been uncovered in one spot.

I didn't take any photos prior to the dredging, but, thankfully, Google Earth captured a bird's eye view that was taken at some point prior.  It shows our benches, the wet sand area, the dry sand area, and some beach vegetation.

Today, looking south from the Lido Shores access, there is no dry beach left beyond the vegetated areas. This is what it looked like a couple of days ago about an hour before high tide. Below it, you can see the same stretch of beach from our last Fourth of July Boat Race gathering. Will we be able to spread out on the beach next Fourth of July?

March 24, 2015, Looking South

July 6, 2014, Looking South

The multi-million dollar beachfront question is Did the dredging cause this rapid erosion?  I have enjoyed the Lido Shores shoreline for the past sixteen years.  Over this time, there has been a small but steady level of erosion, punctuated by large accretion events.  Based on my time in Lido Shores, the severity and rapidity of the beach loss during this most recent dredging is unprecedented.  And the beach loss began just after the dredging started.  In my mind, there is no question that this dredging project caused the recent erosion.  Will our beach rebound?  I hope so.  

Prior to the onset of the most recent dredging, I had imagined that the engineers involved in this project would have done the necessary calculations to make sure there was no negative impact to North Lido beach.  I had imagined that those overseeing the project would have taken measurements of North Lido beach both before and after the dredging to make sure there was no impact.  If the City of Sarasota has such measurements, I am happy to post them here.  But I have yet to see anything.   

There's an expression that comes to mind to sum up the current situation:  Robbing Peter to pay Paul. South Lido beach was severely eroded and in desperate need of renourishment.  But their renourishment should not have come at the expense of the Lido Shores beachfront.

In light of the recent erosion, how should Lido Shores respond to future proposals to dredge the shoals in New Pass? Should we insist that our beach area be renourished at the same time?  Should we insist that dredging take place much further west? Or like many on Siesta Key, should we insist that there be no dredging here? Suggestions anyone?
~ Diane Desenberg