Melbourne, Fla., used rocks in emergency shoreline erosion project to save power pole & road. City opted for non-environmentally friendly "gray" structure due to time constraints, but plans to plant mangroves for long-term protection. Trend in Brevard County shifting towards "living shorelines" to restore natural balance.
Photo courtesy of Jon Olson
The Melbourne Project looking towards Pineapple Avenue, with the Indian River on the left.
Some might say this project "rocks," at least in how fast it got done.
But in an emergency, officials in Melbourne, Fla., had to do things the hard way — and not exactly the most environmentally friendly way — to save a power pole and a stretch of Pineapple Avenue.
Melbourne crews recently finished a $451,265 project to stabilize 137 yds. of the roadway's embankment slope along the Indian River Lagoon, just north of Hiawatha Street. To get the work completed, the city covered 100 percent of the work's cost.
Florida Today noted Aug. 18 that in a June 21 memorandum to City Manager Jenni Lamb, Melbourne public works and utilities officials wrote, "The embankment has washed out to the extent that a power transmission pole foundation is in jeopardy of being undermined."
Melbourne Could Not Wait On Mangroves to Grow
To secure shorelines, especially after hurricanes or when erosion leads to an emergency situation, cities and communities across many areas of Florida, including Melbourne in Brevard County, often opt for large rocks, concrete seawalls and other "gray" structures, rather than mangroves, shellfish and other "green" methods.
But it is the "living shorelines" that combine manufactured wave breaks, mangroves and other native vegetation — options that offer much less expensive and better long-term protection, and are more lagoon-friendly, according to some experts.
In the case of Melbourne, located on Central Florida's Space Coast, south of Cape Canaveral, municipal officials told Florida Today that they had no time to wait for mangroves and other plants to grow.
With an eye on the future, though, Melbourne officials said that they have approached the Brevard Zoo about the possibility of the nature sanctuary helping to plant mangroves in front of the rocks along Pineapple Avenue sometime in the future.
The emergency shoreline restoration project was completed two weeks ahead of schedule, reported Florida Today in Viera. The erosion was not tied to any specific storm, meaning the city could not pursue reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the project's cost.
Shenandoah General Construction, a Melbourne contractor, used 1,335 tons of different-sized rocks to stabilize 410 ft. of the Indian River Lagoon shoreline. The work restabilized the road shoulder, protected the foundations of the Florida Power & Light (FPL) transmission pole at the site, and will prevent future erosion, city officials told the newspaper. FPL officials had expressed concerns to the city about the transmission pole.
No water or sewer pipes were at risk because they had already been relocated.
To complete the project, crews backfilled dirt and installed a geotextile fabric underlayment, as well as a 6-in.-thick layer of bedding stone, a 2-ft.-thick layer of rip-rap rock rubble, a turf reinforcement mat, pin-fastened sod and a contingency 52 tons of asphalt pavement replacement.
The stabilization effort required an administrative budget transfer of $230,000 from Melbourne's general projects unappropriated budget savings.
In speaking with Florida Today, city leaders added that there is another nearby 350-ft. section of Pineapple Avenue to the north of the just-completed project that may soon need the same sort of rock armor; however, the portion of the street with the FPL poles that feed downtown Eau Gallie needed attention first.
Rock Use Not Seen as Longtime Solution for Lagoon
Rock and concrete seawalls blunt horseshoe crabs and other marine life and plants that can secure shorelines, such as mangroves, which like other trees are a significant countermeasure to climate change. In Brevard County, 80 percent of mangroves have vanished since the 1950s.
Mangrove leaves drop into the water and shed nutrients that sustain the tiny crabs and other marine life that fish eat.
Recently, the tide has been turning toward bringing estuaries like the lagoon back to their roots. Sunshine State cities are beginning to remove what is left of the "old guard" rock and concrete seawalls, as those fail in hurricanes, and now are trying to mimic with mangroves and other plants what nature did for millennia.
For example, earlier this summer, Brevard County launched a $4.2 million project to guard the A. Max Brewer Memorial Parkway in nearby Titusville with huge, pyramid-shaped concrete wave breaks, baby clams, seagrass plantings and sand.
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