Sunday, May 11, 2014

Army Corps of Engineers Is a Dangerous Group Threatening Siesta Key


Boondoggles to make the mind boggle
from
The Army Corps Of Engineers

Hustling/Promoting/Pushing - is SELF serving - a FUNCTION of Ignorance and GREED !
Doctors did this with Smoking: May 10, 2014 http://curecancer73-don.blogspot.com/?view=mosaic

 Now we AGAIN have the - Army Corps of Engineers ("ACE") doing this Hustling/Promoting/Pushing - SELF serving - GREED !  This time in Sarasota, FL. (Certain interests in Longboat Key need to be looked at)

You ALL will remember  ACE doing this with the Everglades --Designed to replace a meandering 90-mile (140 km) river with a 52-mile (84 km) channel, the canal was completed in 1971 and cost $29 million. They had it all-----studies, opinions, beliefs, points-of-view, attitudes, positions, desire to be right, egos, greed, self serving, brainwashing/marketing & related - which equals quite a formula for frustration, ALL emanating from politically-driven ACE.  They know everything, just ask them !

 Estimated cost to repair Everglades from ACE Disaster - Wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Everglades

      "It would take 30 years and cost $7.8 billion to restore/complete. Though the plan was passed into law in 2000, it has been compromised by politics & funding problems."
ACE had many "studies" etc. (that state what ACE wants, or those creating the studies will not do any more studies) on The FL. Everglades Boondoggle !

Comments heard most recently (similar to the Everglades comments when destroying our Glades), "We won't do harm to Siesta sands".  Well, ACE has stated these types of assurances all over the country and MADE stunning/expensive disasters, repeatedly (list is too long for this letter).  Search the internet & you will find similar comments during the disastrous Everglades annihilation !
We the TAXPAYERS DEMAND that ACE terminate these boondoggles, specifically the disastrous concept of dredging 1.1million cubic yards of sand from Big Pass and constructing three groins.

 Local recent data that ACE is seemingly IGNORANT of :

·                    http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Midnight+Pass+closes.-a015424969

By 1960, Midnight Pass had been in about the same place for a while -- say, 20 years or so. To place things historically: Mote Marine Laboratory Mote Marine Laboratory (and Aquarium) is a not-for-profit research and educational institution with an aquarium open to the public 365 days a year. Founded by Dr. Eugenie Clark in 1955 in Cape Haze, Florida, the early years of the laboratory specialized in shark research.
..... Click the link for more information. had just moved to the south end of Siesta Key, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was starting to dredge the Intracoastal Waterway Intracoastal Waterway, c.3,000 mi (4,827 km) long, partly natural, partly artificial, providing sheltered passage for commercial and leisure boats along the U.S. Atlantic coast from Boston, Mass. to Key West, S Fla.
..... Click the link for more information.. Midnight Pass was not widened or deepened as part of the Intracoastal project, although much of the rest of the bay bottom was scraped or dynamited to make the bay deep enough for commercial barges to carry goods to Southwest Florida Southwest Florida is a region of Florida located along its gulf coast, south of the Tampa Bay area, west of Lake Okeechobee and mostly north of the Everglades. It consists of five coastal counties from Manatee County south to Collier County, although it sometimes is considered to
..... Click the link for more information. from faraway ports.
When the dredges moved on, Midnight Pass began to move to the north. It didn't happen overnight, but by the mid-1970s, folks began to talk about the fate of the inlet. It was much narrower than it once was, and it was on the move.

·                    http://www.beachapedia.org/Shoreline_Structures

Seawalls, groins, jetties and other shoreline stabilization structures have had tremendous impacts on our nation's beaches. Shoreline structures are built to alter the effects of ocean waves, currents and sand movement. They are usually built to "protect" buildings that were built on a beach that is losing sand. Sometimes they are built to redirect rivers and streams. Other times they are constructed to shelter boats in calm water. In many cases, seawalls, jetties, breakwaters and groins have caused DOWN COAST erosion problems with associated costs that have greatly exceeded the construction cost of the structure.  ( If  I am not mistaken,  Siesta Key is located "down coast " from Longboat and Lido keys, so this project could be a disaster for Siesta Key.)

