Idalia Brings Flooding to Sand Dollar Island

Marco Island declared a State of Emergency on Monday, August 28th, in anticipation of Hurricane Idalia. On August 29th, Idalia managed to dump rain and several feet of storm surge even though it was over 100 miles off Marco’s coast. Idalia affected Sand Dollar Island, altering the landscape with several breaches and sand erosion. Once again, Mother Nature vs. manmade fixes is being played out at Sand Dollar Island as we enter the hurricane month of September.

What happened to all the sea turtle nests on Sand Dollar Island? For now, it is difficult to ascertain how many sea turtle nests remain viable after the overwash. It might take some time before monitors get an accurate count of what survived. I’ve reached out to Maura Kraus, the Principal Environmental Specialist in charge of the Collier County Sea Turtle Monitoring Program, and I am waiting for an update. 

May 2023 started an “off year” for the nesting loggerheads as they ended their first nesting month with 294 recorded false crawls, with most of them occurring at the dredging site on Sand Dollar Island. For the entire year of 2022, 214 false crawls were recorded.

We are now into the fifth month of sea turtle season, and false crawls outnumber nests by approximately three to one this season. A false crawl is when the female loggerhead comes ashore to nest, and for whatever reason, she goes back to the water without depositing her eggs in the sand.

What changed for the 2023 sea turtle nesting season? In May 2023 returning female loggerheads to Sand Dollar Island encountered the ongoing dredging project called “2022 Tigertail Lagoon/Sand Dollar Island Ecosystem Restoration Project.” At a nearby pumping station, there even was a floating carcass of a dead sea turtle, the cause of death which is still under investigation by FWC Law Enforcement.

It is often said that you destroy one place to replace it with another – and that’s what happened with Marco’s Critical Wildlife Area (CWA) located on a spit of sand called Sand Dollar Island. Mangroves, shoreline vegetation, bird nesting areas and sea turtle nesting habitat – an entire ecosystem altered and replaced with sand dredged from an offshore borrow area.

The “2022 Tigertail Lagoon/Sand Dollar Island Ecosystem Restoration Project'' was “to restore Sand Dollar Island to its pre-2017 condition and to eliminate the overwash that is closing off the flow of water into the Tigertail Lagoon.” It involved multiple dredging components and according to Humiston & Moore Engineer’s, Mohammed Dabees, the “project is part of a nature-based adaptive management plan to restore and stabilize the sandspit and tidal lagoon through cyclic use of sediment within the system so periodic dredging and sand restoration will be needed in the future.” 

The project started in November 2022 – two months after the devastating effects of Hurricane Ian, which made landfall into Southwest Florida on September 28, 2022. The “restoration project” continued through June 2023 and changed the landscape into a “highway of sand,” which caused significant disruption to nesting loggerheads coming ashore to nest.

According to Dabees, the project’s cost could range from $2.9 - $3.9 million and advised the Hideaway Taxing District to budget for $4 million. A $700,000 loan was approved by City Council in August 2021. Additional funding also came from Collier County Tourist Development Council (TDC) in the form of reimbursement to the City for work completion and payment of the dredging of 85,000 cubic yards from offshore borrow area for the portion adjacent to the Tigertail public beach. The Project is being paid for by the City of Marco Island’s Tax District for Hideaway Beach.

How Often? Three to five years time frame with minor maintenance in between.

What’s next? Idalia created several breaches on Sand Dollar Island, and according to Dabees, they are “assessing the impacts on the protective berm and anticipate required maintenance post storms such as regrade and restore the berm.”