Bwick News: Glynn Co plans compromise on filling East Beach tidal slough. Too bad for them the Atlantic Ocean is not open to compromise.
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County: Plan to fill beach pool will leave half the pool, not impact dunes, wetlands
- 7 hrs ago
People cross a private boardwalk that was once a tidal pool but is now a meadow with golden rod and a pond.
Terry Dickson/The Brunswick News
Glynn County’s plan to fill in the south end of a large, open-water slough that has formed over the past several years on the beach at St. Simons Island will not impact dunes or wetlands that have developed to its north, county officials and a consultant who has been working on the project said Friday.
The project is aimed at public safety, they said, and will only fill in roughly half of the pool that separates the slough that stretches from south of the Coast Guard Station Beach past Massengale Park and to in front of the King and Prince resort. As it is, emergency medical services are significantly delayed when responding to calls when Massengale Beach is the nearest or best beach access to use, said Danny Smith, assistant county manager.
“Glynn County has a problem right now and it is a public safety issue,” Smith said. “…If you have a medical episode on the beach right now there would be a significant delay for EMS to respond. … We can’t even get an ATV to the beach there.”
Environmental advocates have said the plan will deteriorate habitat for protected species, damage a delicate coastal system and ultimately waste taxpayer money because the natural sand sharing systems are likely to take their own course with the beach.
Project planners understand well that the beach changes with each tide and especially each storm.
“No one can guarantee a storm won’t change things on East Beach in the future,” said Stephen Bailey, owner of Longleaf Consulting, who the county hired for the project.
Ensuring the safety of the community takes precedent, however, officials said.
To meet that end, the project seeks to dredge a thin layer of sand from the beach below the high water mark to fill roughly 2 acres of open water on the south side of the large slough, about 54% of the entire pool where two floating bridges now allow access to the beach. It is essentially the area south of a natural drainage canal that splits the slough, Bailey said.
The project will restore the slough to normal beach height and will not impact the dunes behind it or the wetlands that have developed to the north. The northern portion of the slough, north of the natural drainage canal, will not be touched, Bailey said.
“That north pool has very high quality wetland and scrub habitat on the landward side of it. None of that will be touched,” Bailey said. “… We are not impacting dunes or wetlands in the proposal. We are surgically avoiding dunes and wetlands.”
Planners have been working on the project for nearly a year as it requires permits from multiple agencies like the state Environmental Protection Division, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state’s Shoreline Protection Committee.
As part of that permitting process, the Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resources Division’s Shoreline Protection Committee is accepting public comments about the plan through Oct. 30. Comments can be submitted to Beth Byrnes at CRDCo...@dnr.ga.gov or by mail addressed to Beth Byrnes, Dept. of Natural Resources, 1 Conservation Way, Brunswick, GA 31520.