It’s over!, Navarre Beach Restoration is complete

The dredge R.N. Weeks completed the dredging for the Navarre Beach Restoration Project and the Navarre Beach State Park Project on Sunday, November 11, 2006. During the past week the contractor Weeks Marine has been loading the big pipes on trucks and moving them to their next project. Overall I think that Weeks Marine and Peter Ravella with Coastal Technology, the consultant for Santa Rosa County performed marvelously.

Weeks Marine will still be periodically involved in scraping any storm created ledges along the beach up to the beginning of the turtle nesting season in May 2007. The scraping of the ledges is necessary to make it easier for the turtles to make their way from the surf up to higher elevations for nesting.

The sea oats and other vegetation planting will continue until it reaches the eastern end of the Navarre Beach State Park.

Santa Rosa County has hit a snag in getting its Permits approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the public access walkovers. Peter Ravella with Coastal Tech told me yesterday that he is hopeful that the DEP will approve the Permits for the public walkovers by the end of the year so that bids can be sent to contractors. Based upon this it is my guess that the construction for the public walkovers will not start until February or March