J. Kyle Foster | Naples Daily News
Tigertail Beach and outlying Sand Dollar Island on Marco Island have been renourished after damage from storms in 2024.
Naples-based coastal engineering firm Humiston & Moore implemented what will be an ongoing plan to protect the natural elements, the water quality and the homes and condos behind them, reusing sand pushed by the storms instead of importing it. This north part of Marco Island has been retreating over the past few decades at a rate of 40 to 50 feet a year, said Humiston & Moore Vice President Mohamed Dabees, who presented results of the project at the Marco Island City Council meeting Tuesday night.
About 200,000 yards of sand was used for the renourishment.
“That project is a ground-breaking project, because it set a very good precedent of working with nature in the sense that it’s not a typical project where we’re building hard structures. It’s a project that uses land force to make energy dissipation from storms,” Dabees said at the Feb. 18 meeting.
“(Hurricane) Irma started the collapse of that system,” he said. That’s when Marco and Dabees started to create this ongoing plan for using Sand Dollar Island, considered a spit, the lagoon and the surrounding mangroves to create a protective barrier. Each protecting the other. The spit that serves as a berm, the sand, the float (or marked) channel, the lagoon and the mangroves serve to absorb the energy caused by storms. All of which help protect the buildings and the rest of the island behind them.
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