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St. Johns County Shore Protection Project, St. Augustine Beach, Florida

Jacksonville District completes beach fill operations at St. Augustine Beach

Jacksonville District is pleased to announce the completion of beach fill operations for the St. Johns County, Florida, Shore Protection Project in St. Augustine Beach.
The dredging contractor will now complete beach tilling and demobilization from the Pope Rd. staging and access area over the next few  weeks. The 100 percent federally funded renourishment placed approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of sand on three miles of critically eroded areas of St. Augustine Beach and Anastasia State Park.
Jacksonville District extends a special thanks to our non-federal sponsor, St. Johns County, as well as the City of St. Augustine Beach, Anastasia State Park, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, our dredging contractor and subcontractors, and the many federal and state agencies that  helped make this project possible.
A special shout out to our awesome team of sea turtle nest relocation experts and shorebird monitors (Bob, Tara and the Anastasia State Park staff), beach lifeguards, and local police, fire and rescue personnel.
Renourished beaches such as St. Augustine help to reduce damages from major storm events, nor’easters and future sea level rise to adjacent upland properties including homes, businesses, critical facilities and State Road A1A. The restored beach also provides significant economic benefits to the local economy and state of Florida in addition to acres of critical nesting habitat for threatened and endangered sea turtles, shorebirds and the Anastasia Beach mouse.  
We hope residents and tourists alike enjoy the renourished beach as much as our team and their families do.
Refilling the beach template near the pier as mentioned before, will provide an additional buffer between the upland infrastructure and the ocean to help dissipate wave energy and provide the intended every coastal storm risk management benefits until the next planned renourishment planned for every five years or sooner depending on future storm intensity.
The design intent of placing an extra-wide beach near the pier allows waves and currents to quickly reshape the fill by transporting sand from the dry beach and depositing it below the waterline and to the adjacent beaches north and south. The adjustment of the beach to a more natural “equilibrated” shape may appear to dramatically decrease the beach width, but the project is operating as designed. The equilibration process will begin immediately upon completion, with full adjustment typically requiring many months or multiple significant wave events to evolve. Once the beach has reached an equilibrium condition, the beach is expected to recede at a slower rate.
St. Johns County, the project non-federal sponsor, will now take over day-to-day operation and maintenance of the completed project, including annual monitoring to determine when the next renourishment is needed.

St. Augustine Beach Renourishment to resume on or about June 6

USACE Jacksonville expects it contractor to resume dredging and sand placement along the St. Augustine Beach shoreline on or about June 6, 2024, pending unforeseeable weather or mechanical delays. Once operational, the team will place sand north of the Pope Rd. staging area, filling a gap of about 100 feet of shoreline from the Embassy Suites to the border of Anastasia State Park. The team will then switch direction and move south along the beach to the project terminus in the vicinity of A Street.
Once the southern segment is complete, the team will pause again and return in September to finish sand renourishment at Anastasia State Park.
See the latest project map above and follow the Jacksonville District social media channels for the most up to date timeline and location maps.

St. Augustine Beach Renourishment temporarily delayed

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, announced an immediate halt May 1 to its current beach renourishment activities within the Anastasia State Park reach of its St. Augustine Beach, St. Johns County Shore Protection Project.
The contractor began work on March 8, 2024, but could not complete the park portion before significant shorebird nesting activity occurred in this area. Least terns, American oyster catchers and Wilson’s plovers typically start nesting in late April and early May with late nests in July and the last chicks fledging off the site in early August. 
A least tern colony has been established this week in the park and in order to avoid any potential negative impacts to nesting shorebirds, their nests and their chicks, the decision was made to cease operations after consultation with officials from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Anastasia State Park, St. Johns County, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and other state and federal agencies.
Existing portions of the federally constructed and renourished beach continue to provide protection from erosional forces and habitat benefits to the St. Augustine Beach shoreline.
USACE Jacksonville is working with its contractor to re-set a project timeline for completing the 100-percent federally funded Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies beach renourishment. Announcement of a revised schedule is expected by the middle of May.
The Pope Road beach access will remain a closed staging area until the resumption of renourishment activity. Please comply with posted beach access instructions to maintain public safety.

Jacksonville District begins mobilization for re-nourishment of St. Augustine Beach

USACE Jacksonville began equipment mobilization Feb. 22, 2024, for the re-nourishment of the St. Johns County, St. Augustine Beach, federal shore protection project. 
The USACE contractor began establishing a staging area at the Pope Road access point and will continue deploying equipment in the week ahead. Beach placement of dredged sand is expected to start in early March.
The re-nourishment will place approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of sand on critically eroded beaches within the city of St. Augustine Beach, extending three miles from Anastasia State Park at the north to the vicinity of A Street at the southern end of the shoreline.
Placement will proceed from north to south. Jacksonville District will post work schedules and progress maps on this page and via its social media channels as the work progresses.
The $33 million contract, to be executed by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, is 100 percent federally funded with Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies monies. The renourishment is projected to be complete by the end of June, weather permitting.
Initial construction of the 3-mile project was completed in January 2003. Since then the project has been renourished approximately every five years or following significant hurricane events. The Jacksonville District shares a strong partnership with St. Johns County, the non-federal sponsor for this project along with many others to protect eroded beaches along the county’s coastline.

