LSPOA Beach Erosion Committee Holds First Meeting—Takes Proactive Stance

Eroding dunes on North Lido Beach near our beach access

Hands down, Lido Shores' best asset is our people, closely followed by our beach, and our easy access to it. It's an asset that's clearly under siege and one we shouldn't ignore. To that end, the newly formed LSPOA Beach Erosion Committee had an initial meeting February 25th. It's mission: to explore ways to protect and enhance the beach, if that approach should prove necessary.

Diane Desenberg chairs the committee. Other members attending the first meeting included President Bob Lifeso, Treasurer Elliott Himelfarb and Bob Thill.

Dune erosion puts pavilion in peril

Elliott has talked with Sarasota City Engineer Alex Davis Shaw about the city's role in monitoring the north end of Lido Key for dredge related erosion. The City has set aside $20,000 for monitoring all city beaches. That raises the question, why not our section of beach? Ms Shaw is supposed to get back to us with an answer.

Anne Essner, Elliott, Bob Lifeso and Diane met with representatives from Longboat Key and the City of Sarasota last May to discuss the March, 2015 erosion and future dredging plan for New Pass. The engineering firms for Longboat Key and Sarasota were also present at the meeting. During and following that March dredging, our beach has seriously eroded, primarily during high tides but also during storms. Coincidence?

Neither of the city hired engineering firms presented any evidence that their dredging did not cause the erosion. In fact, both engineering firms claim there's been no significant erosion at all at the north end of Lido Key.

According to Diane, "their data collection simply does not reflect what is clearly happening." It certainly doesn't reflect what we can see on even a brief walk on our beach.

LSPOA commissioned engineering study

So we've taken a proactive stance. Since we can't rely on the City of Sarasota to collect data that reflects the erosion occurring at our beach, LSPOA has hired a private engineering firm to find out what's happening. The firm was hired in August and took a "baseline" measurement at that time. It has also recorded data in October and February.

We plan to ask our firm to conduct further research and give an opinion as to whether this last round of dredging is likely to blame for our beach woes. We also want to know if any further New Pass dredging will exacerbate the situation.

On the political front, Diane is planning to schedule another meeting with District 2 Sarasota City Commissioner Liz Alpert. She met with her once last summer. Alpert represents Lido Shores and as our representative should be made aware of our neighborhood's concerns about the protective dunes that are quickly being gouged away by the Gulf.

Sign post exposed and other debris revealed as sand disappears

So — what are our other options at this point? One is to do nothing and let mother nature take its course. But before the March dredging, mother nature was doing just fine.

In recent years, most of the dredging was done in the center of New Pass and did not erode our beach. It's our view that dredging sand just south of New Pass is the likely culprit in the severe erosion since last March.

What are some potential solutions? Elliott contacted Duncan Seawall which suggested the possibility of using sand tubes to slow down erosion. They're essentially giant slurry filled sand bags that would help prevent the tide from slamming into the already precarious dunes.

The tubes would reinforce or "shore up" the base of the dunes and be covered with sand and plantings. Duncan is coming out this week to take a look.

Other ideas include creating a "sandcastle" that would acrete sand back onto the beach. This idea was tried back in the 60's, when sand was dredged from New Pass and piled in much the same area that was recently dredged. All of Lido Beach likely benefited as that sand was gradually carried down by the southerly flow of the Gulf.

Google earth view of beach before recent erosion

Another option is stretching protective mesh over the dunes to help control their erosion. And, as a last resort, building a seawall or piling rip rap rock along the dune line to help stop further erosion and to preserve our beach property and Pavilion. But we've seen what seawalls do to beaches — make them inaccessible.

The beach in better days.  Note access path and benches

According to President Lifeso, "Most importantly, even if we end up doing nothing, we wish to be informed and kept up to date on threats and solutions to our beach, and be actively involved in any further dredging decisions or beach remediation."

As always, if you have any thoughts, comments or suggestions, please let us know.

~BT
bthill@icloud.com