Destin beach nourishment funds slashed

DESTIN -- By the end of the year, Destin could have the permits and the sand to restore its eroded beaches, only to find the budget for restoration $800,000 short.

“Every year, the Department of Environmental Protection publishes a priority projects list and an alternate project list,” Okaloosa County Beach Projects Coordinator Jim Trifilio told The Log. “The priority project list is the ones that normally get funded ... We’re on the alternate list.”

Trifilio said that in a normal year, beach restoration for Destin and Okaloosa Island, which are applying for state grants as a joint project, would be on the priority list to receive money from the $30 million Ecosystem Restoration Trust Fund.

This year, however, Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposed budget cuts $5 million from the fund’s annual balance and redirects another $5 million to DEP staffing and operations, not restoration. Trifilio said reducing the size of the fund will require rewriting

the statutes controlling it, which would make the reduced restoration budget permanent until the Legislature changed it back.

Restoring 3.1 miles of eroded beach between the East Pass jetty and Henderson Beach State Park is estimated to cost $13.5 million, plus $700,000 to monitor the beach for the following seven years. $7.85 million will come from the county’s Tourist Development Council and $4.85 million from a “municipal services benefit unit,” a special taxing district including all properties south of U.S. 98 in Destin.

The TDC expected the DEP to put up the remaining 8 percent of the cost, $800,000. In December, the DEP said it would increase its share to 24 percent for 1.8 miles of the beach; the DEP doesn’t consider the remaining 1.3 miles to have eroded enough to justify funding.

State Sen. Don Gaetz said everything has changed as the economy slumps: “A normal year has the Legislature discussing how to appropriate the additional $1.5 to $2 billion generated by a growing economy. This year, by contrast ... instead of a $2 billion increase over the previous year, we have a $2 billion decrease, which creates a $4 billion negative swing.

“In practical terms, that means many, many worthy projects will be reduced in scope or cut entirely.”

Gaetz said the Northwest Florida delegation will work to see the Emerald Coast gets no more than its fair share of cuts “but there will be cuts.” And with the health care budget facing at least $500 million in cuts and $1 billion in education cuts, he said, beach restoration is on the chopping block too.

“The arithmetic is incontestable,” Gaetz said. “The checks won’t cash because the revenues aren’t there.”

Last month, Trifilio told the TDC there was a good chance restoration would begin late this year. Destin Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Shane Moody told The Log this week that the chamber isn’t giving up without a fight.

“We’re having a call to action with our membership and all the businesses in Destin,” Moody said, “to contact our representatives and senators in Tallahassee and encourage them to have the government put the $10 million back in the budget ... . We’re so dependent on tourism, but without beaches there’s nothing for tourists to come to. This affects every coastal community in the state.”

Gaetz said that even so, the state can’t go into debt in one fiscal year in hopes that improved tourism will bring a surplus later.

For Okaloosa Island, where the cost of restoration is projected at $12.35 million, the loss of state grants would hurt more: Because the island has more public beach, the DEP was putting up more money.

“If that public funding goes away,” island resident Rebecca Sherry said, “the (added) cost to restore the public beach will be three times the cost of that to restore Destin’s private beach. That seems to me to be very ironic.”

Sherry is one of several Okaloosa Island residents who support beach restoration, but object to the way the MSBU fees are calculated. They believe Okaloosa Island should receive more money from the TDC, which would lessen the cost of the MSBU tax.

Neither the Destin City Council nor the TDC has had a chance to discuss the effect of the new budget. The TDC was asked last year to contribute more money, but members said that even with the 4 percent bed tax increasing to 5 percent, they’re putting up all the money they can afford.

“There are things we can do,” Destin Mayor Craig Barker said. “We’re going to have to consider alternative sources of funding ... What those potential mechanisms are is not yet identified.”

Trifilio said the TDC will discuss the proposed cuts at Wednesday’s meeting.