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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20070719BeachTaskForceMinutes.pdfTybee Island Beach Task Force Minutes July 19, 2007 Members Present: Berta Adams, Harvey Ferrell, Mary McCracken, Henry Levy, Walter Parker, Freda Rutherford, Wick Searcy, William Sprague, Mark Smith, and Lou Off Ex-Officos Present: Hampton Spradley, ACOE; Jason Buelterman, Mayor; Paul Wolff, City Council; Diane Schleicher, City Manager; Brad Gane, DNR Members Absent: Cecil DeLorme, Helen Downing, Amy Lanier (E) and John Wylly Visitors: David Schmidt, ACOE; Stan Kinmonth, ACOE; , Mark Padgett; ACOE, Sonny Edwards, DNR; Kevin Haas, GA Tech Consultant Lou called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone to the meeting. Freda made a motion to accept the June Minutes. Wick Searcy seconded the motion. Minutes were approved. The House has given us 0 dollars and the Senate has put in $2 million. It’s a 50/50 chance that we may get 2 million and it’s a 100 % that we will not get any more. According to the research by Marlowe and Company, approximately $55.5 million has been put in by the House and $93.5 million by the Senate for Beach Re-nourishment etc. Compared to previous year, in 2007 $107 million, in 2006 $122.8 million, in 2005 $112.2 million if it goes through the Senate at $93.5 million it is a cut of almost 30 million from previous years. Natural Resources Committee held hearings on coastal erosion. ASBPA President, Mr. Simmons made a plea for our beaches. CORPS ACTIONS AND STATUS REPORT Tybee Coastal Zone Management Implementation – See CORPS Actions and Status (Attached) Channel Impacts Feasibility Study – Hampton handed out several preliminary finding reports from ERDC. This is a draft report. A copy needs to be sent to Erik Olsen. Hamp stated that people in Wilmington, Charleston and ERDC are working overtime and weekends running these models on the computer at ERDC, but it takes time. In the original agreement there was a January 2nd assume start date which would have allowed the COE to finish up the last of July with the draft report. The COE did not actually get officially started until Feb. 28th due to documentation being signed and funding. If we backed up those dates we should have until the end of September for a draft of the study to be completed. We have backed that date up to the end of August which will require a tremendous amount of work to have it ready at that time. Berta stated that she thought this was to be done by the end of July. Lou stated at the last meeting that it was moved back to August. Lou asked what the odds were of getting the draft study ready at the end of August. Hamp had a high level of confidence that it would be complete. A very dedicated team is working on it. Dr. Jane Smith at ERDK will analyze it and with the help of the modelers will put together a draft report. Don Stabach is the actual person doing the sediment budget analysis all the historical stuff. Mike Lotawski from Wilmington and Brian Williams from Charleston are doing the modeling. Tybee Island Shore Protection Project There is $85,000 leftover from the last re-nourishment. Lou asked what the leftover money could be used for. Hamp stated that if 6 million came for re-nourishment, we could use the $85,000 as a jump start and not wait on the 2008 money to roll in. FY-08 Budget The House has no funds and the Senate has $2 million in their budget. WRDA 2008 A passage of a WRDA appears to be likely. Jasper County Coordination efforts are continuing. Brunswick Harbor Deepening, Savannah Channel Maintenance Contract, Savannah Harbor Expansion - See attached CORPS Actions and Status Report for information. The new Savannah District Commander is Col. Ed Kertis, formerly from the Walla Walla District. Lou gave a single page document to all members. Lou put together the facts as to what we need to do. Jason will talk with the Council today at 3:30 pm. The following documents were reviewed for background. July 5 – The City between the SPLOST and County have $5.4 million. There is a possibility of borrowing $2 million from future SPLOST. The Federal budget is a possible $2 million. The COE said there is a possible $3 million leftover from the Brunswick Project. Someone questioned how much was needed for a re-nourishment for Tybee. Lou stated that approximately $10 million. The COE did an LLR which was calling for approximately 1 million cubic yards and cost to $9 million dollars. According to Kevin and his study after Andrea, we lost another 80,000 cubic yards. To get an exact number, we will have to do another survey. July 12 – Lou and Jason met with the Lt. Governor, Brad Gane, Susan Shipman, and Director Noel Holcombe. It was discussed that the best thing that Tybee could do was to have a project on the shelf ready to go in January. After the meeting on July 12th, Jason, Lou and Diane had a conference call to Marlowe and Company and discussed various possibilities on how to proceed with this project. Included in the package is a letter from Marlowe and Company that gives the details of 4 different possibilities. July 16 – Comments from Erik Olsen were rec’d concerning the possibilities. Lou handed out a letter from Erik Olsen with overhead cost and project logic. Jason and Lou met with Mark Padgett to discuss regulatory items. A different group from the COE would be involved. July 17 – Erik Olsen sent an email that stated the equipment for surveying and finding out what is in the borrow area could be here late August or early September. July 19 - Jason set a meeting with City Council for 3:30 pm. Lou stated that there is a fifth possibility. We can make