St. Augustine Port, Waterway & Beach District
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St. Augustine
Port, Waterway &
Beach District
P.O. Box 4512
St. Augustine, FL 32085
PH: (904) 824-0113

  Welcome
 

Mission Statement: The St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District sees itself as the primary proponent of waterway and waterfront activities within its boundaries. Its mission is to pursue projects that maintain and enhance opportunities for waterway use among its constituency.

 

 

This survey is being conducted by the United States Coast Guard to gather information about navigation in and around the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Cumberland Sound, Georgia to Matanzas Inlet, Florida, including St. Augustine Inlet.

Please click here to download the U.S. Coast Guard survey.

 
 

Commission meetings are normally scheduled the 3rd Tuesday of each month, but are subject to change. Please check here to make sure of the meeting date.

 

 

NEXT REGULAR MEETING:

MEETING DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 3:00pm

Click here to download the AGENDA.

Thank you!

 

LOCATION:

St. Augustine Beach City Commission
Meeting Room, 2200 A1A South,
St. Augustine Beach, FL

Presentation Guidelines:

1. Please limit your presentation to 6 minutes maximum.

2. Any materials that you will be presenting in the meeting needs to be submitted in electronic format by the Thursday prior to the meeting date, for distribution to the Commissioners.  Please email them to elyse@staugustineport.com.  

Thank you.

 

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The St. Augustine Inlet Channel will be dredged

December 6, 2011

Coastal Angler Magazine - December 2011 Issue

The St. Augustine Inlet Channel will be dredged

30 feet deep by 200 feet wide

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA., (Nov. 14, 2011) — Due to minimal jetties, the St. Augustine Inlet has always been a challenge to navigate. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Notice to Mariners lists the St. Augustine Inlet as ‘dangerous due to shifting shoaling’. Through the concerted efforts of the St. Augustine Port, Waterways & Beach District (SAPWBD), Saint Johns County, US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and other local agencies, the St. Augustine Inlet channel will be dredged 30 feet deep by 200 feet across in the immediate future.

Over the last three years, multiple boats have run aground while attempting to enter the channel. Most recently, a $1MM sport fishing boat went aground on a shoal and a single-handed rescue captain on a rescue vessel was swept out to sea when the towline parted, and nearly drowned. The City of St. Augustine and the local marine industry was being hurt by the potential dangers of the inlet and word had gotten out to transient boaters seeking a safe port between Mayport and the Ponce Inlet.

The SAPWBD requested and was able to have the USCG move a couple of the channel markers to better identify the navigable channel in July 2011. Mariners had become wary of the inlet, as a result of YouTube™ videos graphically showing the recent boating incidents in the inlet.

The maintenance of the channel and inlet for navigation is the responsibility of the SAPWBD with the US Army Corp. of Engineers (ACOE) however due to recent financial constraints resources have been focused on commercial port navigation. Although the Florida Inland Navigation District’s (FIND) primary responsibility is maintaining the ICW, they offered to assist the SAPWBD any way they could. After a meeting in Washington D.C. with agency officials, the ACOE was able to ‘reallocate’ $50k in funds for emergency dredging and the SAPWBD approved up to $300k in funding for additional emergency dredging pending the availability of the ACOE’s dredging vessel, the Currituck between scheduled commercial port dredging operations.

Working with the ACOE, the Currituck was able to make a quick stop in St. Augustine to dredge approximately 4,800 cubic yards around marker 5A in August 2011. Unfortunately, marker 5A disappeared three days after the Currituck left, once again making channel navigation challenging. The last time the inlet was fully dredged was 1999.

Unfortunately, the City of St. Augustine stated they had no funds available to help pay. A south Ponte Vedra/Vilano Beach homeowner group had delayed dredging permits because they opposed taking sand from the ebb shoals as they believe the ebb shoals increased erosion to their ocean-front properties north of the inlet.

In September 2011, a contract was brokered by the St. Johns County Commissioners and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) with the Ponte Vedra/Vilano Beach homeowner group which would allow the ACOE to dredge 2.1 million cubic yards of sand from the inlet and place it on St. Augustine beach as part of the federally-authorized Beach Re-nourishment project.

Dredging should begin in early 2012. The channel will be dredged 200 feet wide by 30 feet deep and the cost, which is estimated to be $16-24 million, will be funded by the federal government, St. Johns County and the FDEP.

The SAPWBD, St. Johns County Commissioners, ACOE, FDEP, and FIND as well as other local, state and government officials were critical in making the dredging happen.

 

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First Coast News Story & Video of a recent SAPWBD supported project ...

