PONCE INLET, Fla. — People who live along Volusia County’s coast are concerned after new sand from an ongoing dredge project was swept out to sea.
Eyewitness News first showed you the pipes in Ponce Inlet in April. Since then, the sand has been trucked to other parts of the beach and no only large cliffs are left behind.
“We want to be able to have easy access to the beach. We don’t want to have to walk down to the beach and find out we have to go over a cliff to get down to the beach and it’s just not accessible,” said Cary Albright, who owns a condo in Daytona Beach Shores.
While that’s an inconvenience, Albright is more worried about his condo being protected during a major storm.
WFTV asked the county’s coastal division those questions and got this response:
“County staff inspect the beach to document conditions and identify any areas that may require attention on a daily and as-needed basis, such as after a high surf or high tide event. As the County’s contractor did after the impacts of Hurricane Erin a few weeks ago, any significant drop-offs will be smoothed out once surf and tide conditions allow.
It’s important to note that the sand placed from the recent project is not ‘gone’ or ‘washed away.’ Any sand captured by the surf is naturally redistributed between the dunes, swash zone, and nearshore waters.”
Owner of Ocean Inlet Surf Shop, James Gavin, doesn’t think smoothing out the sand will make a difference.
“Anything you put on top of that’s not natural sand is just going to get washed into the ocean, and meanwhile we have to deal with all the construction and cliffs in the sand,” said Gavin.
The dredge project is scheduled to continue through the fall.
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