Promises. Promises.
It’s going to be another bad summer at Cortez Beach, where Manatee County officials promised a finish for construction of three erosion-control groins by sea turtle season — which began May 1.
The groin reconstruction project — which blocks off 1,500 feet of the Gulfside beach and multi-use trail — is again being extended.
Charlie Hunsicker, Manatee County parks and natural resources director, said June 29 he doesn’t know for how long.
“It’s the foundation,” Hunsicker said. “The engineers are having trouble building a firm foundation. Every time they put in pilings they find soft sand and they can’t build on sand.”
Hunsicker compared the ground underneath the groins to a layer cake — multiple levels of sand, then limestone, then sand and so on. “It’s an unknown bottom environment,” he said. “Right when they think the pilings are set, they break through the rock into another layer of sand.”
The reconstruction project, which began March 2015, was supposed to be completed in December 2015. Then it was then extended to January and to March, April, May and then July. Now, the finish date is uncertain.
“It’s really frustrating,” Bradenton Beach Mayor Bill Shearon said. “I’m getting calls all the time from residents, beachgoers and people wanting to use the multi-use trail because of the noise and construction.”
When Shearon first heard the project was going to be finished in July he joked, “Which July?”
“Now it looks like that’s going to come true,” Shearon said.
The project to replace the three 1960s-built Cortez groins has been delayed multiple times and multiple reasons.
The first groin, located at Sixth Street South, was expected to be finished in three months, but weather delays and hidden rubble under the old groin site pushed the project’s finish into early 2016.
Seeking to make up lost time, county officials gave engineers the go-ahead to build wider, longer groins that would cover — rather than remove — the old groins at 10th and 13th streets south.
The delays and redesign pushed the budget up $450,000, just shy of the project’s $5 million limit.
Hunsicker said June 29, whatever the additional cost, it is still to be determined.
“But these are meat-and-potatoes kinds of costs,” he said. “These are necessary costs.”
The area around the groins at 10th Street South — No. 2 groin — and 13th Street South — No. 3 — are fenced off from beachgoers and trail-users. The fences will remain until the work is completed.
The northern groin at Sixth Street South was finished in February but the structure remains off-limits until the entire project is completed.