Every surfrider knows that there are groins and jetties that have incidentally improved wave riding. However, in many other areas shoreline construction has ruined wildlife habitat, destroyed surfing waves and caused beaches to erode. As beach lovers and environmentalists, we need to understand the consequences of shoreline structures so that we may be able to effectively influence decisions on the impacts, placement or necessity of these structures. As an environmental group committed to maintaining the natural shoreline and beach equilibrium, we are usually opposed to construction that will disrupt the balance of forces that shape our coastline.

·                    http://siestasand.net/sarasota-history-13/

Part of what we’ve done comes from ignorance. We’re just now realizing we all live downstream from somebody or something, and what we flush down our toilet doesn’t magically disappear but all-too-often pops up as somebody else’s problem.  But most of our historical environmental disregard is spurred by arrogance. We have simply ignored the tropical delights of Southwest Florida except where it will help us turn a buck from a tourist or a prospective new homebuyer.

Look around. When the big storm of the early 1920s destroyed the bayfront of the quaint fishing village of Sarasota, did we learn from our mistake and build smarter? No, we began to dredge and fill the waterfront, spelling doom to Sarasota’s fishing industry and starting the land boom of the 1920s.

Probably the best example of officialdom’s arrogance of the environment is the story of Midnight Pass, “celebrating” its 30th closure anniversary this month.

The inlet between Siesta and Casey Key was the most controversial environmental issue in town in the early 1980s. The story of what happened to Midnight Pass is one of the most bizarre environmental dramas in recent history, pitting the property “rights” of two prominent Sarasotans against the environmental good of an entire region.

IMPORTANT:  See INTEROFFICE MEMO to: Board of County Commissioners date March 24, 2005  Board Assignment #05032 - Status of Beach Erosion and Nourishment - SHORELINE EROSION AND COASTAL ARMORING. 11 Pages with Photos

Why Are Hard Structures Bad?
·        http://www.ericksonconsultingengineers.com/coastal-engineering-news.php
      Erickson Consulting Engineers Marks Its 10-Year Milestone
     January 2011   Karyn M. Erickson, MS, PE, D CE, President, is pleased to announce that Erickson Consulting         
         Engineers, Inc., of Sarasota, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and success in providing coastal, civil and
         environmental engineering services.
·                    http://www.4sarasotahomes.com/seawalls.htm
                     Other coastal states have banned sea walls.
SARASOTA COUNTY -- A wall is going up along the coast, one made of concrete, steel, or rock and designed to protect homes built along the shore from falling into the Gulf of Mexico.
Sea walls protect property threatened by an eroding beach. But they come with an enormous environmental price tag: increased erosion, blocked beach access, and destroyed turtle nesting. 
Increased erosion caused by sea walls means the structures eventually jut into the sea, preventing beachgoers from walking unimpeded along the coast, a right so fundamental to Floridians that it's written into state law.
·                     http://honorsph.startlogic.com/tvn/home/midnightpass/Open%20Midnight%20Pass/Journal/CC419C37-FA7A-4813-A5F3-6358FCBC2591.html
  • A groin is built perpendicular to the coast and works similar to the way a jetty works. But groins are usually built on straight stretches of beach – not near inlets or channels. They are often built in a series of parallel structures on one section of beach and can be made of wood, concrete, steel, or stone.
  • A sea wall, as the name suggests, is a wall built along the coast between the land and the ocean. Sea walls are typically made of concrete or stone and can be very large structures.
  • http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-recent/6374
  • While hard structures can protect beach homes and other buildings threatened by erosion, they’ve been criticized for causing increased erosion further down the beach. Both jetties and groins, for example, act like dams to physically stop the movement of sand. They work by preventing longshore drift from washing sediment down the coast. As a result, they cause a buildup of sand on the side protected by the structure — which is precisely what they’re intended to do. But areas further downstream on the coast are cut off from natural longshore drift by these barrier-like structures. No longer replenished by the sand that usually feeds them, these areas experience worsened erosion.
        Hard structures ban
Historically, North Carolina has tried to avoid the problems than can be brought on by the use of hard structures to control erosion. In 1985, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), a policy-making body for the coastal management program, studied the effects of hard structures on beaches in other states. The CRC concluded that the potential negative effects of such structures could cause irreversible damage to North Carolina’s beaches. As a result, the CRC recommended banning the construction of hard structures to protect buildings at the coast. The ban made exceptions for protecting historic buildings that could not be moved and for maintaining important waterways needed for navigation.   The hard structures ban, while not an official law, existed in practice for 15 years before it was upheld in court in a 2000 case. In 2003, the NC state legislature voted unanimously to formally adopt the hard structures ban as law: With no dissenting votes, the legislature banned the construction of new, permanent erosion control structures at the North Carolina coast. In 2007, a group of more than 40 coastal geologists issued a statement urging North Carolina to continue its policy of banning hard structures. The scientists argued that without it, the state’s coastline would suffer from worsening erosion up and down the coast.

