The dunes along Brevard County’s beachfront properties suffered varying degrees of erosion damage documented after hurricane Wilma.  In some areas, very little erosion occurred.  This was certainly the case in areas such as Cocoa Beach and Indialantic, where previous restoration efforts had built wide, protective beaches.

But in other areas, significant erosion was observed after Wilma.  The recently-completed 2005 emergency dunes of Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, northern Indialantic, Melbourne Beach (and southward) suffered highly variable degrees of storm-related erosion.  Those dunes had been constructed in response to the severe damage of the 2004 hurricane season.  They were intended to provide a protective buffer between rough seas and imperiled properties along those relatively narrow stretches of Brevard County’s coastline.

In 2006, the Brevard County Natural Resources Management project repaired approximately      20 miles of damaged dunes along Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, and unicorporated Melbourne Beach.  Construction techniques were similar to those employed during the            2005 effort.  Beach-quality sand from upland sources was conveyed by trucks to staging points along the beach, and then loaded upon trucks with special tires that allowed them to travel along the beaches and dump their cargos.  A total of 174,400 cubic yards of sand was placed, which is the equivalent of approximately 8,720 loaded dump trucks. Once delivered, the sand was then shaped to conform to the existing dune and replicated—as far as is possible—the dune as it existed at the conclusion of the 2005 construction phase.

The contractor for the 2006 project was J. P. Donovan Construction, with construction oversight provided by AMEC Earth and Environmental. The $5.7 million cost was borne 75% by FEMA, with the remaining 25% supplied by Florida Department of Community Affairs and Brevard County each contributing $712,000.

Sand quality and placement was rigorously controlled to ensure that all new sand matched the native beach in color, texture and shell content, and that contractors avoided damaging or burying established vegetation. In compliance with the state and federal environmental permits, completed areas of the beach and dune constructed during 2005 and 2006 were tilled to make them more suitable for turtle nesting and to encourage growth of native vegetation. Turtle monitoring, as required by permit, documented a successful 2006 turtle nesting season and a good hatching success rate on the new sand.

It is important to underscore that this was a repair project.  The damage to the emergency dunes was highly variable, and thus the amount of sand needed to repair them varied greatly from location to location.  The final result of the repairs was aimed at recreating 2005’s nominally uniform protective buffer along the project’s imperiled beachfronts.