2015-1113 Special City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Special City Commission Meetine November 13,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida Pier, we need more data. The County when they do fiscal monitoring survey the shoreline, they survey every 1,000 feet, and the Newport Pier is in the middle. And so we really need more data and more dense data to evaluate that effect. Ms. Cutt reported on storm events. We have had very few hurricanes in the last few years but back in 2005 we had several storm events. Actually a long duration nor'easter where the wind is blowing hard for a longer duration can do more damage than a hurricane. And so there are a lot of things going on in the system that we need to understand. Everybody wants the magic bullet, everyone is saying there has got to be something out there that someone is going to invent that is going to hold our sands. She doesn't know if any of you were tracking the Hillsboro Beach Pressure Equalizing Modulars that was put on the beach about seven years ago or so, we were working with Hillsboro on a beach nourishment project, we were the engineers for those net groin structures. When she was in charge of Corps of Engineers office out of the Palm Beach office and oversaw that area, we were often approached by the sales representative wanting us to authorize those on the beach. We can consider an application to put those on the beach but the pounds are just another example of that,they are slotted PDC pipes with a Jacuzzi cup on the top. We have seen artificial seaweed, we have seen geo-tech power tubes,most of these have not been tried in Southeast Florida because we have got so much near shore hard bottom and so many potential ecological impacts that can't be permitted and can't be gotten around that we,there just are not that many proposals. The pens were ultimately removed from the beach in Hillsboro before the agencies would let us proceed with our beach nourishment project. Ms. Cutt said there are other options,alternatives,creative solutions,but none of them really work to hold our beach. What can we do to mitigate the erosion we are seeing at the Newport Pier? With additional data collection we can essentially propose to place some structures under or adjacent to the Newport Pier to help make it less permeable than it currently is. It is currently letting a lot of wave energy and a lot of sand move through the system. If we place some artificial reefs under or adjacent to the Pier to replicate,to make it more of a less permeable structure,then we could hold the shoreline there. We would need additional monitoring data and we would also need to model and demonstrate to the agencies that we are not going to cause a down drift effect,we are not going to adversely erode starve the beaches to ourselves which happens to still be within the City. And so there are options, these artificial reefs could be built out along the boulders, they could be built out of reef balls, but ultimately they would have that same effect of dissipating the wave energy that is causing that sand to move so fast from the system. Ms. Cutt showed some reef balls, the 63rd Street Breakwater Project that was permitted but not constructed is actually designed as a demonstration project using reef balls instead of natural lines of boulders. Either one would provide a fish aggregation structure that the fishermen on the Pier would like as long as they are not losing too many hooks and lines off the structures,but fish love these things,they swim through them,they have a lot of crevices and hiding spots and holes, and they do grow biological growth on them. Again the conceptual design alternatives,we could do a similar series of offshore structures to what we have at 32"d Street to hold the beach. But one thing you have got to remember is once you put structures in you are obligated to maintain them filled, and so if these are structures that are going to be like 32"d Street that are going to attach to the beach and cause a nice wide 8