a recommendation to the City Council to wait until we get Federal funding and do what we have been doing for the last six years and expect the Feds to come in and do the project at 60% or we can review A, B, C, and D and make a recommendation. The BTF needs to make a recommendation for what we should do. Lou stated that the most critical path is finding a borrow pit. This needs to be done whether we, or the COE does the project or whatever method is chosen and recommended as an alternative. Lou stated that we should have Erik Olsen coordinate the COE and DNR. DNR says 4 months to get a permit. It will probably take us 2 months to get the requirements to them. There is also a long permitting process through the COE regulatory. Lou opened the floor for discussion. Henry Levy would like to ask DNR what they are going to do about the re-nourishment and can they re-nourish the beach? Brad stated that there are two questions. DNR is urging Tybee to get their application materials together as they have recommended in the past so that Tybee can be master’s of their own destiny. Tybee has been going through the COE and spending a lot of money and time and the sand is not on the beach nor do we have the guarantees that there will be sand on the beach. DNR is encouraging the application to be filed. DNR will help in anyway, but they cannot prepare the application. DNR will process the application through because they believe at this point the beach situation is critical. DNR would like to see the City do their own beach re- nourishment project. Brad also stated that they believe that there is value in continuing to seek federal funding to the extent they are available, but not to rely on this. Lou stated that there are two paths to place sand on the beach; The COE or Erik Olsen. Freda asked about borrowing future SPLOST money. Would we get this from the County, accelerating the City’s SPLOST allocation to this project over and beyond other capital projects? Jason stated that in 2000 we borrowed from the County. Berta stated that the County agreed to give it to us ahead of time fully funded and then as it came in they paid themselves back. Freda recommend if we approve this motion to do this then the City should investigate the status of capital projects and if this would delay projects that are ready to go. See if the City could free up 2 million or if not to go to the County and do what we did before. Mark Padgett asked if there is a minimum threshold of Federal dollars that have to be in the project to be considered a federal project. Lou stated that if we do an item D, we can do a project to federal specification and ask for reimbursement. Mark stated that it would be a federal project to expedite the permitting process. Lou stated that we would do the whole thing. We would build to federal standards. Mark stated that would be the long permitting process. Stan stated that since it was an existing project this should help speed up the process rather than delay it. Lou asked that everyone keep in mind as we start making decisions on this that we may get $2 million from the federal government or we may get $0. Berta stated that we should not beat up on the COE because they do not allocate the money. They only set the projects. Berta feels that if we go on our own then we should have some advantages because we do need to work within the COE template to stay in harmony with them on future projects. Berta is referring to alternative D or #4. We could use our coastal engineer, we can have integrated into the project our sense of what is important, we can benefit from lower cost because there is less overhead. Paul questioned if the COE would accept it. Lou stated that there is a set of specifications that we would build to and unless the COE wanted to change it would be the same thing we built to in 2000. Berta stated that if we were to build on our own. We could fund it. It would not be a federal project. It could be a local project that is acceptable by the federal government and we could be eligible for reimbursement. We need to go ahead with the project and hope for reimbursement which we may or may not get. This is better than waiting on the money while the sand is continuing to erode. We are approaching the critical point quickly. Wick asked if we were anticipating more help from the state. Lou stated that the Lt. Governor told us to do this, but he can not read anymore into it. Jason feels that if we were short that we may be able to get that from the state. Mary asked the COE about emergency funding from the storm that we had from Andrea. Stan stated that the President must declare a disaster area before any of those funds are available. Kevin did a monitoring and we sent it in, but they said we were too late. Howard Marlowe has worked a section 206 successfully and he would write the letter to the Colonel. We would go into to this knowing that there would be full cooperation between Colonel Kertis, Tybee and Erik Olsen. Stan stated that the only project cooperation agreement that Tybee has is for the COE to build this project and in order for Tybee to build this project and be eligible to be reimburse a new legal agreement must be issued. This would have to go to Washington for review and approval. This document cannot be submitted without all the studies, you have to have NEPA completed, have permitting in hand, know where the borrow area is going to be, know what the cost and federal cost is going to be. Lou stated that we have gotten word that 206 to federal compliance does not require the COE regulatory permit. Stan stated that is one man’s opinion. In Jacksonville district they require a federal