Some “beach re-nourishment” projects may really be acts of marine genocide.

Offshore dredge vacuums up fill material. Little is known of the long-term effects on bottom-dwelling organisms, but turbidity and collision impact on nearby coral reefs are well documented. The product, in short supply, often has more in common with mud than the polished quartz found on natural beaches.

Four hurricanes don’t hold a candle to the potential fish habitat disaster funded in the name of “shoreline protection.”

In the wake of last season’s storms, a panic-driven number of shoreline-armoring projects and so-called beach nourishment projects are proceeding throughout the state.

Bulldozers are burying famous pompano beaches of Martin County. The wonderful snorkeling reef at Phipps Park in Palm Beach County is doomed. Dredges are on the way to Sanibel and Captiva islands’ legendary snook beaches, among many others.

Meanwhile, marine scientists, environmental groups, veteran anglers, the dive community, the surfing community, and tax-dollar watchdogs such as Taxpayers for Common Sense say that much of the coastal armoring and sand dredging needs to be curtailed, if a goal is to protect biological diversity and abundance as well as outdoor recreation along Florida’s coasts.

These voices, it seems, are being drowned out by special-interest lobbyists from the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) and the Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association (FSBPA). Largely comprised of dredging contractors, coastal engineers and consultants who specialize in coastal construction, ASPBA/FSPBA has consistently maintained that beach nourishment causes only short-term turbidity with short-term environmental impacts. The majority of peer-reviewed scientific literature and anecdotes from anglers and divers contradicts this position. Due to the gravity of the threats, a three-part investigative report will run in the April, May and June issues of Florida Sportsman. We are examining the environmental legacy, the politics of and sustainable alternatives to seawalls and massive dredge-and-fill projects euphemistically termed by proponents as “beach nourishment projects.” Many experts say that in many cases there are better ways to save our beaches.

“Erosion isn’t a problem for beaches, just for buildings.” That famous and comprehensive statement came from Dr. Orrin Pilkey, renowned Duke University professor and author of The Corps and the Shore. Without condos stepping on the dunes, and without jetties to stop the natural longshore migration of sediments, Florida’s barrier islands would simply be reshaped rather than destroyed by storm events such as hurricanes and nor’easters.

But with buildings in place and sea level rising ineluctably, coastal engineers first responded with seawalls, jetties and groins, collectively termed “shoreline armoring.” Those hard structures only exacerbated erosion, so, by the 1970s, coastal engineers began promoting the “re-nourishment” concept as an environmentally friendly alternative to shoreline armoring. In the mid-’90s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a 3-foot high, 15-pound document called the Coast of Florida Erosion and Storm Effect Study. Many thousands of pages thick, the study devotes one paragraph to the potential cumulative environmental impacts of the hundreds of shoreline-protection projects it proposes over the next 50 years. And, the paragraph concludes that only “cumulative benefits toward the natural coastline would be realized by all projects under the Coast of Florida Study.” This after vast segments of coral and nearshore reefs were destroyed by Dade County projects, and in other locations throughout the ’80s.

“Siltation and indirect burial from re-nourishment projects was largely to blame for the death of shallow coral reefs along Miami Beach,” acknowledged Steve Blair, who runs Miami-Dade’s beach nourishment program. “But, the technology has come a long way since then.”

Junvenile snappers, grunts and other important species require exposed hardbottom habitat. This particular limestone outcrop (among acres of similar ones in Martin County) is now covered by the kind of fill material often used in dredging.

Today’s full-scale beach restorations require the mining of up to two million cubic meters of offshore sediment, usually in 20 to 50 feet of water close to offshore reefs. The material is then pumped on the beach and in the surf zone. Advocates say mapping technology and innovations in fill placement can reduce reef impacts. Critics counter with a litany of environmental woes attributed to dredge-and-fill projects waged with heavy equipment in extremely sensitive areas.

Contractors hired by the Corps use cutterhead or hopper dredges for excavation. Almost all seafloor-dwelling marine life occurs in that 6-inch margin of “topsoil,” and the dredge kills all manner of organisms— shrimp, crabs, mollusks, worms, seagrasses and more—across square kilometers of the continental shelf.

“The prevailing wisdom has been that the soft-bottom dwellers come right back,” said Phil Flood, Environmental Manager for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Office of Beaches & Coastal Systems. Marine scientists and other observers (e.g. divers) doubt the validity of that assumption. For perspective, I conducted a thorough search, but failed to find any peer-reviewed studies of borrow-site impacts. That’s alarming.