Ft. Pierce Summary & Conclusions

• The 1999 beach fill has severely eroded with the magnitude of erosion being greatest close to the south jetty and decreasing progressively to the south.  In particular, by March 2002, the beach from R34 to R37 had eroded beyond pre-fill conditions, from R38 to R39 had eroded into the USACOE design fill template, and from T40 to T41 had eroded substantially into the USACOE advance fill template.  Overall, of the 830,000 cy of sand placed during the 1999 beach restoration project, about 700,000 cy of sand have moved away from the placement area.  Beach erosion is attributed to a combination of storm, fill dispersion, and inlet effects.
• Due to severe erosion of the project beach, the USACOE plans to renourish the beach as soon as possible after the end of the 2002 marine turtle nesting season with the following requested modifications:
  1. Extend the permit expiration date by five years (to May 11, 2008) to allow a one-time renourishment from the inlet south to FDEP reference monument T-41
  2. Modify the beach construction template to place additional advance fill on the upper beach
  3. Modify the beach construction template to include a 20-ft wide band of sea oats along the landward edge of the berm
  4. Reposition the borrow area to a location on Capron Shoal immediately adjacent to the 1999 borrow area
  5. Reposition the mitigation reef and increase mitigation reef construction requirement to a total of five acres to mitigate for the project's impact on adjacent and downdrift nearshore hardbottom