Florida the rules are different here Chapter XXI

Would you believe a fight over sand? Martin County doesn't want the Army corps of engineers using sand from a shoal off Fort Pierce to help re-nourish beaches down in Miami. State Senator Ken Pruitt is leading the fight to stop this. Maybe they're right, this will damage beaches here. Who knows. Hurricanes are part of life in Florida and have been for God knows how long. Then mother nature both gives life and destroys it, its part of a circle and man can do little about it, and sometimes I wonder if its for the best if we interfere in this natural process.

Open Post- TMH's Bacon Bits, Bright & Early,

STUART -- State Sen. Ken Pruitt wasn't the only one Tuesday who vehemently opposed a proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers to use sand off Martin and St. Lucie counties for a Miami-Dade beach project.

"We will fight this to the bitter end," he said at a public meeting at the Blake Library. "This is a slap in the face to every citizen here on the Treasure Coast."

There seemed to be no local support for the plan to dredge more than a million cubic yards of sand from a shoal in 30 feet of water off Fort Pierce and pump it south to renourish 13 miles off Miami-Dade beaches.

Brian Flynn, a special projects administrator for Miami-Dade County, said the county originally proposed using sand from the Bahamas to expand eroded beaches, but federal law demands they first investigate domestic sources.

They considered using an inland sand source, but it was too expensive because the county has a policy that forbids the use of trucks for sand transport, he said.

The next closest sand source that is possibly compatible to Miami-Dade beaches is off the Treasure Coast, corps officials said.

Joined by state Department of Environmental Protection and Miami-Dade planners, corps biologists had the meeting in Stuart to determine which federally mandated impact study -- a more in-depth one that would take about a year or one lasting only up to six months -- they should conduct.

Like Pruitt, most of the residents who sat through the two-hour meeting wanted no study at all.

Some said Miami-Dade County's coastal development policies contributed to erosion there. Others said local beaches -- also deemed "critically eroded" by the corps -- need the sand, too.

"We're all insulted by your lack of sensitivity. We've been hit by two years in a row of hurricanes," said Chris Shultz, co-chairman of the Surfrider Foundation's Treasure Coast chapter. "You're proposing to remove the natural shoal that will deflect wave action.