Pelicans ambush mullet on reefs at Phipps Park. Turtle experts confirm there's no reason to expand the beach, and the reefs provide essential food and cover for juveniles.

This year, approximately $117 million in federal tax dollars will be spent on “beach nourishment” in Florida, augmented by at least $30 million from state coffers, plus funds from local entities. Some of that money will go to vital dune restoration projects, but most will go to dredge-and-fill projects ranging from 200,000 to 1.5 million cubic meters in volume.

Florida Statute, Title XI, Chapter 161, declares “beach nourishment” to be in the best interests of Florida citizens. More than $886 million has been spent since the 1970s on beach-fill projects—more than in any other state. As covered in the April 2005 issue of Florida Sportsman, almost all peer-reviewed science and observations by anglers and divers point to serious ecological and recreational expenses. Advocates for the dredging and consulting industries justify the work with economic studies highlighting the need to maintain beach cosmetics for tourism revenue and property taxes.

Debbie Flack, Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association’s (FSBPA) director of legislative affairs said, “Florida’s beaches create 706,000 jobs, and tax revenues from the properties they protect support our hospitals and schools.”

Flack is a former chief of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Office of Beaches and Coastal Systems. Flack’s primary lobbying tool is an economic assessment of Florida beaches conducted by Dr. William Strong, an economist at Florida Atlantic University. In 1997, she helped convince state legislators to create the comprehensive beach-funding plan. Subsequently, Flack told the Gannett News Service, “I tried to package this as an environmental program, but our selling point was economic development.”

Indeed, tourism and property taxes account for massive economic injections. Flack said the numbers exceed $50 billion to date, without offering a specific time frame. And while Strong’s research is reviewed, it seems paradoxically comprehensive and generic. While the survey counts all beachgoers, the research does not take into account why individuals go to the beach, or to specific beaches. For example, it does not say how much divers spend to scuba dive healthy reefs in clean water in Southeast Florida, or how much anglers spend to catch pompano on Indian River County beaches, or how much surfers spend because of the waves that break over the nearshore reefs in Brevard County. (The latter group, you might be surprised to learn, contribute more than $1 billion annually to Florida’s economy on the statewide level.)

The dredging lobby points to mitigation efforts. These, however, rarely entail or succeed in providing kind-for-kind habitat mitigation. Mitigation for nearshore reef burial usually entails an artificial reef placed in water too deep to provide the shallow structure required by juvenile snappers, grunts and groupers, among many other species that depend on unburied nearshore reefs.

“It’s not that we want these projects to impact anglers, but anglers represent a much smaller percentage than tourism overall,” Flack said.

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) study, Economics of Fish and Wildlife Recreation, attributes more than $5.5 billion of the annual gross state product to saltwater fishing, and nearly 60,000 jobs. The sum is likely an under-estimation because shorebound anglers don’t need a fishing license, and the Florida Marine Industries Association estimates that more than half of the reason for boating is fishing. The FWC estimate for dollars generated by boating is $15.7 billion. In addition, agency officials admit—and dive shop owners in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties verify—that reefs that supported diving have been destroyed or obscured for long intervals by dredging projects since the 1970s.

Dr. Grant Gilmore, the scientist who first cataloged the fish in the Indian River Lagoon, and along the Treasure Coast’s many nearshore reefs, says these projects may be curbing angler success and enthusiasm no matter where you fish in salt water.

“The nearshore environment is so important to so many juvenile gamefish and forage species that individually and cumulatively these projects can impact fishing off the beach, in the lagoons and on the offshore reefs,” he said. According to Gilmore and other top scientists, juvenile gag grouper, mangrove snapper, yellowtail, muttons, lane snapper, flounder, permit, pompano, grunts, assorted drums and all sea turtles—adult or juvenile—can be impacted due to habitat loss or diminishment of forage.

A search discovered 11 peer-reviewed scientific papers that documented serious impacts, and increasingly, agency-generated papers are recognizing more of the impacts anglers complain about. But Howard Marlowe, Director of Legislative Affairs for the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), and who represents Martin County and other Florida municipalities, disagrees with independent scientists, anglers who have observed impacts, and divers who witness them.