Is it true that with the new paved road to the bridge they are going to close Boca Del Rio beach front to traffic and Dave Mitchell has a contract to dredge a new beach?

'hope not (dredging never is w/ out consequence.) How about it they clean up the beach in front of Central Park/Big Daddy's first, eh?

Agree with the Central Park beach idea. I've proposed to both BTB and SPBA that we clean out the debris by the old pier, resurface the pier a little and put out some picnic tables. Put steps into the sea, put out safety buoys and have a real central park beach. All the elements are there, we just need to tweak it in the right direction.
Want to try to make it so?

About closing the beach to traffic in the Boca Del Rio area ..... there is an issue for many of the beachfront properties in that they don't have a "back-door" entrance to an alternate road. I'm told that planning departments will not approve landlocked parcels, so the idea of completely closing off the beach-road is a toughie to contemplate.

Quite a few of us that live on the beach would like to see some type of divider in the middle of each block that would leave the area accessible to local traffic, emergency and maintenance vehicles and people that want to use the beachfront.

Yes, we have been trying to promote that idea for years. Block the beach in the middle of each block so there would be no thru traffic. That would be perfect. EXCEPT places like the high school where they should block it on both ends and the tourists (and us locals) would have nice beach they could lie down on and snooze safely.

Glorias , I had suggested the high school block be blocked off to traffic in a post about swimming safety.I agree with your idea also about blocking the middle of each beach block to stop thru traffic. That's a great idea , it leaves homeowners access ,but stops thru traffic.A string of swimming buoys at the high school block would be a great addition for swimming safety .

Dredging is the only way we can get sand. Dredging isn't bad. It's how and where it's dredged. We also need to look at how we clean the seagrass as that is the largest cause of beach errosion (other than occassional large storms) and probably needs to be reburied at it's source higher up the beach.

Phil -you are correct,dredging is not bad if done correctly and boca de rio park needs sand to cover and protect the sona tubes from damage. We need some areas to swim in deep enough 5 to 6 feet deep ,but not in the channel at the cut dodging boats

Well that also goes back to my points on boats and safety. We have areas already that deep out toward the end of piers so why create more closer to shore that increase beach errosion. Move the boats out and safely use what we already have. Look at the area just South of the High School that was hand dredged six months or so ago. We haven't had one decent storm yet and all the sand AND twenty linnear feet or more has erroded away. Don't fight nature, try and work with it.