Post-Hurricanes Ian and Nicole erosion impacts at St. Augustine Beach, Oct. 9, 2022

Federal Shore Protection Project at St. Augustine Beach, St. Johns Co., Florida

The ocean shoreline of St. Johns County is approximately 42 miles long. The St. Johns County Shore Protection Project for St. Augustine Beach will renourish eroded shoreline between the southern limits of Anastasia State Park to a point 3.9 miles south of St. Augustine Inlet.

The purpose of the project is to mitigate for down-drift shoreline impacts caused by the Federal navigation channel at St. Augustine Inlet, and provide storm damage reduction for upland development. The cost sharing for this project is 80.5 percent federal and 19.5 percent non-federal, due to impacts of the federal navigation channel to the downdrift beach. The renourishment cycle for the project is every 5 years.

The next beach re-nourishment, which will address the 2022 impact of Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole, will be 100 percent funded by the federal government under a Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies authority.  Jacksonville District plans to complete all permitting coordination with its partner agencies by Feb. 10, 2023 and award a contract for the project in autumn 2023.

Beach re-nourishment is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2024.

Frequently Asked Questions

 

  1.  Where is the renourishment project starting?
    Construction will start in early December and will last for approximately three months. 

  2.  How long will the beach renourishment project take?
    From start to finish, it’s expected to take a minimum of about 90 days (weather permitting). 

  3. What are the working hours for the project?
    Construction operations will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

  4. How long might temporary structures stay on one stretch of beach?
    During active construction, structures should move an average of more than 500 feet down the beach each day. Work delays will occur when work crews encounter mechanical problems or bad weather.  

  5. How much sand will get placed on the beach by the project?
    The contractor will place approximately 800,000 cubic yards of beach quality sand onto eroded areas. 

  6. Where does the sand come from?
    Sand will be dredged from the federal navigation channel and St. Augustine Inlet ebb shoal. The inlet has been dredged multiple times as a sand source for the St. Johns County Shore Protection project. 

  7. Why does the color of the sand vary?
    The newly dredged and placed sand initially looks a little different than the pre-project beach. Beachgoers might notice that the sand is slightly more coarse and gray. However, the new sand meets specific criteria mandated by the State of Florida for St. Johns County's beaches, including grain size distribution, shell content, and color.  Over a period of a few days or weeks, the sun will bleach the sand until it’s gradually closer to the color people are used to seeing.

  8. Is there access to the beach during the project?
    The beach will remain open to residents and visitors outside the work areas. The contractor expects to temporarily close at least 1,200 feet of the beach at a time during the renourishment project. Public access over the dredging pipes will occur roughly ever 200 to 300 feet. The work should proceed about 500 to 1,000 feet - or two to three city blocks - along the shore each day. Swimmers and surfers are strongly encouraged to avoid the construction area to avoid injury!

  9. Will vibration monitoring occur along the beach front for existing structures?
    Yes.  A local firm is contracted to monitor vibrations from the construction equipment throughout the project.

  10. What can be done about the noise from the machinery back-up alarms?
    Bulldozers will operate 24 hours and the heavy machinery back-up alarms cannot be turned off. The alarms are a safety device required by federal law to protect people from getting hit by machinery when the driver is unable to see directly behind the equipment.  The construction noise is a temporary situation, which is also dependent on wind direction and other weather conditions that affect the way sound is carried.

  11. How can you tell a project is successful?
    Each beach project is engineered to different specifications based on the geography, hydrology and erosion history of the project area. Rare is the project that does not need maintenance over time, simply because projects are done in areas that are eroding and that erosion does not stop simply because more sand is on the beach. Creating more beach protects the upland properties from surf and storms. Also, putting lost sand back into a beach system can make the overall system healthier, because there is sufficient sand to allow nature to move it offshore and onshore without endangering roads, buildings and other manmade infrastructure. In the case of St. Johns County beaches, the project is engineered to last at least five average years.  If there are winter storms or tropical weather, then that reduces the time period; however, the accelerated loss of sand means that property was protected.

  12. How is the beach project constructed?
    The contractor will locate a cutterhead dredge several miles off the coastline.  The dredge will excavate sand, mix it with salt water and pump it to the beach via pipeline. The contractor will clearly mark the pipeline in accordance with U.S. Coast Guard regulations.  The pipeline laid on the beach has a discharge point that releases the material. Here, the material goes through a spreader, which is designed to separate the sand and water, and direct it onto the beach.

    Crews will operate bulldozers to shape the sand and they’ll also direct the water flow down the beach. This process enables the new sand time to settle from the water mixture. Heavy construction equipment will then push the material to shape the beach as designed. The active construction area, from the discharge point to about 500 feet down the beach, will be temporarily closed to the public. The contractor will mark off this area with caution tape and/or construction fencing.  As construction progresses, the pipeline will extend along the beach. To enable access to the water, the contractor will build pedestrian crossovers over the pipe. The crossovers are sand ramps about 12 feet wide, placed over the pipeline in intervals roughly 200-300 feet apart; the pipeline is 3 feet in diameter or less.  Construction activity will occur every day once the project starts and continue around the clock, operations permitting. The active construction area is expected to move along the beach an average of 500 feet per day, and should take about three months to fully complete.

  13. How can I get information about the renourishment project?
    Information can be found on the Army Corps of Engineers website at www.saj.usace.army.mil/St.AugustineBeach and at www.facebook.com/JacksonvilleDistrict

 

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Jacksonville District
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(904) 616-0036
(904) 232-2568