The Tocobaga Memorial Plaza dedicated on June 16 in Indian Shores is impressive. I’ve visited this site several times to compare its accuracy to the historical record from archaeology and
Indian Shores and Indian Rocks Beach say it is past time for a project planned in 2003 to be completed â or at least be given higher priority.
Indian Shores Mayor Patrick Soranno supported by Indian Rocks Beach Mayor Joanne âCookieâ Kennedy appealed to members of Forward Pinellas during an April 14 discussion on the draft multimodal priorities.
Chelsea Favero, planning manager, said Forward Pinellas reviewed and adopted the multimodal priority list each year. Projects are listed in two-tiers, funded and unfunded and projects remain on the list until completed, she said.
However, the draft presented for review contained three unfinished projects that were removed from the list. Two were placeholders for future work on U.S. Alternate 19 and one was an aerial transit feasibility study now underway through Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority.
MADEIRA BEACH â Shoreline protection has traditionally been accomplished through what Jack Cox calls âbrute force.â Miles-long steel breakwaters. Concrete barriers. The dredging of tons of sand or, in a Pinellas County ritual, depositing sand from the depths back onto the beach.
Coxâs company, Edgewater Resources, is among a new group of coastal engineering experts thinking differently.
âWe started exploring the idea of a really fundamental question: What is a breakwater?â he told a group of beach city mayors at a recent meeting of the Barrier Islands Governmental Council, or BIG-C. âWe all have visions of piles of rock or walls built high or concrete caissons. But we said no. A breakwater is something we can put out there to change the wave environment. However we choose to change the wave environment, we are free to work with. There is no constraint to say we canât make something that looks like an island, maybe change the shape of the bott