Lee County may widen sand at Fort Myers Beach during sea turtle nesting season
By TARA E. McLAUGHLIN
Naples Daily News
January 24, 2011 at 7:15 p.m.
On Tuesday, the Lee County Commission will consider a $3.5 million beach renourishment project to help rebuild parts of the barrier island's beach which has washed away in the surf.
FORT MYERS BEACH — Sea turtle nesting is a sensitive and protected aspect of Southwest Florida life.
Communities limit lights that disorient turtles trying to make their way to nesting beaches and back to the sea.
Anyone who has walked a beach from May 1 to Oct. 31 has seen scores of areas marked off with yellow tape, guarding nests from being trampled.
Sometimes the endangered and threatened species face risks. Such is the case with beach renourishment.
Lee County commissioners on Tuesday may award a $3.5 million contract to Tarpon Springs-based Florida Dredge & Dock to move 315,000 cubic yards of sand to 1.2 miles of the northern end of Estero Island.
That project is expected to continue for 150 days and if construction began immediately, it would flow into the first two months of turtle nesting season, creating some risks for the ancient reptiles.
"The ideal is not to do the work during sea turtle nesting season because it would then require the nest to be moved, if she comes up at all," said Robbin Trindell, biological administrator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which advises the Department of Environmental Protection on projects like this. "If they're out there working at night, because of (federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requirements they have to have very bright lights. ... We often hear it impacts turtles for some distance from where they're working."
Eve Haverfield, director of Turtle Time, a nonprofit organization in Lee County that works to protect sea turtles, will keep a watchful eye on the process.
The project permit, a part of an overall restoration permit that DEP issued in 2002, allows for construction during nesting season with several conditions to minimize the risk, including daily surveys, storing construction equipment off the beach and weekly surveys conducted for two nesting seasons following the renourishment project.
Collier project
Collier County commissioners are set to approve contracts Tuesday to add sand to two stretches of beach and to dredge Wiggins Pass.
The county would spend up to $946,000 to renourish eroded beaches south of Doctors Pass and at the Seagate beach access in North Naples.
Permits still are pending state approval.
The north jetty at Doctors Pass would be strengthened with rock under a $653,000 contract up for a vote.
A vote is set for 11 a.m. on a $750,000 contract to dredge sand from Wiggins Pass, where boaters have been running aground because of a shoal at the mouth of the pass.
As part of the permit from the DEP, the beach will be monitored every morning before the day's work can begin.
Haverfield has the permits and training required to relocate nests.
"We'll be starting April 1 to monitor so that nothing is missed," Haverfield said.
This area is so eroded, Haverfield said, that each season she has to relocate nests so they aren't washed away by high tide.
"There are multiple things to consider as far as the environment is concerned but right now on Fort Myers Beach, that renourishment is important," she said.
The project, which includes building a 240-foot-long groin to stem further erosion, has been in the works since 2002 and is vital to the town and tourists, Fort Myers Beach Town Manager Terry Stewart said.
From protecting the foundations of buildings built along the beach to maintaining the town's tourist destination, seeing sand come to the beach will be a big relief.
Stewart said protecting sea turtles throughout the project is important, but not a roadblock to the end goal.
"These things can be done without any undue impact on the turtle nesting season," Stewart said. "I'm sure that the state of Florida and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would not let us do the operations if it was going to do some sort of harm to the turtles."
Projects like this are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said, and may require these types of conditions to counter any negative effects to the turtles.
For Haverfield, who has monitored nests during several renourishment projects, her only concern would be if construction continued into the hatching phase, typically two months into the season in July.
Bright lights on the dredging boats in the Gulf of Mexico attract the hatchlings as well as their predators.
Stewart said he'd been told the project could begin in mid-March. That would have construction, set to last 150 days, through the middle of August.
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