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/videticp/beach_drift.htm

The pier or groin is interfering with the movement of sediment down current.  As sand moves south, it is trapped by the groin.  As a result, sand accumulates on the north side of the structure, but on the south side sand continues to move south.  However, sand that would normally replace sediment eroding away to the south of the groin is trapped on the north side of the structure.  Consequently, erosion causes the sediment or beach to be lost on the south side of the groin.  In situation

"The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a U.S. federal agency under the Department of Defense and a major Army command made up of some 36,500 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the ... "   Wikipedia 
MANY Media articles of the Stunning Incompetence of Army Corps of Engineers:

·         After Birds Point: The Army Corps’ Missouri Floodway Boondoggle-http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/06/after-birds-point-the-army-corps-missouri-floodway-boondoggle/
     ·        NY Times Calls Army Corps of Engineers $2.7 Billion   
           Flood ...www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1477280/posts-Free Republic Loading..Sep 2, 2005  
        -The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control.
          Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the ...
·     In the pantheon of dumb Army Corps of Engineers boondoggles, a $112 million flood-control scheme in Missouri's southeast bootheel ranks  http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1663903,00.html

·        Boondoggles to make the mind boggle: Hard corps | The ...www.economist.com/node/1193660  The Economist...Boondoggles to make the mind boggle.  After two centuries, maybe it's time to reform the Army Corps of Engineers.

·        Rotten to the Corps: Public Reviews Targeted in New Bill ...switchboard.nrdc.org/.../rotten_to_the...‎Corps  Natural Resources Defense Council ...Mar 20, 2013 - The Army Corps of Engineers has, at best, a checkered past when it comes to project designs that harm the environment. "Boondoggle" is ...

·         Feb. 15, 2013  Programs: Transportation & Infrastructure  While Washington is wringing its hands about the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is digging taxpayers even deeper into debt by pushing a smorgasbord of wasteful dinosaur projects.   Exhibit A: Instead of prioritizing funding on the most economically justified and critically important projects, the Corps is reviving ancient duds like the New Madrid Floodway/St. John’s Bayou project. The New Madrid floodway is an old Mississippi river channel in Missouri’s boot heel. Levees surround the floodway, except for a small gap at the downstream end (near New Madrid, Missouri). When river levels get high enough to threaten flooding in Cairo, Il and other cities upstream the Corps “operates” the floodway by blowing up parts of the levee, sending millions of gallons of floodwaters across the sparsely populated farm land in the floodway—preventing flooding in Cairo. The water returns back to the river through the gap.
As such as this, sand must be added on the down current side of the groin or transferred from the up current to the down current side of the structure in order to maintain the beach there.  Owners of beach front property sometimes build groins to preserve their beach.  As may now be apparent, protection of one property with groins will cause down current neighbors to have beach erosion problems.  If the movement of sediment is halted, down current areas will be deprived of sediment and erosion will result unless “corrective action” (the addition of yet more structures or beach nourishment) is taken.  As you can see, shorelines are dynamic, and that results in serious problems when people attempt to stabilize the shoreline with engineered structures without considering the consequences to neighboring properties.

