North Ponte Vedra Beach project gets funding

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District will receive a $500,000 congressional allocation under the Fiscal Year 2021 Work Plan for the Army Civil Works to begin a Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Study of North Ponte Vedra Beach, St. Johns County, Fla.

North Ponte Vedra Beach, home to some 2,000 permanent residents, includes approximately 10 miles of Atlantic coastal shoreline that run south from Duval County toward St. Augustine, Fla.

In 2016 Hurricane Matthew caused severe damage along the narrow beach in North Ponte Vedra. The storm surge was sufficient to cause an estimated $100 million of structural damage to approximately 265 homes and eroded an average of 30 feet of beach along the coast.

Storm damage was only exacerbated when Hurricane Irma impacted the coast in 2017.

The county and the district have collaborated on a number of projects in recent years, among them a current Hurricane and Storm Damage Reduction Study for Porpoise Point and a shore protection project at Vilano Beach, where beach re-construction was recently completed and dune vegetation planting is presently under way.

With the congressional funding, the district and the county will proceed with the development and signing of a Feasibility Cost Sharing Agreement to complete the study within three years at a total cost of no more than $3 million. The district and the county will each provide half the funding.