Pensacola Pass dredging replenishing Perdido Key

Pensacola Pass dredging replenishing Perdido Key

While the Pensacola Inlet Management Plan waits final adoption by Florida’s Dept. of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently dredging the Pensacola Pass entrance channel and depositing the pumped sand onto the Perdido Key Area of Gulf Islands National Seashore (Johnson Beach).
The operation expected to continue until May 1. Because of the east to west migration of sand along the northwest Florida coast, the dredged sand should help both eroded National Seashore beaches and beaches on the rest of Perdido Key, the eastern portion of which has been critically eroded since 2004’s Hurricane Ivan.
In the past, sand from the dredging process was dumped in the deep water instead of strategically placed where it would be carried to beaches west of Pensacola Pass.
Perdido Key beaches are privately owned to the water line. If the beaches are widened through a replenishment project, the state would own the extra width created by the project, and that concerns many beachfront property owners.