A HARBOR HELD HOSTAGE? Dredging debate becomes a battle for sand with threats of more lawsuits (with POLL)

Dredging sand from East Pass onto Holiday Isle’s eroded beaches could destroy beaches and homes on Okaloosa Island, Island homeowner Dave Sherry says.

“The East Pass sand is our natural sand supply,” Sherry told The Log. “If they are allowed to take the East Pass sand away from us, then our beaches will be starved of sand and erode to the point of needing restoration with inferior sand ... West Holiday Isle's solution to fix their homes involves destroying ours.”

Sherry’s promise to take “whatever legal steps are necessary” to prevent that is the latest obstacle to Holiday Isle’s efforts to restore their critically eroded beaches. While Jetty East and Destin Pointe are the eroded spots most talked about, at a Thursday meeting of around 20 property owners, all but two said their beaches needed sand.

Okaloosa County has applied to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for a beach-restoration permit covering Okaloosa Island and Holiday Isle, but it faces multiple lawsuits from owners who object that restoration creates a public beach behind their property; that their beaches don’t need restoring; that they don’t believe the sand will match the local beaches; and to the special assessment levied on beachfront owners to pay for part of the $20 million project.

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Roland Guidry of Oceania Condominiums is one of those suing, but he’s also part of a “unified team” of Holiday Isle owners seeking a way to restore beaches in front of the worst-eroded properties without requiring Oceania and other nay-sayers to participate.

The group’s Thursday meeting included Guidry, Jetty East General Manager Jerry Stalnaker and representatives of Destin Pointe, Sandpiper Condominiums, Holiday Surf and Racquet Club, Holiday Isle Beach Service and individual homeowners.

The organizer, Larry Hines, told The Log the solution the group supported: When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredges sand from East Pass later this year, it could be placed on Holiday Isle’s eroded beaches, or in the water in front of Jetty East, which has no beach left.

Hines said the advance estimates are that the dredging will remove 200,000 to 300,000 cubic yards of sand, equivalent to 15,000 dump-truck loads — a line of trucks that would stretch 85 miles.

Hines said the dredged sand could be placed where it was needed, while Oceania and others could opt out. He said it might be quicker than waiting for a DEP permit, given that the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a Walton County beach-restoration case in December.

 “The DEP hasn’t said it’s in a holding pattern (but) we don’t have confidence it’s going to happen any time soon,” he said

Like Guidry, Dave and Rebecca Sherry have sued to stop restoration; the Sherrys have said the sand source isn’t good enough, and that the special assessment is calculated so that Okaloosa Island owners pay too much. Unlike Guidry, they also oppose the dredging plan.

“We do not need beach restoration now,” Dave Sherry told The Log. “However, if Holiday Isle is allowed to use the East Pass jetties to starve our beach of its natural sand supply, then we will need restoration in the future ... We are simply asking for sand which legally should come our way to be allowed to do so.”

Sherry said past dredging projects have “shortchanged” Okaloosa Island out of 1.2 million cubic yards of sand since 1986, and that Holiday Isle property owners are “interfering” with the Inlet Management Plan by taking the sand.

One member of the unified group said the Sherrys had talked of “holding the harbor hostage” by taking legal action against the dredging if the sand goes to Destin beaches. Without dredging, the harbor shoals up to the point some boats can’t make it out into the Gulf.

Sherry told The Log he doesn’t want to stop the dredging, but if he has to fight for the sand, that might be the result.

Gloria Turner, the vice president of the Okaloosa Island Leaseholder Association, said that while she’s worked with the Sherrys to fight the MSBU assessment, they do not speak for her or the association on the dredging.

 “When they say they represent people on Okaloosa Island, they only represent people who contribute to their cause,” she said.

One member of the cause, John Donovan of El Matador Condominums, wrote to the County Commission that no one outside Jetty East and Destin Pointe was part of the “unified group” — which the attendance at the meeting Thursday disproved — and that the dredging plan was just a scheme to avoid having to pay for restoration. He said everyone opposed to the dredging proposal wants Holiday Isle to “get sand and have great beaches” but they wanted it done through “orderly public processes.”

The city of Destin is working on a public process, having hired a consultant to review the tide and sand movement in East Pass and see if the 1999 Inlet Management Plan needs to be updated. The study is not yet finished.

Hines said he planned to address the City Council and the County Commission on the group’s proposal soon. Most members of the group said they’d sent letters to their legislators as well.

The group also discussed strategies if the DEP decides not to send the sand to Holiday Isle: Challenge the permit? Wait until it’s issued and then request they modify the permit? Request an extension to allow them more time to file a challenge? No conclusion was reached.

Stalnaker said he didn’t think there was any room to negotiate with the other side: “We’ve talked to the Sherrys, they‘re not willing to compromise."