HARBOR DRAGGED INTO SAND WAR: Petitioner says 'fight for our rights' could delay dredging for years

If Okaloosa Island doesn’t get all the sand dredged from East Pass, it shouldn’t be dredged at all, four island homeowners say.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to dredge sand from East Pass this year, possibly removing as much as 200,000 cubic yards. This week, however, Dave and Rebecca Sherry and John and Margaret Donovan have filed a petition for a Department of Environmental Protection administrative hearing challenging the Corps’ DEP dredging permit.

“There is a reasonable possibility that the (Corps) dredge of the East Pass and the Destin harbor will not happen for several years if we are forced to fight for our rights,” Dave Sherry told The Log this week.

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To read The Log's opinion on the matter, click here.

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Sherry has told The Log it’s not the dredging he and his co-petitioners object to, but the proposal by a group of Holiday Isle property owners — organized by Destin resident Larry Hines and including representatives of most of the condominiums there — to have the sand deposited on Holiday Isle’s most eroded beaches rather than on Okaloosa Island, as the state’s 10-year-old Inlet Management Plan requires.

Sherry doesn’t deny that Holiday Isle needs sand, and has said he doesn’t believe Okaloosa Island is eroded; however, he told The Log, if the Corps ignores the Inlet Management Plan, the lack of sand makes erosion of the Sherry’s beach inevitable.

“Mr. Hines and (City Manager Greg) Kisela separately asked us to stand aside and let them take all the sand from the dredge to Holiday Isle,” Sherry said. “We responded that we would not stand aside and let them take our sand. We can’t. It is the life blood of our beach, Eglin’s beach, and beaches to our west.”

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Earlier this month, Kisela said he didn’t think the Sherrys would try to stop the dredging, as the permit directs the sand be taken to the west. The Sherry/Donovan petition says they’re not so sure.

“The permit contains few to no details regarding the disposition of dredged material,” it says. “Because the permit is vague and does not include specific parameters regarding how much dredged material will be placed in the indicated locations, the Corps could, again, violate state law” by not placing it on Okaloosa Island.

The petitioners’ solution?

The DEP should delay the permit until the Corps guarantees it will place 423,887 cubic yards of sand on Okaloosa Island, plus 82,000 cubic yards a year after that. The petition says that annual amount is required under the Inlet Management Plan; the larger figure represents how much the deposits have fallen short since the plan was passed.

Gloria Turner, the vice president of the Okaloosa Island Leaseholder Association, told The Log last month that the Sherrys and the Donovans do not speak for the association, which supports Hines’ proposal.

Destin hired a contractor last year to review local tidal, wave and sand flow in order to see if the Inlet Management Plan would be updated. Sherry has told The Log that even if the plan changes, his position won’t.

“We will challenge any unreasonable re-write of the Inlet Management Plan, and we will fight any attempt to use the East Pass to choke us off from our natural sand supply,” Sherry said. “We do not believe the Inlet Management Plan can legally deprive us of the down drift sand.”

Sherry added that in his opinion, the city’s study “is an attempt to make the science twist to fit the desired outcome. Any apparent triumph of want over science will not go unchallenged.”

Sherry has accused the Holiday Isle homeowners of selfishly claiming all the sand from the dredging for themselves; some Holiday Isle representatives say it’s Sherry who refuses to compromise.

“Really, the poor boat captains are the ones who are going to suffer from this, not us,” Jetty East General Manager Jerry Stalnaker said. “I don’t think they’re going to be too happy.”

Kisela said he thinks the city could still use its DEP emergency-dredging permit for some sort of dredging, but the petition will delay the Corps’ major project, even if the DEP eventually rejects Sherry’s claims: “Even when (petitioners) eventually lose, they win.”

“It’s most unfortunate,” Charter Captain and City Councilor Kelly Windes said, “as much as the business on Destin depends on the pass and the sand is needed on the east side. It’s simply most unfortunate.”