Filled beaches are more erosion prone and leave escarpments difficult for angler, never mind sea turtles, to climb.

Marlowe and the ASBPA aggressively attack anyone who questions the environmental impacts or economic equity of large-scale coastal dredging, such as the National Wildlife Federation and D.C.-based Taxpayers for Common Sense.

In a phone interview per request of Florida Sportsman, Marlowe stated categorically that, “Fish catches have never been interrupted for more than 30 days by beach re-nourishment. And there’s evidence that shows the organisms living in the beach return quickly.”

Fishermen and divers—witnesses to serious impacts from past projects—are appalled by ASBPA/FSBPA lobbying tactics.

“Their approach reminds me of tobacco industry lobbyists,” said Jim Harter, president of the Stuart Fly Anglers club. “We demand an opportunity to rebuke him before the Martin County Commission.”

Marlowe and Co., which specializes in this style of lobbying, represents at least 30 municipalities around the country. Martin County, Florida, alone pays him $39,500 per year. According to FSBPA’s 990 forms, Flack earns $103,000 for lobbying for dredging funds, and according to other news sources, she also represents individual municipalities.

Because of the war in Iraq, Marlowe and Flack face increasingly tight-fisted legislators, who are debating funding allocations for Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) projects, which include beach nourishment projects. WRDA would also fund the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, but Everglades Restoration must compete with the beaches for attention six months after four hurricanes racked Florida, the most in over 100 years. But Flack and Marlowe are extremely close with some legislators, consulting companies and agency personnel that depend on dredging contracts.

For example, at a St. Lucie County meeting sponsored by state legislators, Flack was given a seat and a microphone alongside legislators and senior DEP officials.

“We’re not only going to re-nourish eroded beaches, we’re going to add to beaches that aren’t eroded yet,” she promised a large audience of mostly beachfront property owners. DEP personnel, as well as a number of county employees, nodded in agreement. We recognized Martin County Coastal Engineer Kathy FitzPatrick, whose boss, Don Donaldson, is Chair of FSBPA.

Critics say that the dredging lobby is governing our beaches, and that Harter’s tobacco analogy is apropos—that beachfront interests are addicted to sand pumping. The addiction metaphor works in terms of what scientists, anglers and divers say, that “beach nourishment” is contributing to the steady decline of our coastal ecosystems.

And, it looks like we’re running out of the drug.

“Most of the compatible sand, the cheap sand at least, is gone in the southeastern counties,” said Phil Flood, an environmental manager with DEP’s Beaches office.

That’s a concern for some local governments because economic analyses and Army Corps permits show that “shoreline protection” is the primary benefit of the beaches. The tax bases generated by high-density, oceanfront properties keep property taxes down. And, nourished beaches have in places performed well as buffers, but the durations of their storm-shielding capabilities vary depending on the wave environment, age, design, sediment type, storm intensity and storm frequency.

“It appears to me that many of these projects disappear more rapidly than predicted for the re-nourishment cycle,” said Dr. Robbin Trindell, FWC’s senior sea turtle researcher.

Critics also say beach-fill projects merely give beachfront property owners a false sense of security about living in danger zones.

“It’s psychological,” said Steve Ellis, Vice President of Programs for Taxpayers for Common Sense. “When people see a big flood control project—which is what these things are—they feel they’re safe. Beach nourishment encourages unsustainable growth and keeps people in harm’s way. We’ve all seen it time and again where hurricanes kill people, destroy property, someone rebuilds, and it happens again.”

It’s not clear if people working in the lucrative beach-building industry are counted among the 706,000 jobs. ASBPA/FSBPA is largely comprised of the dredgers, engineers, agency personnel and sundry consultants who make a living off these high-dollar projects. A handful of dredging, engineering and environmental consulting groups score these lucrative contracts, and the projects encourage growth in agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, which relative to size enjoys one of the biggest budgets in government.