HOLMES BEACH – Pipes are being moved this week to set up for the next section of beach scheduled to get new sand in the renourishment project that began in July.
The $17.3 million project is designed to replace sand eroded by storms, protecting buildings and roads from future storms along 5.5 miles of beach in Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach.
The beach from 78th Street to 33rd Street is complete, according to David Ruderman, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville.
For the next section, the contractor, Marinex Construction, Inc., is scheduled to move the submerged pipeline landing location to 34th Street this week. It will take 7-10 days to complete the move, during which no beach work can be done.
The offshore dredge also has moved, and Marinex is reconnecting the dredge to the pipes.
Meanwhile, pipe is being stored on the beach between 34th and 37th streets with beach access available landward and seaward of the storage area. Portions of the beach will be closed during active construction, preventing the public from accessing that area of the shore.
The sand is dredged from offshore borrow areas by a hydraulic cutter suction dredge, then pumped through a pipeline to the beach as a water/sand slurry. The submerged pipeline comes ashore onto the beach at designated landing locations and connects to the pipeline, which runs laterally along the beach. The sand slurry is discharged from the pipeline and bulldozers push the sand into the water to enlarge the beach and pile it higher on dry land.
By Oct. 1, the project is anticipated to be at Fourth Street. Construction is estimated to end at Longboat Pass in mid-November.