Island Restoration Advocates Shift Debate

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The new argument: Dauphin Island's west end needs to be saved because it protects Mobile from storms
Sunday, November 20, 2005
By RUSS HENDERSON
Staff Reporter

DAUPHIN ISLAND -- When Hurricane Katrina's storm surge dramatically shifted this barrier island's western end northward and destroyed about 200 houses there, it also changed the debate over whether and how the island's beach should be saved.

People on Dauphin Island no longer emphasize the importance of protecting the tax revenue that came from the hundreds of profitable rental houses that comprised an estimated 75 percent of west-end dwellings.

Instead, they're repeating what some coastal engineers have said for years: That the island could shrink away as it migrates, and if it does, Mobile County's primary bulwark against storms will be gone.

In the same way that the disappearance of Louisiana's wetlands made New Orleans more vulnerable to Katrina, the absence of Dauphin Island could open south Mobile County to greater flooding and destruction, said island resident and former island Planning Commission member Brad Cox.

"There may be more things at stake here than our houses and roads," Cox said.

Scott Douglass, a coastal engineer at the University of South Alabama, said that if Dauphin Island's west end washed away, the fishing community on the mainland to the north in Bayou La Batre would become a "sandy shoreline. It will erode very rapidly until it begins to stabilize."

Katrina's storm surge bulldozed the west end's Gulf beach about 50 feet northward, while extending the northside beach by nearly the same amount, said Abby Sallenger, coastal restoration scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

But how much it protected Bayou La Batre during the storm is uncertain, Sallenger said. A surge of about 20 feet flooded almost all of the Bayou's dwellings, leaving more than 500 families homeless.

"The waves were going right over the island, though they were crashing a good bit, too. The island was dissipating some energy, but it's hard to say how much," Sallenger said.

Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright said he believes that Katrina's damage to his city would have been far worse were it not for the west end of Dauphin Island. "The island is like a car airbag for us," Wright said. "It's absolutely important to me that something's done to restore the west end." Douglass has long maintained that the west end is vanishing, although the process could take many years. He blames the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose dredging of Mobile Ship Channel, he says, has robbed Dauphin Island and neighboring barrier islands of an estimated 20 million cubic yards of sand since 1970.

Although Alabama coastal communities have raised millions in municipal and state dollars in recent years for full-scale beach renourishment projects, Dauphin Island has landed only federal funds for sand walls -- known as berms -- intended for flood mitigation. Part of the problem has been that the west end beach is privately owned, which complicates prospects for public funding.

In 2000, a $1 million berm was placed on the west end's Gulf beach to put a temporary stop to flooding, which happened during even moderate storms. The berm washed away 27 months later.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency now plans on a $4 million project -- a $2 million "bench" to replace some lost beach and a new, larger $2 million berm. The money was originally allotted for damages from Tropical Storm Isidore in 2002, but the money was rolled over as a post-Katrina project, said Mayor Jeff Collier.

The exact location of the new berm remains to be determined because major storms have altered the shape of the island, Collier said.

Such projects will do nothing to stabilize the island's west end, Douglass said.

The Dauphin Island Property Owners Association after Katrina has offered to make the west end beach public if the federal government offers funds for restoration. The association this month sent a letter to Alabama's congressional delegation and to Gov. Bob Riley, expressing their willingness to make the 3½ miles of west end beach and the 166-acre island golf course a public park.

The letter also asked for help in encouraging a quick settlement of the association's lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers, which blames the agency for the island's erosion problem. The settlement could result in a federally funded $7.6 million beach restoration project.

Representatives for U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, and Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, had no comment Friday. U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, who last month said Dauphin Island's beach would have to be open to the public as a condition of receiving federal aid, welcomed the concession but cautioned that the outcome of the corps lawsuit will probably play a major role in what happens next.

Douglass said that only a real beach renourishment project could help the island withstand future storms. An endless series of flood mitigation berms would be a "shameful waste of taxpayer money," Douglass said.

Last week, federal officials turned down a Baldwin County request to spend an estimated $17 million to restore 20 miles of beaches from Daphne to Weeks Bay. The proposal was turned down in part because federal funding couldn't be spent on the primarily private beaches in the area.

This talk of government-funded beach restoration comes during tight times for FEMA. The agency's National Flood Insurance Program for the first time is considering cutting off coverage for some properties.

Congress has asked the agency to examine the claims filed by owners of repeatedly flooded homes, said Josie Pritchard of FEMA. Under the microscope are properties that have flooded four times or those that have flooded fewer times but have received insurance payments greater than the value of the home.

From 1978 to 2004, more than 50,000 properties nationwide have had multiple claims totaling about $2.7 billion, according to agency data. FEMA is talking of a new emphasis on buyouts, but it's uncertain whether there's enough funds to do that.

FEMA always has more people wanting to move out of floodplains than the agency has funds to accommodate, said FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney.

(Register Washington Bureau Reporter Sean Reilly contributed to this report.)