BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – The Mexico Beach re-nourishment project is a full-scale project that will cover 3 miles of beach at a cost of $27 million.
When Hurricane Michael hit the area head on in 2018 most of the sand washed away along with many buildings. 6-years later officials say they are ready to re-nourish the beach for the first time ever.
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“This project has been in the works actually before Hurricane Michael. So essentially me and my team and my amazing counterparts, the Bay County TDC, Bay County Board of County Commissioners have been helping work on this project for almost at least eight years. So, we’re very excited to see it come to fruition. We’re glad to start putting shovel to stand and really strengthening what’s already an amazing beach, because that’s essentially what this project is going to do,” Mexico Beach Community Development Council president Kimberly Shoaf said.
Weeks Marine Construction Company will come on-site. They’ll lay out their equipment to extract one million cubic yards of sand from a borrowed sand site that has the same quality of sand as Mexico Beach.
Then they’ll use a dredge to excavate that sand up, bring it onto the beach and spread it out.
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“And the project consists of both a beach berm and dune widening section. So different areas of Mexico Beach will have just an enhancement of the dune itself, where the rest of Mexico Beach will have enhancement of the dune and shoreline,” Shoaf said.
It will begin the week of January 6th, and it is expected to be complete by April 15th. The enhancement of the dunes will help better protect residents from storms.
“We are going to extend the beach and re-replenish or rebuild or reconstruct the dunes to provide more storm protection in the future as well as immediate beautification,” Mexico Beach City Administrator Chris Truitt said.
The project has been fully funded by federal and state dollars.
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