Pinellas beach renourishment underway
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An aerial image of workers dredging sand from the Gulf floor and pumping it onto Indian Shores. Video: Pinellas County
A $126 million project to restore Pinellas County's storm-battered beaches is underway.
Why it matters: A wide, elevated beach helps protect coastal homes, businesses and wildlife from storm surge like what Tampa Bay experienced during last year's Hurricane Helene.
State of play: Workers began piping sand onto the shoreline on Wednesday, starting with Indian Shores.
- Up next are Redington Shores, North Redington Beach, Upham Beach and Sunset Beach, per the county's anticipated timeline.
- Work on Indian Rocks Beach and Sunshine Beach is slated to begin in October, while Belleair Beach and Clearwater Beach are on the schedule for December.
- The project is set for completion in January.
Stunning stat: By the time they finish, workers will have placed an estimated 2.5 million cubic yards of sand on the barrier islands.
- That's enough to fill up The Dalí Museum more than 40 times, county officials said.
What they're saying: Only a few sections of the beach will be closed at a time, spokesperson Ashley Giovannetti told Axios.
- The rest of the shoreline will remain open to residents and visitors.
Between the lines: Workers will skip over certain sections of private land they don't have permission to access, mostly concentrated in Indian Rocks Beach, Indian Shores and Redington Shores.
- That's because about 20% of beachfront homeowners in the project area haven't signed a legal document called an easement that allows county workers and contractors to temporarily access their land.
- In those areas, workers will place sand from the water to the erosion control line, which separates public beach from private sand.
The county is still accepting easements but needs about five days to process them and alert the contractor for a segment to be included in the project, Giovannetti said.
- "If the contractor is in front of your house," she said, "it's too late."