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Category Archives: Beaches

Money lined up to repair beaches, but not until next year

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TREASURE ISLAND (FOX 13) -

Pinellas beaches shredded by last summer's Tropical Storm Debby will be repaired, but not until sometime next fall or winter.

That leaves properties on two beaches on Treasure Island and two in St. Pete Beach exposed to this year's potential ravages.

"Just look at what Tropical Storm Debby did," said Treasure Island Mayor Bob Minning, pointing to a stretch of Sunset Beach. "It took out 100-some-odd feet of beach."

One beachfront home's irrigation system sticks out of the side of an escarpment.

"There is more to erode but the sacrificial portion of it now is no longer the public beach, it's going to be the private property, and it's going to extend into backyards," Minning commented.

The state budget finalized last week includes funding to match local and federal contributions toward renourishment projects. It will cost roughly $12 million to rebuild Sunset and Sunrise Beaches on Treasure Island, and $6 million to renourish Upham and Pass-A-Grille Beaches in St. Pete Beach.

The work will begin on Treasure Island, possibly by September, according county coastal engineer Andy Squires.

The plan includes renourishing the beach behind Caddy's, a popular beach bar on Treasure Island. The state of Florida and Caddy's owner Tony Amico are in court again in an ownership dispute.

Several years ago, Amico claimed his beach is private, alleging the jetty at John's Pass interrupted the natural southward flow of migrating sand, causing his land to be inundated.

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Money lined up to repair beaches, but not until next year

Must-visit white unspoiled beaches in Luzon

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PICTURE-PERFECT. Calaguas beauty is the real thing raw and unedited, but bursting with color. Photo by Amer Amor

MANILA, Philippines - Want your own piece of paradise this summer? Travel far to these beaches where the crowds are thin to non-existent, the waters crystal clear, and the sands bright white. Be prepared for some roughing it and some camping if you want to stay overnight.

Here are some of Luzons best pristine and white beaches, in no particular order:

1. Calaguas Islands, Vinzons, Camarines Norte

SPELLBINDING SUNSET. At the end of the day, Calaguas palette of blue, green, and white gives way to reds and oranges. Photo by Amer Amor

Long stretches of white sand, and waters so clear and blue that they look Photoshopped thats Calaguas. With powdery fine sand like Boracays minus the crowds, it is the kind of private paradise youll want to keep all to yourself, as travel blogger and Bicol local Amer Amor found out. He even claims the sand there is finer than Boracays, one reason why Calaguas made it on top of his list.

This beach is so postcard-perfect that, as Amer points out, Its that one destination that will have everybody asking, Where on earth did you take that picture?

If youre coming from Manila, the journey to this group of islands can be long and rough, with a 7- to 8-hours bus ride to Daet, Camarines Norte, and a two-hours boat ride to the islands.

But travelers like Amer swear that the long trip is more than worth it.

Here are video clips of Calaguas and the boat ride getting there:

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Must-visit white unspoiled beaches in Luzon

Langbroek opens Mackay Northern Beaches State High School

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Topics: john-paul langbroek, northern beaches state high school, opening, politicians

THE new high school at Mackay's Northern Beaches is an example of how the State Government plans to redirect funds from smaller schools to growing areas.

Minister for Education, Training and Employment John-Paul Langbroek was in Mackay yesterday to officially open the $45million Mackay Northern Beaches State High School.

This opening comes as nine schools across the state face the chopping block.

"The $45million that has come from the government to build this school is an example of where we sometimes have to take revenue from other sources to put into building new schools or improving old ones," Mr Langbroek said.

The Minister said that, like any business, the government needed to look at its assets.

"We need to obviously plan where we've got great growth," he said.

"We need to look at other schools where enrolments might be declining."

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Langbroek opens Mackay Northern Beaches State High School

Beaches – loverslane – Video

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Beaches - loverslane - Video

Beaches ready after repairs post-Sandy

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WESTERLY, R.I. (WPRI) -- After a lot of rebuilding and repair -- in recovery from Superstorm Sandy -- South County's state beaches are ready to open this weekend, say state parks officials.

Sandy caused massive damage, covering some areas in debris -- and tearing apart buildings and structures. The winds also caused major shifts to many dunes, throwing the sand everywhere. "To see what the places look like today, compared to what they looked like in October... It's incredible," said Thomas Mitchell, the superintendent of Rhode Island's State Parks and Beaches.

Crews have been working tirelessly the past six months to restore the beaches, he said.

