Shoveling Sand Against The Tide

When the 2004 hurricanes peeled back some Florida beaches, building up others in the process, Congress threw $130 million at the state for beach replenishment. The previous July, St. Petersburg had paid $5 million to widen its beaches to 250 feet. A month later those beaches were gone. "Everyone knew [the sand] was gonna wash away," the city's public works director told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The same publication quoted Paden Woodruff, environmental administrator of the Florida DEP beach section, as brushing aside the issue of disappearing sand sources and proclaiming that someday his "great-great-grandson might be nourishing St. Lucie County beaches" from an offshore sand-mining platform. "[Besides] do you think it's the American way to give up and retreat?"

It's not just fishermen, surfers, birders and environmentalists who are outraged. "As you dream of heading to the beach this Memorial Day, imagine this: on the way, stop at the bank, take out all your money, and then dump it into the ocean," suggests Taxpayers for Common Sense. "Sound crazy? Well, that's exactly what the Army Corps of Engineers does with millions of hard-earned tax dollars every year under the federal beach replenishment program."

Keith Ashdown, the group's vice-president for policy, says this: "These are local concerns, and we should not be funding them. Last time we had an amendment in front of Congress to cut funding we got trounced. Lightening is going to have to strike before we win."

The hero of the hour is none other than President George W. Bush, whose 2006 budget calls for a $39 million cut from the $102 million spent in 2005. In his first term, the President tried to zero out beach replenishment. When the powerful fake-beach lobby killed that effort, he tried to reverse cost sharing so the states and municipalities would carry 65 percent of the cost. The fake-beach lobby, killed that, too. With that, the administration suggested the feds keep paying 65 percent of initial costs, but that non-federal sources pick up the tab for long-term maintenance.

In fact, every president since Ford has tried to staunch the flow of federal pork to beach boondoggles-and all have failed. I asked Ashdown if he thought President Bush's paired-down beach replenishment budget would clear Congress without getting bloated with more pork. "Not a chance," he said.

Not only do taxpayers get to pay for beach replenishment, they get to pay for storm damage to the houses that beach replenishment attracts. Unlike private insurance, federal flood insurance ladled out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can't be cancelled no matter how many claims are made. Something like 1,500 coastal buildings are lost to the advancing sea each year, and FEMA estimates that by 2010 the figure will be about 10,000. Build them, and the sea will come. Still, the Corps, Congress and the public insist on drawing a line in the sand and standing their ground.

When you're facing off against the ocean, retreat is smarter, cheaper and drier. The National Wildlife Federation's David Conrad suggests this: "Communities could levy a small recreation sales tax, develop a trust fund, and pass a rule that for 20 years Front Street can have buildings but that when the ocean reaches a certain level, they'd buy out Front Street, demolish the buildings, and let the beach rebuild its dunes. Then Second Street would be Front Street. That sounds radical. But there are places right now where Fifth Street has become Front Street. It's just that no one will acknowledge it; instead they fight and fight and spend taxpayer money."

Ever since the hurricanes of 2004, David Godfrey hasn't been getting laughed out of the room when he uses the word "retreat" in front of state and federal beach bureaucrats. "We need to retreat in ways that are fair," he says. "The political will to do that isn't there yet, but those ways exist-buying conservation easements, for example, cutting taxes, buying out buildings when erosion reaches their foundations. That obviously can't happen on Miami Beach. Or if it is going to happen, it will be the last place because of all the high-rises. At the moment, these massive dredge-and-fill projects are the only option there. But we need to say: 'Do it in ways that aren't so harmful to nearshore habitat-not these giant, squared off, massive beaches that extend a quarter mile offshore where you're burying everything in sight every five to seven years.' That's the standard template along almost all the East Coast."

Once upon a time a community did it right. In 1973 a bridge from Florida's mainland brought a building boom to the pristine beaches of Sanibel Island. Giddy Lee County bureaucrats, who held land-use authority over the island, whooped it up for development, envisioning 35,000 seaside condos, apartments and houses. Residents had no say in their island's future, so on Election Day 1974 they voted to secede from Lee County and incorporate as the City of Sanibel. With that, they declared the beaches public property and called an orderly retreat from the sea by mandating sensible setbacks for new buildings. When a few houses, built before incorporation, were threatened by beach erosion the city did authorize limited replenishment, which promptly spawned caterwalling among about two dozen beneficiaries for regular replenishment. That's when environmental activists like Norm Ziegler-the angler and author-stood up and shouted it down.

Because Sanibel Island has protected its natural beaches, it is one of the few places you can sight-fish for snook; and Ziegler is now at work on a book on this subject. "People in Florida talk about federal money as if it came from the Tooth Fairy," he told me. "But it comes from somewhere. Why should a person in Iowa pay to pump sand in front of a billionaire's house?"