Milan Mora, project manager was quoted:  I want to make sure what we're doing is right. I don't want to be the one that destroys Siesta Key."   Well, take a look at the history of groins (along with North Carolina's court approved) ban  and actual experience and WAKE UP!!!

 You and the ACE will NOT do any groins in Sarasota, FL! 

 We will obtain ALL names, affiliations, etc. of those that have created this foolish dangerous groin nonsense. 

Project Manager Milan Mora,  City Engineer Alex DavisShaw , etc.  
Creating the MANY highly expensive disasters that the ACE has dumped on the Taxpayers is Simply ANOTHER example of Big Government Over Reach ! 

This November 2014 we ALL must get rid of, ANY & ALL, that support this Big Government Overreach Cancer !

 
There is "What we know".  There is "What we don't know".

PROBLEM - There is "What we don't know, that we don't know". Throw in opinions, beliefs, points-of-view, attitudes, positions, desire to be right, egos, greed, self serving, sophisticated brainwashing, marketing and related - then you have quite a formula for frustration. 

Problem is worldwide AND specifically concentrated in Big Government.   Problems permeate politically driven Army Corps of Engineers

Florida's Everglades, a Disaster Waiting to Happen

By Michael Grunwald  Nov 2007 Despite a $10 billion rescue plan, the Everglades are a disaster waiting to happen. 
 
 We MUST ALL vote for those that seek to SHRINK the Army Corps of Engineers ! Along with other Bloated Government Agencies !

This document is a personal outline of information

http://www.google.com/url? sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.siestakeyassociation.com%2FArmyCorps_presentation.pptx&ei=_PpaU8e0IYnb8AGCnoCYCA&usg=AFQjCNHeN4UMoeSEJ976mchuvpt1rIFaOg&sig2=aDa9NgNYC9f7hvXY-BJ1Tg&bvm=bv.65397613,d.b2U
PowerPoint Presentation



REMEMBER KATRINA - Another Army Corps Disaster !

www.evergladesfoundation.org/.../pollution-in-fl...
Everglades Foundation  Sep 9, 2013 - Everglades Foundation ... Pollution in Florida's Lake Okeechobee swells to near-disaster levels ... The Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the dikes around the lake and the flow of water out
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Senator Marco Rubio silent on US Army Corps of Engineers ...
eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/.../senator-marco-rubio-silent-on-us-army.ht...
1 day ago - The US Army Corps of Engineers dodged a bullet this week, and the agency knows it. ... Piece of the massive puzzle -- the Central Everglades Planning Project-is meant to .. than 24 hours, could have created a disaster for South Florida had it been positioned only a .Here are some pictures sent
Corps wants more time on Everglades project report - Marco ...
www.marconews.com/.../corps-wants-more-time-on-everglades-project/
Apr 23, 2014 - (AP) — An internal review board at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants more time to finalize a report on an Everglades restoration project with a pressing...  Summer-proof your Florida home to avoid worry, disaster Published 4/15/2006 at 12:00 a.m. .. Currently; 36-Hour; Your Photos.
Army Corps delays key Everglades restoration project News ...
www.news.nom.co/army-corps-delays-key-everglades-9120746-news/
Apr 22, 2014 - Blood Moon Photos ... Everglades restoration postponed by U.S. Army Corps: Everglades restoration postponed by U.S. ... They differ from army reserves who are activated only during such times as war or natural disasters.

 

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