"They're places people can go. Families can enjoy memories. And we're just glad we can give the people the opportunity to go there again."

Some minor renovations still need to be done, but the deadline for those is Memorial Day, when the beaches will be open daily.

The cash and person-power it took for restoration is worth it -- because the state benefits from keeping its beaches beautiful, he said. "The communities benefit from it. So, it's extremely important for the economy of the state of Rhode Island... and the money that comes into the state... that the facilities were up and running in time."

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Beaches ready after repairs post-Sandy

Illawarra beaches free of sewage: water plant

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May 8, 2013, 4:07 a.m.

SydneyWater has rejected suggestions untreated sewage is being discharged onto Illawarra beaches during wet weather events.

During heavy rain, the region's stormwater and wastewater goes through a treatment process involving de-gritting, screening, disinfecting and dechlorination, to remove solids and kill bacteria.

But because of the excessive flows, about 5-10 per cent bypasses the later stages of treatment, including biological processes where bacteria is used to "feed" on the organic material.

MORE: Calls for answers on sewage discharge

Wollongong Water Recycling Plant manager Stewart Ramsay said the partly treated flows had the appearance of drinking water, were heavily diluted by rainfall, and met the requirements of the plant's Environment Protection Authority licence.

The process was described as a "bypass" in line with licensing requirements, but the term was outdated.

"The term bypass, I think it conjures up thoughts of no treatment, but it's just a terminology we use," Mr Ramsay said. "Unfortunately we're stuck with that term."

Treatment processes in the Illawarra came under scrutiny during heavy rain last month when Sydney Water announced a bypass at Bombo Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The government's Beachwatch monitoring service advised swimmers to avoid Bombo and Kiama beaches for the following 24 hours due to pollution.

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Illawarra beaches free of sewage: water plant

Beaches open Sat. for summer

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) -- Ray-catchers and sun worshippers, alert: Rhode Island's beaches are starting to open for business.

After renovation prompted by superstorm Sandy, four state beaches in South County will be open on weekends, starting this Saturday.

The Department of Environmental Management says Scarborough North, Roger Wheeler, East Matunuck and Misquamicut State beaches will be open weekends weather permitting, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., from May 11 until Memorial Day.

"Our world-class, state-of-the-art beach facilities are among the state's major tourist attractions and generate billions of dollars for the local and state economy every year," said DEM director Janet Coit in a news release. The department has just completed months of major repairs and cleanup, Coit said, because of Sandy.

The full schedule of state parks and beach schedules are as follows:

Scarborough North, Roger Wheeler, East Matunuck, Misquamicut: Open weekends starting May 11; daily from Memorial day Lincoln Woods State Park: Open daily starting May 11 Goddard Memorial State Park: Sat-Sun starting May 18; daily from Memorial Day Burlingame Picnic Area, Pulaski Park, George Washington Campground, Fort Adams State Park: Daily starting May 25

The daily beach parking fee for Rhode Islanders is $10 weekdays, $14 weekends and holidays; with a season pass for $60. Those prices double for non-residents. For seniors from Rhode Island, weekday parking is $5, weekends/holidays $7; those prices double for seniors who are not residents. The prices are based on the license plate of the car driving in.

Season passes will be on sale starting May 11, weekends only, at Scarborough North, Roger Wheeler, East Matunuck and Misquamicut State Beaches. The State Parks Office in Johnston does not sell season passes.

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Beaches open Sat. for summer

Shorebirds' crab feast creates spectacle on Delaware beaches

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Several beaches on the shores of Delaware Bay are rendezvous places for many thousands of spawning horseshoe crabs and up to a million migrating shorebirds of several species during the high tide of the new or full moon during the latter half of May.

It is a timed annual meeting, perfected over millennia, when shorebirds migrating to breeding grounds on the Arctic tundra stop on the beaches to get fat eating horseshoe crab eggs. The horseshoe crab gatherings and hordes of shorebirds gorging on those water creatures' tiny, green eggs create some of the world's most inspiring wildlife spectacles.

Living fossils, horseshoe crabs are aquatic arachnids that have gone mostly unchanged during the last 250 million years. They lived before and during the age of dinosaurs. They inhabit estuaries and consume mollusks and worms on the bottoms of them. The largest gatherings of them on Earth come to the sandy beaches of estuaries along the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean to spawn billions of eggs in the sand, up to 100,000 per female.

