Longtime island resident Bob Bruce, a retired software engineer and entrepreneur and well-known environmental advocate, says the Sebastian Inlet District owes Indian River County taxpayers $40 million.
Bruce previously won a lawsuit against the Inlet District and received compensation for the loss of natural “drift sand” that the Inlet blocked from reaching his oceanfront property, and he has solid documentation to back his current contention.
But James Gray, executive director of the Sebastian Inlet District, showed Vero Beach 32963 data he says demonstrates the district is in compliance with the state law that requires it to place sand on 2 miles of beach immediately south of the inlet.
He doesn’t dispute Bruce’s basic facts about how much sand the Inlet District has put on the beach, but contends that additional sand placed on that stretch by the county in cooperation with the district satisfies the intent of the statute.
The matter has become a hot topic because the memorandum of understanding about sand between Indian River County and the Inlet District expired in April and needs to be renewed.
Meanwhile, the county’s Beach and Shores Preservation Committee is trying to figure out which interpretation of law and sand volumes is correct, and decide if changes are needed.
The need to update and renew the MOU has caused the beach and shores committee and County Administrator John Titkanich to focus more closely on what has been happening with sand placement south of the Inlet, and ask questions about what will happen going forward.
The committee is an influential body chaired by Michael Sole, an environmental heavyweight who previously headed up the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
At a lively meeting in March, where the impending expiration of the memorandum of understanding came up, one committee member said the county should “hold the district’s feet to the fire,” and find out who is verifying the amount of sand placement.
Sole, too, said he was concerned about sand deficits south of the Inlet.
“I don’t think we are getting enough sand from the north,” he said, adding that, “all the county sand projects are based on the idea of a continual feeding from the north, and they are not going to perform well if that’s not there.”
He also said he was not interested in attacking the district, which was “just trying to do its job, same as everyone.”
Commissioners invited Gray, who was present, to speak at their next meeting to help clarify the situation.
At the April 15 meeting, Gray obliged with a half-hour power-point presentation and question-and-answer session that seemed to calm some concerns while still leaving the matter not officially resolved.
The new MOU, which county natural resources manager Eric Charest said needs to be completed by November, presumably will be the document that spells out district obligations going forward.
There are 66 ocean inlets in Florida, including two dozen that have formal management plans like the Sebastian Inlet.
During the later part of the 20th century, coastal engineers and environmental scientists gradually realized that large man-made inlets are major causes of beach erosion.
The stone jetties that typically protect the mouths of these inlets block the flow of drifting sand, and tidal flow into the Inlets carries sand into the estuary that would have continued down the coast.
As this realization took hold, the Florida legislature passed statute 161.142, which states that, “The Legislature recognizes the need for maintaining navigation inlets to promote commercial and recreational uses of our coastal waters and their resources.
“The Legislature further recognizes that inlets interrupt or alter the natural drift of beach-quality sand resources, which often results in these sand resources … [not] providing natural nourishment to the adjacent eroding beaches.
“Accordingly, the Legislature requires that … on an average annual basis, a quantity of beach-quality sand is placed on the adjacent eroding beaches which is equal to the natural net annual longshore sediment transport [blocked by the Inlet].”
Senior Judge Charles Smith, who presided over the lawsuit brought against the Sebastian Inlet District by Bruce and other island property owners, noted in his opinion that “it is generally recognized that the dominant or net movement of current along the East Coast is southerly, and that this flow results in erosion of the downdraft beach.”
In the case, filed in circuit court in 1992 and finally adjudicated in 2003, the judge found that one north-island property owner had lost 1.5-acres of land and 55,000 cubic yards of sand due to the inlet.
Members of the Sexton family, whose historic Ocean Grill restaurant sits on a narrow, severely eroded stretch of shoreline in Central Beach, were the southernmost plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They were not awarded damages.
The Sebastian Inlet district was created by the Florida Legislature in 1919, the same year the inlet was dredged, for the purpose of maintaining “safe navigation between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River Lagoon.”
The Inlet was closed by major storms several times during the next 30 years, but has been open continuously since 1948, with monitoring, maintenance and other mandated activities funded by taxpayers in a district that extends from State Route 60 north to Viera Boulevard and from the ocean to the western borders of both counties.