permit to be issued. Mark stated that it is his understanding – anything other than it is a federal project the status quo as it is right now would require a permit from regulatory. Mark asked everyone to keep in mind that the COE that Tybee has been dealing with on federal projects are two completely different entities. Regulatory is a different part of the House and the COE does not issue itself a permit for federal projects, they don’t have a written out section 10, section 404 permit in hand. They have all the legal guidance and the guidelines and the documentation for it, but the COE does not issue the COE a permit. If someone other than a COE does a permit then regulatory gets involved. Berta stated that it is clear that the federal government is trying to wean coastal communities away from the trough. The federal government does not want to be in the re-nourishment business. They want to be doing other things. We need to recognize this. We can do this as a state or local project and use whatever help the federal government can give us, but if we don’t go for a reimbursement then a lot of this changes. Berta stated that we must start doing this in a different way. We not only do it differently this time, but we need to continue to work on the long term setting the state up for a system of providing for this locally needs to be put into effect. Freda reminded the group about the matrix. On that list of goals one was to investigate section 206. If we go through this project successfully using section 206, would we propose that we consider that as our major way of getting our beach re-nourishment? Lou stated that our first disadvantage is that we need to have $10-12 million dollars in our pocket. There is no federal money. On a 206, we will not get the federal money even if they give us the $2 million until after the project is completed and they say that we have done the job correctly. Lou stated if we do a 206, we are going to ask for money. We may get $2 million from the senate; there is money leftover from the other projects. Everything that we are talking about is subject to a lot of changes. What we are looking for today is to take the first step. Henry Levy made a motion that the Beach Task Force endorse the most expedient way of getting sand on the beach which seems to be option D and have Erik Olsen do it with the least involvement with government regulatory agencies unless it is absolutely necessary. Freda seconded the motion. Jason stated the discussion. Jason stated that other things need to be done regardless of whether it is a local, state, or federal project to get the re-nourishment done. He feels that the borrow area needed to be established. Lou stated that we need to find out if we as a body feel that the section 206 is the best way of going. If we find that the regulatory is going to hold us up and we come up with the $10 million then we can switch to the second option which is doing it totally on our own. We need Mark to find out what the regulatory requirements are going to be. Can it be done in the 6 months we have available. Lou stated that alternative D is the most complicate, but it allows us to get money back. Berta objects to alternative D, she would choose B. She would prefer we do this with state and local funds. She is not opposed to getting money back from the federal government, but she doesn’t feel that it is going to happen. She doesn’t feel that the Colonel is going to choose to reallocate $2 or $3 million leftover from other projects to Tybee. Bill Sprague commented that we need to get away from federal funding and move closer towards state funding. We need to have a plan B. Lou stated that we will have a plan today. Section 206 is identical to the total project by us at this point. In section 206, we are going to do the whole project. We may be able to use federal project permits. We still leave open the possibility of getting $6 million dollars back from the federal government. We need to give Council the direction on finding a borrow pit today. The Council has two options: use the COE or Erik Olsen. Harvey asked if Erik Olsen would be use. Lou answered that he would be involved in all four options. No difference in the time line. Stan wanted to clarify that the COE could not do the borrow area analysis. The $85,000 is not enough and the COE cannot accept funds. It would be advancing the federal government money. If Congress wanted us to do the borrow area then they would have given us the funds. Lou stated that is not what Dan has been saying. Stan stated that the COE would have to execute a separate agreement and get permission to accept advanced non-federal funds and that will not be speedy. Lou stated that there are capabilities that the COE do it or Erik can do it. Henry Levy stated that if the project cost $12 million. Erik’s fees are approximately 10% of that. The COE fees on the last project were 27% so we will save money by avoiding the COE. Diane asked when we borrowed money from the County against the SPLOST did the County discount the amount or did they charge interest. Berta wasn’t sure other than they forward funding it. Diane stated if we could get the county to up front some of the SPLOST money, it makes more sense economically on all grounds. Jason stated if there is no beach then the SPLOST money will go down countywide. Lou asked if there was anymore discussion on the motion. Lou called for the vote. All members present voted for the motion except for Berta. Lou asked for a motion that we recommend to the Council that they start immediately in finding the sand that we need. Bill Sprague so moved. Henry added that we recommend Erik Olsen do