When spawning, one or a few males, which are half the size of their mates, hang onto each female. As the females crawl up the beach, laying thousands of eggs in each of a series of sandy nests, she drags along the males, which fertilize the tiny eggs in each nursery as they are pulled over them.

Large, noisy flocks of laughing gulls and about 20 kinds of northbound shorebirds crowd Delaware Bay beaches to eat horseshoe crab eggs, creating exciting natural spectacles.

The black-headed laughing gulls are the most common and obvious gull species along the Atlantic Coast in summer. They breed in nearby salt marshes and eat anything edible.

When waves from Delaware Bay wash up on the beaches, these gulls stamp on the sand to make the water carry the sand away, exposing the horseshoe crab eggs that are then easy pickings for the gulls and shorebirds.

Shorebird congregations on Delaware Bay's beaches in May are the second largest concentration of their kind in the Western Hemisphere. Hordes of shorebirds, particularly semi-palmated sandpipers, ruddy turnstones, dunlin, red knots, sanderlings, least sandpipers and short-billed dowitchers, in that arbitrary order of abundance, and other kinds in lesser numbers, throng among breeding horseshoe crabs to feast on their eggs.

Those masses of feeding shorebirds often take off in sudden flight and speed over the water, blocking the view behind them. The birds turn this way and that in perfect unison in mid-air, which shows alternating flashes of brown upperparts, then white bellies, then brown, probably to confuse predators. But soon the great flocks settle on the beaches again, like pebbles tossed across the sand, and each bird immediately begins eating.

Some shorebirds that stop along Delaware Bay beaches to refuel on horseshoe crab eggs are somewhat starved after many miles of nonstop flight for up to four days.

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Shorebirds' crab feast creates spectacle on Delaware beaches

Threat to close 50 of our favourite beaches

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Fifty popular beaches around the UK are unlikely to meet water cleanliness standards

Tests under the latest European Bathing Water Directive could deem some of our favourite beaches unfit, leading to people being banned from going into the water from 2015.

The Environment Agency has warned that more than 50 popular sites around the UK are unlikely to meet water cleanliness standards.

Resorts including Blackpool in Lancashire, East Looe and Penzance in Cornwall and Lyme Regis, in Dorset, are at risk.

Other sites at Southsea in Hampshire, Hastings, East Sussex, and Walpole Bay, in Margate, Kent, could also be out of bounds to swimmers.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: If a beach does not pass the test, visitors will be told by way of a notice that bathing is not allowed or recommended in the water.

Tourism bosses said visitors will mistakenly think water quality has fallen if beaches are suddenly labelled unfit for swimming.

If a beach does not pass the test, visitors will be not told that bathing is not recommended

If a beach does not pass the test, visitors will be told by way of a notice that bathing is not allowed or recommended in the water

An Environment Agency spokesman

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Threat to close 50 of our favourite beaches

Beaches to be blacklisted for swimming under new EU rules

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Among those likely to be ruled too polluted for bathing are popular resorts such as East Looe and Penzance in Cornwall, Lyme Regis in Dorset, Blackpool in Lancashire, and Southsea in Hampshire.

They have been favourite bank holiday destinations for British families for decades and the local economies rely heavily on the large numbers of visitors that the beaches attract.

Others at risk are Seaton Carew Centre beach near Hartlepool, which won a blue flag award last year, and Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, which is currently rated as having the highest standards of bathing water.

The change in regulations is likely to anger many in seaside communities who see further tightening of the regulations as unnecessary.

Since the current standards were put in place under the European Bathing Water Directive in the 1970s, much of the sewage outflow that caused pollution has been dramatically reduced.

But the new rules will leave beaches more vulnerable to water running off farmland where leakage from animal dung and silage can lead to elevated levels of harmful bacteria and from urban areas where misconnected drains can lead to pollution.

Dog fouling and bird droppings are also considered to be major sources of bacteria that can lead to beaches failing safety tests and as a result, some local authorities have resorted to banning dog owners from walking their pets on beaches in an attempt to reduce pollution from their waste.

The heavy rains and flooding during last year also resulted in the water quality in many areas falling significantly as sewers and drains overflowed and surface pollution from roads and farmland was washed into the sea.

Testing by the Marine Conservation Society showed that only 403 beaches could be classed as suitable for swimming.

However, a revised European Bathing Water Directive which is due to come into force in 2015 will require water to be twice as clean to achieve the highest standard a rating of Excellent.

