As the 2024 hurricane season is quickly approaching, people are preparing and so are the dunes! During the rest of the year, Youth Environmental Alliance engages and leads dune restorations across the South Florida coast, aiming to restore the critical dune habitats to their original state. Students, commercial groups, and the general public are all involved in planting coastal dune vegetation including sea oats, beach elder, railroad vine, and saw palmetto, amongst others.
Photo by: YEA staff
Healthy dune systems are critical for preventing beach erosion, absorbing wind and wave energy to prevent storm damage, filtering and cleaning water and air, providing habitat for wildlife and pollinators, preventing sandblasting, and acting as a natural sand bank.
In 2017, the dunes put in by YEA saved a large portion of the $56,000,000.00 worth of sand that was part of the Broward County Segment II (Pompano Beach, Lauderdale By-The-Sea (LBTS), Fort Lauderdale) beach renourishment project. The areas where well-developed, properly constructed dunes existed were spared from major sand inundation, sand-blasted buildings, buried pools, and impassible streets. Moreover, the dunes acted as a sand “bank” capturing wind-blown sand and re-distributing it onto the beach with the help of waves. Reports came in to Youth Environmental Alliance (YEA) from up and down the coast of how the dunes may have looked pitiful in the aftermath, but they did their job:
Scott Cravens of Ft. Lauderdale, ran down to LBTS in Irma’s wake, and what he found, astounded him!
“Usually after a storm, the street is flooded. This time, the newly planted dunes stopped it!”
“Sea oats trapped tons of sand,” Steve D’Oliveira of Pompano Beach reported.
A police officer from LBTS reported that the residents were singing praises of their dunes and were so proud of their sea oats. This is just one tangible example of our dunes doing their job, and doing it very well.
Here is the result of no dunes: sand inundation and sand blasted buildings.
Photo by: YEA staff
Photo by: YEA staff
On the flip, here is a dune PROTECTED property!
Photo by: YEA staff
YEA’s resiliency dunes (the small triangle patch in front of the rest of the dunes) hold strong to protect beach access points and adjacent property. Without them, beach access points act as funnels to direct sand and water down streets and onto property. Wind, waves, and sand were no match for this little dune. The access point behind it is clear of extra sand and debris.
Post Matthew-day after Post Irma-day after
So it is no wonder that these precious sea oats are protected by Florida Statute 370.041 which makes it illegal to "cut, harvest, remove, or eradicate any of the grass commonly known as sea oats … as it is the intent of the law to preserve and encourage the growth of these native plants."
One of the best parts of this work is that many of the restored dunes were planted and funded by people like you, the Community Foundation of Broward, LBTS, and Broward County as part of Project ROC (Reclaiming Our Coastline)!
Make sure to keep an eye out on social media and the YEA website (https://www.youthenvironmentalalliance.com/take-action) for our next dune restoration project and get involved in this incredibly important endeavor- saving our dunes, sand, and our sanity!
By: The Team at Youth Environmental Alliance
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