Making a Splash: Sinking Concrete to Create Artificial Reef

July 30, 2010

TISIRI Video of Submerged Bridge of Lions Pilings - Andy King Reef

August 27, 2010

Hello Reef Partners:

Yesterday (Friday 8-27-10) I took Joe Kistel and Ed Kalakauski with TISIRI out to dive the recently deployed Andy King Reef. Joe and Ed made two dives on the barge #2 deployment site which consists of the full length 55 foot long concrete fender piling. The sea was flat and the sky was overcast. The lighthouse, the cross and downtown St Augustine were visible from the boat. The surface water temperature was approximately 80 degrees however they encountered a layer of cold water (70 degrees) on the bottom that extended up to about 30 feet. This is what Joe and Ed found:

1. Fish. There were significant schools of bait fish both on the reef and on the surface. On the reef they saw plenty of sea bass and trigger fish. The trigger fish were very aggressive and both Ed and Joe came back with teeth marks on their fingers and ear lobes. Note that barge #1 was deployed 7/30/10 and barge #2 was deployed 8/14/10.

2. The 55 foot long piling did stack up one on top of the other as we hoped. In some locations the reef profile off the bottom is as high as 8 feet. Note we drove during the high tide and the depth recorder was reading 75 to 77 feet of water.

3. They sampled the bottom and it is stable and hard. They could see depressions in the bottom where the pilings first hit during the deployment.

4. It appears the barge #1 material which consisted of the 25 foot long piling is approximately 200 feet south of the barge #2 material

Note that The St Augustine Lighthouse LAMP vessel was on site towing their side scan sonar and they too reported significant reef profile.

I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your help and cooperation over the last four years. Your efforts to create this reef will benefit both the marine environment and the citizens of northeast Florida as well as the tourists who visit our community. And take note, this reef will be providing these benefits long after we are all gone.

Carl Blow, Commissioner
St Augustine Port Waterway & Beach District

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Established in 1937 and reauthorized in 2000 by the Florida Legislature, the five member St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District Commission functions in accordance with its original charter "to acquire, develop, improve, and maintain navigable waters, port facilities, and properties for the conduct of the port’s business". The enabling legislation empowering the Port District to improve and manage the navigability of the waterway systems within its jurisdiction has been largely implemented in collaboration with federal, state and local entities, with funding by grants as well as taxes levied annually on properties within the District boundaries. The St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District Master Plan, developed in 1993 and updated in 2005, provides a comprehensive review of the District’s resources, activities and future challenges.

Major waterway systems within the District boundaries include the St. Augustine and Matanzas Inlets, Salt Run, and the Tolomato, Matanzas and San Sebastian Rivers. Significant portions of these waters to the north and south of St. Augustine are a part of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR). There are three federally maintained channels within the District; these include the St. Augustine Inlet, the San Sebastian River, and the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW), which traverses the Tolomato and Matanzas Rivers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), in cooperation with the Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND), periodically conducts bathymetric surveys and performs necessary dredging of the ICWW to ensure safe passage of recreational and commercial vessels. Likewise, the channel within the St. Augustine Inlet linking the ICWW with the Atlantic Ocean requires periodic maintenance dredging; this is carried out by the USACE in partnership with the St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District. The Port District is also the local sponsor for the federally-maintained channel in the San Sebastian River; however, no maintenance has been required for this channel since the original dredging operations in 1956. In 1997 a major study of the St. Augustine Inlet sponsored by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Port District was completed by Taylor Engineering, Inc. This work, The St. Augustine Inlet Management Plan, provided a detailed delineation and analysis of the physical and environmental features of the inlet and adjacent sea bottom, beaches and shorelines influenced by the inlet, and recommended corrective measures to mitigate identified erosive impacts of the inlet.

Other activities sponsored or otherwise supported by the Port District during the past 15 years have included: (1) the design, installation and maintenance of aids to navigation (i.e., channel markers) in Salt Run; (2) the establishment of a minimum wake zone in Salt Run; (3) the sponsorship of a hydrographic survey in the Matanzas River; (4) discussions and feasibility studies to address the need for additional boat ramps; (5) the sponsorship of a shoal removal feasibility study in Salt Run; (6) the support of dredging at the north end of Salt Run in coordination with the USACE, FIND and the Department of Environmental Protection; (7) the support of sea turtle nest monitoring during the Salt Run dredging project; (8) the engineering design and permitting for a kayak and canoe launch at Lighthouse Park; (9) participation in a feasibility study for a federal navigation channel in Salt Run; (10) the issuance of recommendations to the Coast Guard for ICWW channel realignments in the vicinity of the Bridge of Lions; (11) the support of rehabilitating the Bridge of Lions and providing design features that optimize navigation safety; (12) the identification and removal of derelict vessels in cooperation with the City of St. Augustine; (13) the convening of several workshops to discuss anchorage issues and management alternatives of same; (14) the support of waterway patrols by various law enforcement entities; (15) the development and publication of the St. Augustine Waterways Guide through Florida Sea Grant*; (16) the support of a feasibility study for a boardwalk along the San Sebastian River; (17) the support of site reconnaissance and construction of an offshore artificial reef; and (18) the support of the "Trashbuster" waterway cleanup program of St. Johns County.

(*) Available at the St. Augustine City Marina

 
 

 

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