The shifting sands of federal funding decisions have left the St. Lucie County commissioners all at sea when it comes to repairing the damage Hurricane Irma caused to South Hutchinson Island beaches.
The commissioners are rethinking their strategy for dumping roughly 400,000 cubic yards of sand on the beaches after the Federal Emergency Management Agency took back $9.5 million in funding this month.
As a result, the commissioners voted unanimously Feb. 5 to pull back their request for the FEMA funding and cancel a coastal engineering firm’s work order for design and construction services.
The commissioners also decided to request a deadline extension from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to give them time to pursue alternative funding, or file an appeal of the FEMA funding revocation.
“It is complicated. There are a lot of moving pieces,” said County Administrator Howard Tipton.
Hurricane Irma washed about 374,000 cubic yards of sand from the shore between the Martin County line and Normandy Beach in September 2017, county records say.
FEMA had initially agreed in September 2018 to provide $9.5 million of the $12.7 million cost of replacing the sand lost during the storm, county records show. The county and the state would have provided about $1.6 million each.
In October, the Water Resources Development Act of 2018 provided the Army Corps about $5.5 million in federal funds toward the $20.3 million cost of placing 422,000 cubic yards of sand on south county beaches, county records show. The county would need to provide $14.8 million from other sources.
The commissioners had decided on Dec. 18 to go forward with the $12.7 million FEMA project, instead of the $20.3 million Army Corps project. But that decision was upended by FEMA’s de-obligation of the $9.5 million.
“It appears, at this point, that is not a viable option,” said County Attorney Dan McIntyre during the commission’s Feb. 5 meeting. That’s why the commissioners asked county administrators and coastal engineers to pursue the Army Corps project and question FEMA officials about the decision to pull back funding.
County Commissioner Chris Dzadovsky lamented FEMA’s change of heart about the $9.5 million.
“It’s unfortunate we can’t count on the federal government with any steady information coming our way,” Dzadovsky said. “There was a time when FEMA and Army Corps operated in a certain manner in which we could identify and know the actions were going to be taken.”