MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — On Monday, Martin County leaders, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla. are celebrating the near completion of a $15 million federally funded beach renourishment project with a ribbon cutting at Bob Graham Beach.
WATCH BELOW: 'We're just looking at revolutionizing how we've done in the past,' Col. Brandon Bowman tells WPTV's Tyler Hatfield
"We are a waterborne community,” said Mast. “Sometimes we're trying to keep it clean, sometimes we're trying to fight it back a little bit.”"
The project started on April 13 and is expected to be completed by Friday.
For days, neighbor Bill Gomez was fishing and watching crews dump sand on the shoreline.
“I was surprised,” said Gomez. “It took less than two weeks for them to finish this area here.”
Col. Brandon Bowman with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers said crews dumped nearly 400,000 cubic yards of sand on a four mile stretch of shoreline.
“It's a size of a football field with sand stacked over 200 feet high,” said Bowman.
Another beach renourishment project is taking place at Jetty Park and Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce after an emergency sand dump in February.
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers had issues securing a vendor for the project last year.
“We had some challenges securing a dredging company within the awardable range that we could put on that contract, which caused some delays and caused those issues,” said Bowman.
WPTV asked Bowman about how his team will avoid issues next time and he said they will try to schedule projects earlier and coordinate with other districts when trying to use the limited U.S. dredging fleet.
"We're just looking at revolutionizing how we've done in the past and make some changes to get better projects for better cost, scope and budget for the American taxpayer,” said Bowman.
