How much are the sands of Anna Maria Island worth?
With tourism reaching all-time highs, the white gold has never been more valuable.
The stakes are high.
And protecting and maintaining AMI’s sugar-white coastline costs money and time.
Beginning Dec. 20, 2013, Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources worked with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. to renourish the shorelines on Anna Maria Island that weather and waves washed away.
Work began on the shoreline at 79th Street in Holmes Beach and finished March 13, 2014, about 5 miles down the beach at 13th Street South in Bradenton Beach.
But the work wasn’t yet done.
On the south end of the island, nestled on Cortez Beach, stood three condemned groins.
The groins were built in the 1960s to help maintain the Gulf shoreline from being swept away and stop the littoral drift of sand.
In spring, with a price tag of $4.2 million, work began to replace the groins.
The total cost for the renourishment and groin work is $16 million.
Longboat Key recently rebuilt two groins on the north end of the island for $2.3 million.
The work began March 9, with an estimated nine-month completion time.
Crews on Bradenton Beach began work on the northern groin with plans to move next to the center groin and finish with the southern groin in fall.
Sounded easy.
But to move parts and equipment to the sites, the workers from CAYO Marine Construction had to block sections of parking for two fenced-off staging areas between Fifth and Seventh streets and Ninth and 12th streets in Bradenton Beach.
Meanwhile, they also cordoned off long stretches of the beach between the staging areas.
Easter and spring break were right around the corner.
Residents and tourists weren’t happy.
Bradenton Beach and Manatee County officials stepped up to improve matters and small compromises were achieved.
Engineer Michelle Pfeiffer, representing Coastal Planning and Engineering hired by Manatee County to oversee the renourishment project, said despite setbacks, work is on schedule.
“There’s always going to be a kink or two that needs to be worked out,” she said.
Pfeiffer said work on the northern groin would take the longest because her team had to figure out some logistics issues as they worked.
Work on the other two groins, she said, will be much faster.
The central groin won’t have to slow down for equipment and material transportation like the northern groin. Use of the central staging area will cut time for the equipment runs.
“The southern groin will be the fastest,” Pfeiffer said. “There’ll be lost travel time, but the groin is a few spans shorter than the other two.”
Pfeiffer didn’t provide a completion date for the north groin.
