FDOT and Seawalls

The Florida Department of Transportation, charged with protecting State Road A1A, the Scenic Highway that runs along the ocean through Flagler Beach, already has a complete plan, including construction drawings, for a 4-1/2-mile seawall along 4-1/2 miles of Flagler’s Beach.

At the same time, DOT spokesmen have been reassuring us that there are no plans to actually build such a seawall. Tom Percival Jr., Lead Project Manger, told a group of Save Flagler’s Beach supporters that even if the department wished to construct such a wall, it does not have the $20- to $30-million required to do so. The plans, says Paulette Fiske, P.E., Senior Project Manager for engineering firm CH2M Hill, are required for pre-permitting should “short sections” be required in an emergency.

What Mr. Percival and Ms. Fiske tell us is that if part of State Road A1A is undermined again, as it was last year, and immediate emergency steps must be taken to repair and protect that section, they may elect to construct a short stretch of seawall in just that area—as they did last January in the area of South 12th Street (150 feet of wall that cost, after several post-construction applications of sand and rock, nearly a million dollars).

On August 8, 2006, at a public workshop hosted by FDOT in Flagler Beach, the department spokeswoman told the group, “While the department’s primary responsibility is A1A, it cares about the quality of life in the community, the view, recreation, businesses, homes, and the environment.”

When the workshop asked for input from our citizens as to what should be done to save and protect the roadway, the participants’ overwhelming response could be summed up in one group’s concise conclusion: “Save the beach; save the road.”

Many citizens feel that if a demonstration using Undercurrent Stabilizers is successful, it will prove that further use of seawalls and/or revetments will become unnecessary, for either short- or long-term protection of A1A. It will have proved that a healthy beach and dune system is the roadway’s best and most permanent solution.

While FDOT appears to rely on seawalls and revetments as its favored method of preserving shoreside roadways (currently a full 20% of Florida’s coastline is armored with either seawalls or revetments), representatives claim they are not committed to either, and that they’re not opposed to any method of saving the road, as long as the people make it clear what method they want.

“If the City of Flagler Beach tells us they want to use Undercurrent Stabilizers, we have no problem with that,” said FDOT’s Tom Percival after viewing the Save Flagler’s Beach slide presentation on August 14. Whether the preference is for seawalls, rock revetments, Undercurrent Stabilizers, or anything else, they just have to tell us what they want.”

Save Flagler’s Beach interprets this as an invitation to YOU to tell them how YOU would have them protect A1A—in an emergency situation as well as for the long term.

At the August 8 workshop, a Comment Form (available here) was distributed, asking for comments on the workshop, but also soliciting additional information. You can access and print this comment form, fill in your thoughts about how to protect A1A for the short and long term, and mail it to:

SR A1A PD&E Study
Abra E. Horne, AICP
PBSJ
482 South Keller Road
Orlando FL 32810

• You may also e-mail your comments to Ms. Horne at sra1apdeinfo@pbsj.com.
• Mr. Percival can be reached at tom.percival@dot.state.fl.us, Ms. Fiske at pfiske@ch2m.com.
• In addition, project manager Bob Gleason can be reached at bob.gleason@dot.state.fl.us.