Palm Beach County Mid-Town Segment CSRM Project available for comment

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District has released a proposed Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Draft Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the Palm Beach County Mid-Town Segment Coastal Storm Risk Management Project for public review and comment.

The Army Corps recently proposed to renourish the beach within the Palm Beach County, from Lake Worth Inlet to South Lake Worth Inlet, Florida Coastal Storm Risk Management Project (CSRM) Mid-Town Segment in Palm Beach County, FL.

The purpose of the SEA is to remove approximately 1,000 feet of the authorized project between Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (FDEP) Range (R) monuments R-91 (Wells Road) to R-92.1 (Seminole Avenue) and evaluate the inclusion of additional sand resources for future nourishments of Palm Beach Mid-Town.

The SEA evaluated various alternatives that identify new borrow areas that would be necessary to supplement existing borrow area capacities for project requirements. The Preferred Alternative includes:

• The Wells Road (R-91) to Seminole Ave (R-92.1) portion would be removed from the project, as the necessary easements to nourish this portion of the beach have not been obtained. Easements for the entirety of the project footprint are required for construction to proceed along any portion of the project.
• The sand sources for nourishment will be the Northern Borrow Area 1, Northern Borrow Area 2 (NBA-1 and NBA-2), and the federally authorized Palm Beach Harbor, FL Project (PBH).

The proposed FONSI, SEA, and associated appendices are available for your review on Jacksonville District’s Environmental planning website.