ST. PETE BEACH — Heavy equipment invaded Upham Beach this week as construction began on a seven-month project to install permanent structures officials say will help retain a sandy shore.Upham Beach is one of the fastest-eroding beaches in the state, according to Pinellas County officials. The beach is just south of the Blind Pass Inlet.The $9.5 million project, paid for with Tourist Development Tax funds and a state grant, is not expected to be completed until February, well into tourist season.One half of 1 percent of the 5 percent tax levied on hotel occupancy is set aside annually for beach projects, generating nearly $2 million per year.The public and residents in the Silver Sands, Starlight Towers, Envoy Point and Caprice of St. Pete Beach condos will be barred from using at least half of the beach during construction.Five existing sand-filled tubes, installed in 2005 as a test, will be replaced with four rock T-groins, beginning on the south side of the beach in front of the Silver Sands.After the groins are installed, the beach will be renourished and filled in with additional sand pumped from the Gulf of Mexico, according to Andy Squires, coastal manager for Pinellas County. The Upham renourishment will cost $2 million to $3.5 million, in addition to the $9.5 million cost for the groins.An engineering study approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection shows that the permanent groins will protect the beach from erosion caused by storms and natural current-caused movement of sand.Historically, much of Upham Beach has regularly disappeared as the gulf lapped up to and sometimes overflowed seawalls. Replenishment of sand along Upham Beach began in 1975 when about 75,000 cubic yards of sand was dredged from Blind Pass. Since then, the beach has been renourished at roughly three-year intervals, costing millions.The cost is usually shared by the federal, state and county governments.In the mid 1980s, a 315-foot breakwater was constructed and tied to an existing jetty on the south side of Blind Pass. Partly because of this and other jetties in Blind Pass, repeated dredging in the inlet and a growing ebb shoal, little natural sand piles up on Upham Beach. A 1996 study showed that in one year alone, half the sand along Upham Beach had disappeared.An El Niño weather system during the following two years resulted in the loss of a foot of beach depth every day, according to county officials.But by three years after the temporary groins were installed, the sandy beach had significantly stabilized and nesting sea turtles had returned for the first time in 20 years.Upham Beach has lost about 140,000 cubic yards of sand since its last renourishment in 2014.The goal of the permanent groin system is to maintain at least a 40-foot-wide beach in front of seawalls to protect structures from storm-caused surges, to significantly slow beach erosion, and to cut the frequency of needed beach renourishment by half.Man-made beach renourishment has typically used sand dredged from the Egmont Shoal at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Officials expect future renourishment programs will be able to utilize sand from Blind Pass.