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Beaches to be blacklisted for swimming under new EU rules

Starved sea lion pups washing up on California beaches

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Home News World Starved sea lion pups washing up on California beaches HUNDREDS of starving sea lion pups are being washed on to Californias beaches. Published: Sun, May 5, 2013

More than 1,400 dying baby sea lions have been found in two months

More than 1,400 dying babies have been found in two months.

Marine biologists are baffled by the more than tenfold increase in pup deaths and the US government has pledged funds to help solve the mystery.

Sea lion pups wean in April and May and, while some fail to thrive, it has never been at this rate

Sea lion pups wean in April and May and, while a number fail to thrive, it has never been at this rate

Development director Melissa Sciacca

One recipient will be the Pacific Marine Mammal Centre in Laguna Beach, south of Los Angeles.

Development director Melissa Sciacca told the Sunday Express: Sea lion pups wean in April and May and, while a number fail to thrive, it has never been at this rate.

Scientists are focusing on food shortages and disease as likely causes.

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Starved sea lion pups washing up on California beaches

Final spring razor clam digs approved on two coastal beaches

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The last spring coastal razor clam digs were approved for May 8-14 at Twin Harbors and May 10-11 at Long Beach, but Copalis and Mocrocks beaches are now closed for the season.

Digging on the two open beaches will be allowed until noon each day.

We still have clams available for harvest at Twin Harbors and Long Beach, and we want to give diggers a chance to catch their limit before the season comes to an end, Dan Ayres, the head state Fish and Wildlife coastal shellfish managersaid in a news release. After this opening, well take another look at how the catch on those beaches measures up against the harvest guidelines.

Low tides: May 8, Wednesday, 6:22 a.m., minus-0.5 feet; May 9, Thursday, 7 a.m., -0.8; May 10, Friday, 7:37 a.m., -0.9; May 11, Saturday, 8:12 a.m., -0.8; May 12, Sunday, 8:48 a.m., -0.7; May 13, Monday, 9:23 a.m., -0.5; and May 14, Tuesday, 10:01 a.m., -0.2.

Digging April 24-30 was excellent with 15-clam daily limits being the rule although turnout seemed to be on the light side.

A total of 51,208 digger trips were taken for a total of 770,023 clams harvested at Long Beach, Copalis and Mocrocks beaches open April 26-29, and Twin Harbors open April 24-30. Digging since the season opened on Oct 13 has been excellent when the weather allowed diggers out onto beaches.

Diggers must keep the first 15 clams dug regardless of size or condition. Each diggers clams must be kept in a separate container.

All diggers over age 15 or older must have a fishing license. For details, go to https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov.

(Photo taken by Mark Yuasa)

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Final spring razor clam digs approved on two coastal beaches

Naples leaders urge Collier commissioners to reject sand-hauling to beaches

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Naples Mayor John Sorey on NewsMakers 11-11-12.

NAPLES A dispute over how to renourish Collier Countys beaches later this year ratcheted up Friday with a letter of objection from Naples City Hall.

The Naples City Council, through a letter from Mayor John Sorey to county commissioners, called on county leaders to toss out sand haulers proposals to truck sand to the beach and rebid the beach renourishment project for dredging companies only.

Hauling the sand from an inland pit in Immokalee to beaches in central Naples, Park Shore and Vanderbilt Beach would clog city and county roads with 23,000 truck trips, damaging roads and causing traffic tie-ups, Sorey writes in his letter.

Periodic beach renourishment is essential, but it must be accomplished in ways that will least disrupt the Collier County community, Sorey wrote.

Collier County staff received beach project bids late last month, but only truck haulers submitted proposals. A dredging company said the bid documents were too complex for dredgers, who pump sand to the beach from offshore, to be able to make an accurate bid.

The county opened the bidding to both sand haulers and dredgers and asked for bids to be made on various-sized beach projects in an attempt to save tourist tax money that pays for the project.

County purchasing agents were unable to declare a low bidder at the deadline for submitting bids because of the way the truck haulers responded to the bids.

The bids have been under review to come up with a cost, but project managers have hinted that the bids might have to be thrown out.

Sorey wrote that past truck-haul projects, even though they amounted to a few hundred truck trips, still were disruptive: lines of up to 10 trucks blocked traffic, trucks strayed from prescribed routes, police officers needed to direct traffic and trucks were noisy and spewed exhaust.

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Naples leaders urge Collier commissioners to reject sand-hauling to beaches


  1. Beaches