Coastal Alabama Beach Renourishment Project Delayed

The joint beach restoration project between the City of Gulf Shores, the City of Orange Beach, and Gulf State Park has been delayed until Fall 2023, due to unexpected delays in FEMA's environmental review process. This critical project is designed to rebuild local beaches and the dune protection system which has been significantly damaged. Work was initially anticipated to start this winter; however, FEMA authorization required to begin the project has yet to be granted. This delay in permitting is due to new FEMA requirements for historical and environmental reviews of the areas of the Gulf bottom where sand would be harvested.

According to Mark Acreman, engineer for the City of Gulf Shores, FEMA has provided a timeframe of about three to four months before they’re willing to release the environmental permits. If the cities were to begin the program as soon as permits are available, the sand would be pumped onto the beaches during the height of the summer tourist season. “Right now, it would be my recommendation that we defer this until after the summer because with that schedule, it puts us starting June 1 with beach restoration and that would put us with hundreds of thousands of people on the beach during a major construction project on the beach for about four to five months, so I would be very concerned about the safety of our visitors as well as our permanent residents in that condition,” Acreman said.

Of particular concern are several areas of West Beach in Gulf Shores that had already eroded badly during Hurricane Sally and subsequent winter storms, and now the recent overnight storm of January 24-25 eroded them even further. Some areas from West 6th Street to West 10th Street are eroded almost to the point of not having room for beach chairs. This also presents a safety issue as Gulf Shores officials are trying to find ways to keep beaches safe for beachgoers and keep them open to emergency and maintenance vehicles.

At the January 23 council meeting, Mayor Robert Craft said, “We’ve got considerable concerns about some of our beach erosion and access to places. The way the beach has eroded and we’ve lost sand and there’s going to be a lot of opportunities down there – or lack of opportunity – for people to set up a lot of chairs in areas typically behind some of our condominiums.” Mayor Craft continued, “It’s quite a disappointment. We were scheduled to do the renourishment this year. We had our permits and everything in order. There was a change on the federal level of requirements. We could not meet the timeframe of doing it in the off-season and it doesn’t make sense to renourish the beach during the middle of the season when people are there. It’s dangerous.”

Gulf Shores Building Official Brandan Franklin, who also serves as the city’s Emergency Management Agency coordinator, gave an update on how the city would proceed to ensure safety and keep a corridor open for city vehicles. “Our police department, public works department, and fire and rescue are all working together right now to try to come up with a plan on how we allow our service providers access on the beach, but also allow us a safety plan as well, as far as how we keep the beaches clean and how we provide safety to everyone that’s visiting the beaches.” Franklin continued, “I met with several of the property managers today and walked through a couple of those areas talking about beach access and how we can get tourists down to the beach, yet maintain what corridors that we can and try to come up with a solution. Hopefully, the beaches will replenish some in March-April of this year and then maybe we can take another approach to try to provide additional areas. We may just have to wait until August-September for the renourishment project to start again.”

When the project begins, dredges will pump about 2 million cubic yards of sand from three sand bars about a half-mile south of the shore where it will then be placed on the beaches.

The last renourishment project was completed in 2013. Since then, Hurricane Nate eroded the shoreline in 2017, and Sally did the same in 2020.