Beach renourishment in Cocoa Beach: the North Reach since 2000

Cocoa Beach’s sand is maintained by a federal project. According to Brevard County’s beach management program, the Brevard County Shore Protection Project is run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the county as local sponsor, and its North Reach covers 9.4 miles of shoreline from Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral south to the northern edge of Patrick, taking in all of Cocoa Beach.

The first rebuilding, 2000-01

The county calls August 28, 2000, the day the project “finally became a reality,” when the Corps awarded the first restoration of the North Reach to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company. On October 1, 2000, the hopper dredge Padre Island began carrying sand from Canaveral Shoals, an offshore borrow area, to a re-handling area 4,000 feet off Cocoa Beach across from the Minutemen Causeway; the Manhattan Island joined on October 8, and later the Dodge Island. To protect sea turtle hatchlings, no sand went on the beach until nesting season ended. In mid-November the cutterhead dredge Alaska began pumping it ashore through a pipeline, and the whole North Reach was finished on April 9, 2001, a year ahead of schedule.

After the storms

The beach has been rebuilt twice since after hurricanes, the county records:

Work	Sand placed	Where
2005, after the 2004 hurricanes (Weeks Marine)	about 755,500 cubic yards on 5.95 miles	Cocoa Beach from North 3rd Street to Patrick, and Cherie Down Park in Cape Canaveral to Gadsden Lane in Cocoa Beach
2014, after Hurricane Sandy (Great Lakes Dredge and Dock; began January 28, finished before May 1)	972,410 cubic yards on 7 miles	Cherie Down Park to Surf Road, and 3rd Street North to Patrick

In both rounds part of the shoreline needed nothing: in 2005 the remaining areas had actually gained sand from storm overwash, and in 2014 the stretch between Surf Road and 3rd Street North had stayed stable. The 2014 work, the county says, was paid for entirely with federal money.

The jetty and the bypass

Part of the reason the beach loses sand is upstream. The county explains that sand along this coast naturally drifts south, and after Port Canaveral’s north jetty was lengthened and tightened to keep sand out of the shipping channel, the beaches south of the inlet began losing an estimated 156,000 cubic yards a year. To make up for it, the Corps and the Canaveral Port Authority have run a sand bypass project, dredging sand from the beaches north of the harbor and placing it to the south, in 1995, 1998, 2007 and 2010.

Further Reading

• Florida’s Hurricane History by Jay Barnes