this. There was a second. Discussion on this motion: Mark stated that Erik needs to coordinate with regulatory up front before he goes out testing. He needs to be in contact with regulatory because there are certain guidelines that they use that maybe the federal project did not use. He needs to be in contact with regulatory to make what he is doing is what we need for our project. Lou said that Erik knows that. He has done numerous projects and knows what needs to be done. Henry called for the question. All agreed to call the question. Lou called for the vote on the motion that recommends for Council to start immediate action on finding a borrow area. There was a unanimous vote by the Beach Task Force. Lou asked that a motion be made that our Mayor makes direct contact with Colonel Kertis and request that the fullest cooperation possible be made by the COE. This has somewhat been guaranteed by Mr. Gary Lowe top civilian in the Civil Branch who has told us that the minute money was available that he would ensure that we would have a project next year starting in January. Bill Sprague so moved and Henry Levy seconded. As part of the discussion, Lou stated that we need to pull out all stops. If there is a problem, it’s going to be turned into an opportunity. We may need to go to the General or to Gary Lowe. We have fiddled around and Lou takes responsibility because he had been very hopefull in the COE coming through. The COE did come through but Congress did not. It was bad timing. Berta commented that we continue to be in contact with our federal representatives, but we cannot control what happens up higher and that is where decision are made. If someone here says they will find $2 million, they probably will but that doesn’t mean Washington is going to approve it. We have been doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. We need to try to do something different and we need to try to change our direction. Vote was unanimous on the motion. Lou suggested that a motion be made for our Mayor to write a letter to Mr. Noel Holcombe of DNR and tell him what we are doing and request that the fullest cooperation possible be made by DNR. Henry Levy so moved and Wick Searcy seconded. Vote was unanimous. Lou reviewed the 4 recommendations to the City: 1) BTF voted to proceed initially on a section 206 2) BTF voted for the Council to start immediately in identifying a borrowing source 3) BTF voted for the Mayor to make contact with the Colonel Kertis 4) BTF voted for the Mayor to make contact with Noel Holcombe, DNR Diane discussed the Tourism Council concerns that in our efforts to get out the news and lobby for sand we were hurting tourism because some people do not think we have sand on the beach. Diane just wanted to make sure that the City stays committed to the Mayor and his message and our message to Congress and to our State officials that we do need beach sand because it will be a crisis and it will hurt tourism in the near future. Diane has felt some criticism. Henry asked has the Tourism Council put forth concerted efforts with the press such as “we are getting sand before it gives out.” We are making sure there is going to be a beach. Lou stated that during one of his interviews he was asked 15 times what this would do to our tourist business wanting something negative. Lou only stated that there might be an inconvenience on weekends when the tide is high in the afternoon. Berta stated that the concern of the Chamber of Commerce is that the message will discourage people from coming, but we have to weigh the merits of it. The message that Jason put out and issuing the alarm got the attention from the state. What he did may have discouraged a few people, but it was that crisis message that got the Lt. Governor on our band wagon. Berta feels that the Mayor’s job and the job of the Beach Task Force is to do what is best for getting sand on the beach. If you don’t take a serious stand, then no one sees a problem. GA Tech Wake Study Kevin will be able to give results of his study next month. Kevin showed the members two sand samples; a sample with 2% silt collected around 12th Street at the low tide line. It is good fine sand with 66% fine sand verses your typical medium to coarse sand. He showed a sample from the North Beach shoals with 12% silt. You can feel and see the difference in the silt. DNR Brad was somewhat surprised that his name was mentioned and we were waiting on 4 different things from him in the last meeting. Brad has already processed 2 of the 4, the third is the scarp, the fourth is the 5 year permit, Ann has already sent her guidelines. There is actually a 5th, the maintenance area under the pier. DNR has found that there is an easement that Tybee can maintain without a permit and DNR would like to work with Joe, from PW so that DNR would know where the sand is going. The thatch on the beach and the Beach Management Plan have been completed. Note that Henry does not want the thatch removed from his area. Jason stated that a meeting should be scheduled with all parties involved in permitting– DNR, Olsen, COE and focus on a timeline for the up coming re-nourishment. Freda questioned about moving sand on the beach – five year permit. As we approach this next re- nourishment and we have brand new sand on the beach without any sea oats, could we not develop a strategy for moving access sand from south end to Second Street every spring? Along those lines, Lou asked Brad what was the definition of a primary dune. Lou is trying to establish a shore protection line on the planning committee. People don’t understand that a primary dune is the closest to the water. Meeting Adjourned