1/20/2024 0 Comments The dredge report tom bayles![]() ![]() That’s true for seaside communities all over the country. But today such natural behavior would threaten not only Southwest Florida beaches but billions of dollars of prized real estate, and communities consider it essential to control inlets’ flow. In their natural state, inlets change and move, sometimes shrinking, and sometimes expanding the shoreline. Over the last century, the region’s coastal environment has been altered and augmented, almost always to promote and protect development. It is being manipulated and will be for the rest of time.” Cliff Truitt, a coastal engineer who has studied and managed the shorelines of Sarasota and Manatee counties during the last three decades, says, “It hasn’t been a natural system for many years. Ironically, the region’s beaches and inlets, those magnificent natural resources that draw so many people here, are no longer in their natural state. During another treacherous period some years ago, a 35-foot, steel-hulled ketch sank and remained dead-center in New Pass for months. The pilot of a 59-footer recently attempting to thread his way through New Pass hit a sand shoal and ripped off three expensive drive units. While small boats may be able to make it through-if their captain knows the pass well-boats of 45 feet or more probably can’t. When the pass is too clogged with sand to be navigable, as it has been since last summer, the Coast Guard erects warning signs, and boaters travel at their own risk. Dredges arrive every few years, pump about a billion pounds of sand from the inlet onto neighboring beaches, usually at a cost of several million dollars, and leave, just to come back some three to five years later and do the same thing. ![]() Boaters motor through New Pass, one of five inlets connecting Sarasota Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, day after day, week after week. For 20 years, New Pass Grill & Bait Shop owner Jim Wallace has watched history repeat itself. ![]()
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