The more research I do, and the more I learn about beach maintenance around the world, the more challenging the prospects for finding a simple solution for maintaining our beaches become.
Up to this point the town and its residents and taxpayers have relied on a single consulting company to provide us with a blueprint for the future of our beaches. I believe that the prospect of the ever increasing costs for periodically replenishing our beaches every eight years or so make it advisable to search for alternative technologies that have proven to be cost effective in other places.
I am slowly reaching the belief that the best solution may be comprised of several different approaches that address different situations such as hot spots and areas where sand is building up as it is at Whitney Beach.
I am looking at companies that have exhibited good track records of successful beach maintenance ranging from hopper dredging, which is what we now employ, to groins, jetties, synthetic seaweed, artificial offshore reefs, micro-dredging and under current stabilizers to name a few.
The information on this web site will be in constant flux as I do more research and obtain more information and island residents input information they have learned about.
It is my hope that this web site will enable the residents of Longboat Key to better understand the challanges of cost effectively maintaining our beaches.
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