During the 2026 beach-fill construction, Coastal Tech provided an on-site resident-engineer to monitor construction, communicate with stakeholders, and check for compliance with the Contract Documents.
Project Background: In September 2004, St. Lucie County was impacted by both Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne within a period of 21 days; in response to the storms, the County initiated this project. This project entailed the planning, design, permitting, construction, and monitoring of an initial beach and dune restoration project including the placement of 635,164 cubic yards of sand with native dune vegetation over about 3.4 miles of shoreline. This project won ASBPA’s 2015 Best Restored Beach award. After construction of the initial non-Federal project, Coastal Tech assisted the County as the local sponsor of the now Federally Authorized Shore Protection Project which completed initial construction in Spring 2022.
Coastal Tech has provided ongoing annual permit-required: (a) monitoring of Project performance including hardbottom impacts and the associated mitigation reef, and (b) reporting to FDEP and the USACE. In addition, Coastal Tech has assisted the County with beach access improvements to maximize federal cost-share for the USACE project. For the 2022 project, Coastal Tech assisted the County with reviewing the work products prepared by the USACE in support of the project, performed construction phase observations services, and performed post-construction permit required physical and biological monitoring via Coastal Tech staff and under subconsultant agreements for survey and environmental.
Coastal Tech:
- assessed beach and dune conditions in the project area;
- held numerous public meetings to educate and obtain input from stakeholders;
- conducted a simplified “NED” analysis of alternatives to formulate the recommended plan – consistent with USACE planning regulations;
- via subconsultant, mapped and characterized existing hardbottom within/surrounding the project area;
- identified hardbottom impacts and negotiated/designed mitigation for unavoidable impacts to hardbottom – including communication with the FDEP Deputy Secretary and multiple meetings with the FDEP Division Director, USACE staff, and NMFS staff;
- formulated the design and obtained permits so the project could be constructed using either upland sand sources or an offshore borrow area;
- assisted the County with bids for the beach fill – low bid for the beach fill was within 2% of Coastal Tech’s estimates;
- assisted the County to formulate a benefits-based Special Assessment District to generate the local share of project costs;
- assisted the County with formulation of a regional project with Martin County – leading to state funding for the project as appropriated by the 2012 Legislature;
