Beach Explorers Introduce Cost-Saving, Lives-Saving Idea While Rebuilding Fort Myers Beach

FORT MYERS BEACH, Florida. On Monday, the Fort Myers Beach City Council took major steps to revitalize the beach and Estero Island.

The council has approved beach nutrition plans, including the placement of emergency berms to prevent future flooding. But not everyone agrees with the plan.

“More than 200,000 yards of erosion have occurred on the beach.”

This is the problem that plagued the city of Fort Myers Beach in the months following Hurricane Ian.

“Presentation, emergency embankment and the status of Estero Island feeding projects”.

A project in which sand will be delivered by truck from an internal sand line. A plan that not everyone agrees with.

“We are very cautious about these projects,” says Dr. John Fletemeyer, Executive Director of the Institute for Water Law and Security. more rip currents. Which definitely pose an extreme danger to public safety.”

Dr. John Fletemeyer has been studying beach food for nearly 40 years. One of his problems is adding too much sand to the beach, changing his profile.

“What happens when water rushes up a high beach, it tends to rush back, and that’s basically the fuel for the backflow.”

A problem that could have been avoided if the board had chosen a different meal plan.

“We bring sand that is here, that is created there,” says Don Justice, director of Ecoplage US. “We bring it to the beach and spread it where people can see it.”

The technology that Justice is talking about is laying a pipeline under the beach, which, in some way, will recycle the sand.

“There is some sand in every wave that is breaking here now,” he says. “When it breaks, the water that recedes and carries the sand back, some of that water goes into this pipe.”

And it works in other parts of the world.

“We licensed this technology from Ecoplage France,” says Justice. “They have been in this business for about 15-18 years and have 25-30 installations in France, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.”

The city council said their goal is to start early this fall and complete by May 1, 2024. Deadlines can be costly.

According to Fletemeyer, “It saves lives because it doesn’t create an environment that is conducive to rip currents.”