March 2019
FACT SHEET
Palm Beach County (Mid-Town) FL (C)
Construction (C)
Congressional Districts: 18, 20, 21, 22
1. DESCRIPTION
The area of Palm Beach County, Mid-Town was authorized by Sec. 101, Rivers and Harbors Act of 1958, Public Law 85-500. The segment is located on the east coast of Florida, at about the center of the county. The Mid-Town segment starts about 4.5 miles south of Lake Worth Inlet. This segment extends about 1.5 miles along the oceanfront within the Town of Palm Beach. The protective beach along the 1.5-mile reach of shore is within the most public section of Palm Beach Island and is in a critical state of erosion.
2. FUNDING
a. P.L. 115-123: Bi-Partisan Budget Act of 2018, Supplemental:
| Construction |
|
| Current Working Estimate |
$23,000,000 |
| Allocation thru FY18 |
$100,000 |
| Allocation for FY19 |
$0 |
| Resiliency |
| Current Working Estimate |
$2,000,000 |
| Allocation thru FY18 |
$0 |
| Allocation for FY19 |
$0 |
3. SPONSOR
Town of Palm Beach, Public Works Department
951 Old Okeechobee Road
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
4. STATUS
Currently planned for Award in FY19. Approved funding is $23,000,000. Latest cost estimate is $15,000,000.
By letter dated July 13, 1988, the Town of Palm Beach advised the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Jacksonville District Office that the Town was initiating action to implement the Mid-Town segment of the project. The Town of Palm Beach was allowed to enter into a Local Cooperation Agreement (LCA) with the USACE as the non-Federal sponsor. The terms of the LCA can be found in the Palm Beach GDM Addendum of 1991.
Prior to the Addendum of 1991, the shoreline was heavily armored with coastal structures including seawalls (by both public and private interests), which were constructed between 1929 and 1960, and twelve groins which are placed at irregular intervals along the considered segment of the shore. The groin fields were removed or covered between 2002 and 2004 (google earth historical imagery).
Beach placement occurred during the 6-year period extending from 1948 through 1953 between R-79 and R-102.
The selected plan at the time was a beach fill that extended south 1.5 miles from Barton Road to a point about 600 feet south of R-102. The design cross-section provides a berm width of 25-feet at an elevation of +9 feet. The initial beach fill was comprised of 1,023,000 cubic yards of material including 380,000 yards of advanced nourishment.
A permit was obtained from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). It was a 10 year permit that was issued on May 14, 2002 and expired in 2012 (permit # 0164713-001-JC). The permit was to construct a 2.4 mile beach nourishment project between DEP reference monument R-90.4 and R-101.4 using approximately 1.4 million cubic yards of material that was proposed to be dredged from a borrow area located south of the Lake Worth inlet, which was partially utilized for the 1995 Mid-Town Nourishment Project. The proposed beach fill profile was +9 ft. NGVD with a berm width of 180 ft.
According to the Palm Beach County Shoreline Protection Plan (found online at http://www.pbcgov.com/erm/coastal/shoreline/beach/pdf/shoreline-protection-plan.pdf), the first Mid-town beach restoration was constructed in 1995 and included the installation of eleven groins. It is unclear how these groins relate to the twelve groins mentioned above. Since the initial nourishment, the beach has had one full-scale Renourishment in 2004 and a hurricane restoration in 2006. In total, 3.04 million cubic yards of sediment has been placed since 1995. The Mid-town project has a projected Renourishment interval of eight years.