Dade County officials requested federal assistance with shore erosion about 50 years ago, and Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to construct the Dade County Beach Erosion Control and Hurricane Protection Project in 1968.

The Dade County project provided for the placement of beach fill along 9.3-miles of shoreline extending from Bakers Haulover Inlet to Government Cut and along the 1.4-mile length of Haulover Beach Park located immediately north of Bakers Haulover Inlet. The 2.4-mile length of the Sunny Isles segment was added to the project in 1985 under a separate authorization.

All major sand sources offshore of Miami-Dade County have now been exhausted with the completion of the latest nourishment contract in the Bal Harbour area in 2014. The Corps and local and state coastal officials estimate that an additional 3.6 million cubic yards of sand is needed for the remaining federal participation, which is ten years for the Government Cut to Baker’s Haulover Beach Park segment and 23 years for the Sunny Isles segment.

Section 935 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 and a Congressional directive from 1999 indicate that the Corps can only use domestic sources of sand for renourishment of this project, unless domestic sources are not available for environmental or economic reasons. To utilize new sand sources, the Corps completed a Limited Reevaluation Report (LRR) and Environmental Assessment (EA) with updated economics to justify potential alternative sand sources for future renourishments.