The bulk of the district is in Brevard County and Brevard property owners provide 80 percent of the district’s tax revenue, which amounted to $4,282,335 last year, according to Gray.
The district’s first management plan was formulated in 2000. At that time, it was required to place 70,000 cubic yards of sand on its designated beaches annually. That number was later bumped up to 90,000 cubic yards by a technical advisory committee with representatives from the district, state and both counties, but that number was never formalized.
A follow-on technical advisory committee that looked at all the data about sand and water flow, erosion and other environmental factors in and around the inlet in 2022-23 set a new requirement of 75,000 cubic yards in November.
The state’s latest annual inlet report, which came out early this year, shows that the district has never come close to meeting any of those goals or requirements with sand it has placed.
According to the report, the district has averaged only 48,915 cubic yards of sand over the past 23 years, for a total of 1,125,045 yards, leaving it 784,955 cubic yards short.
That report added to the hubbub at the March beach and shores meeting and Gray, who was present at the meeting, does not downplay the numbers.
“If you look at this on paper, it’s alarming,” he told Vero Beach 32963. “According to those numbers, the district is fulfilling only 58 percent of its obligation and 58 percent is not a passing grade.”
At the same time, he notes that the county put about 880,000 cubic yards of sand on the district’s section of beach in the wake of major storms in 2003-04 and 2007-08, and that the statute governing inlet district sand restoration calls on “each level of government to undertake all reasonable efforts to … ensure that beach quality sand is placed on the adjacent eroding beaches.”
Gray, who is highly regarded in the coastal engineering and beach management world, was the county’s coastal engineer when the big county projects were done, and believes they are encompassed by the statute’s phrasing and so legitimately help the district meet its obligation.
This is the main crux of disagreement with Bruce, who points out that the district did not make any financial contributions to 590,000 yards worth of the county sand placement.
The county got lots of help from the state and federal government but also paid a substantial portion of the costs out of bed tax and property tax revenue.
“If they want credit for that sand, they should reimburse the county for its share of those costs,” he says. “The SID (Sebastian Inlet District) is woefully behind on what they are mandated to do, and they are looking for an easy way out. Jumping on renourishments paid for by IRC taxpayers is the easy way out. This is a huge gift that IRC would be giving SID!”
Gray counters that in either case, it is taxpayer money being spent and taxpayers are getting the benefits, but Bruce rejects that rationale.
“I was speechless when I heard James claim the county sand for his total,” Bruce said, noting that the Inlet District was created by law to fund district operations and obligations, and that most IRC taxpayers are not District residents.
As an example, if a beach project had a local cost of $5 million and was funded by the District, Indian River taxpayers who live in the District would pony up $1 million, while Brevard residents would pay $4 million – instead of the county paying the whole $5 million.
Bruce, who has served on many local government and environmental boards, said he wants “accountability and fairness for IRC taxpayers. The obligations of SID satisfying its statutory mandate are the responsibility of the SID taxpayers. They are not the responsibility of IRC taxpayers!”
At the March meeting, Sole said FDEP has not yet recognized the county sand placement as helping meet the district’s obligation, and the county sand is not included in Sebastian Inlet District’s total in the latest state inlet report.
Despite that, top county officials don’t seem too concerned about the $40-million deficit Bruce calculated by multiplying the current $50 cost of a yard of sand by 784,955.
“The county and the Inlet District have a longstanding cooperative relationship … [and] I am confident in due time an updated MOU will be presented to both the Board of County Commissioners and Inlet District Board,” said Susan Adam’s, chair, IRC Board of County Commissioners.
“The issue of sand deficit and placement of sand on beaches is complicated,” said County Administrator John Titkanich. “We are committed to working with the Sebastian Inlet District to bring about a resolution that serves the public at large, and we are looking forward, not back.”
That raises the question: If the county doesn’t want restitution for any past deficit that may exist, will it insist on more sand placement by the district going forward?
Will the 75,000 cubic yard requirement be enshrined in the MOU, or left to drift like the sand itself with economic and political currents.
“The county needs to stand up and say, ‘I am not going to take this anymore,’” said Bruce, who plans to meet with Titkanich about the matter. “I am going to push this as far as I can and there are legal venues we can use if we have to but we would much rather not.”
