About Our Beaches

About Our Beaches

There are many residents of Longboat Key who are vitally interested in exploring alternative methods for maintaining our beaches.

For the past twenty years the town government has managed a program of periodic beach nourishment where hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand are dredged from offshore and pumped onto our beaches.

Periodic massive dredging has been only partially successful in that much of the sand quickly washes off the beaches during storms and constant littoral drift. The result is a process of incessant diminution of the beaches. In some areas such as the Islander Club; the north end and mid-island, adjacent the trailer park, the sand loss is severe and immediate.

Many areas on the island have reasonably stable beaches. Still the island as a whole has required massive beach nourishment on average every eight years at an ever increasing cost.

Alternatives

The federal government would most likely favor retreat from the shoreline. It seems assured that the cost of insuring property on Longboat will become increasingly expensive. There is probably a point where insurance premiums will adversely affect property values, if not already. Citizens is now requiring that roofs be replaced on older homes and condominiums.

History

During the past twenty years there have been three major beach nourishment projects. Each project cost considerably more than the previous one. The first two nourishments used only white sand. The most recent used a two layer approach on the north end where dark, supposedly more stable, sand was used then covered with a layer of white sand. History of LBK Beaches

Longboat Key Beaches

Information for the residents and taxpayers of Longboat Key about beach maintenance alternatives.