And more plants are coming. On Monday the Fort Myers Beach Town Council will likely approve a $95,710 add-on to Earth Balance’s dune plantings contract. The additional plantings will be paid for by a Florida Department of Emergency Management grant.
The town has already paid Earth Balance $510,000 for the dune plantings assignment which was completed earlier this month. The plantings were started right after the town’s beach renourishment project was completed and the pipes were removed.
$95,720 gets you an additional 25,000 plants.
In making the request for the contract change, town staff says, “The additional plantings will stabilize a greater area of the beach, protecting the beach from erosion. In addition, the additional plantings will build a bigger dune over time. which will offer greater protection to upland properties and infrastructure from storm surge.”
This may seem obvious to most people but just in case…if you see these sticks on the beach, do not walk over the plantings. If you live on the beach and you have, perhaps, changed your mind about not signing the easement, and you do want plantings, you shoul call Town Hall ASAP.
Congrats to Chad and team for another successful environmental project. The dune plantings are important in keeping our beach sand in place during major storm event high tides and surges. I’d rather have the sand kept on the beach rather than flushed to Estero Boulevard. The cost of the plantings is a fraction of the cost of storm-created sand cleanup and beach restoration.