Sandscript
Weather woes near and far; inlet stories continue
Sometimes, procrastination pay off.
The usual post-hurricane season wrap-up got buried last week. Now it seems that the delay was warranted, what with Tropical Storm Odette and Tropical Storm Peter churning through the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean.
Odette is the first tropical storm to ever form in the Caribbean in December. Peter kicked in Tuesday morning in the mid-Atlantic with winds of 70 mph. It caps a hurricane season that was busy and peculiar.
We had - have - 16 named storms, with seven reaching hurricane force and three becoming ranked as "severe," with winds in excess of 111 mph.
An average year has 10 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes and two of them being classed as severe. It was, in short, a busy storm season, which officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.
And it started so early that perhaps the true "hurricane season" estimates should be revisited, what with Tropical Storm Ana forming in the Atlantic Ocean in late April, five weeks before the official start of the season.
It would appear that storms don't mind our calendar projections.
Big British chill?
My friend Gretchen Edgren sent me a note from friends in England that quite literally is chilling:
"Britain could be plunged into a 100-year-long winter within the next century, scientists have warned."
It seems that studies of the Gulf Stream are finding that the big ocean current that starts just south of Florida and flows up the eastern United States before downswelling off England is becoming less saline.
More salt, warmer water. Less salt, cooler water.
And, of course, it's all on account of global warming.
"Global warming threatens the Gulf Stream because it is predicted to produce more freshwater, which would dilute the salty waters of the current," according to a British news report. "This, in turn, would stop it sinking, and if this happened the heat it carries would be cut off."
A scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has put the likelihood of an "abrupt plunge in British temperatures within the next 100 years at 50 percent. ÔIt will be quick, and suddenly one decade we're warm, and the next decade we're in the coldest winter we've experienced in the last 100 years, but we're in it for 100 years,'" he said.
Another scientist from the Fisheries Research Service in Aberdeen, Scotland, was more blunt in his assessment of the climate change data. "We were really worried when we saw these results" he said. "We'd never seen a change like this before. These changes are fundamental. They are substantial. They are going to impact our climate and the climate our children have to live in."
There is one bright spot in the colder weather forecast, though - colder water means less hurricanes in the Atlantic.
Dr. William Gray, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, has studied tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic for more than 20 years, and concurs that the salinity is lessening in the Gulf Stream.
However, Gray predicts that the cycle runs for about 25 years, not the 100 that the Brits are claiming.
We'll just have to wait and see who's right.
Reopening Midnight Pass approved
Twenty years ago this week, bulldozers and backhoes were feverishly trying to keep water flowing in a ditch between Siesta and Casey keys in an effort to relocate that pesky Midnight Pass. The efforts failed, and the inlet closed.
Now, Sarasota County commissioners want to give opening the pass another shot, pending federal, state and regional environmental regulator permits.
This time, the effort will be a whole lot more than a ditch.
The proposal offered by coastal engineer Karyn Erickson calls for 390,000 cubic yards of sand to be moved. The pass would be 500 feet wide, 400 feet long, 12 feet deep and run something like 2,500 feet to the Intracoastal Waterway in Little Sarasota Bay. The sand would go toward badly eroded beaches on south Siesta Key and northern Casey Key.
Erickson, when she gets the expected contract with the county, will be paid $300,000 for her consulting skills with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and whole slew of other agencies.
Cost of the dredging is estimated at $3.8 million, with another $11.2 million needed during the next 30 years to maintain the channel in an open state.
The Midnight Pass saga is interesting because it highlights the vagaries of coastal inlets throughout Southwest Florida - including Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key.
Inlets move north and south unless they are "armored" with jetties or rock revetments or seawalls, and even then they tend to shoal. A long-term trend for our part of the state is erosion of beaches, and the sand from the shore usually ends up in the inlets in a kind of white, sandy landfill.
Just look at Longboat Pass to see what happens with an inlet. A year ago, the shoreline at Beer Can Island had eroded to the Australian pine trees. Now, there is a big, wide, white beach there.
A couple of years ago, there was a deep channel that ran from the bridge along the north end of Longboat Key, Today, it's a sandbar.
In fact, there historically was an inlet at the north end of Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach. Today it's the narrowest section of the Island and could one day again open as a tidal pass.
And I remember as a little Roat being carried on my dad's shoulders across an inlet that separated Longboat Key from Beer Can Island, then a true Island sticking out in the middle of Longboat Pass.
The area where my dad carried me today has a condo on it.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the permits to reopen Midnight Pass. Erickson commented that the time to apply for the permits is right now because, as she put it, the atmosphere in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., is more conducive for such large-scale environmental alterations than in years past.
Could she be hinting at the current administration's somewhat more lax stance on environmental affairs?
Another permit story: No more offshore dumping
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rejected an extension in the permit that allowed offshore dumping of the treated wastewater from the former Piney Point phosphate plant in northern Manatee County.
The plant has had a holding pond full of toxic water at dangerously high levels for a year. Since the plant owners declared bankruptcy, the state was forced to step in and try to get rid of the mess. Offshore dispersal was deemed the best of a bunch of bad options, and federal officials reluctantly allowed the discharge offshore via barge for several months of this year.
Now, no more, and the treated water will be slowly sent out to sea through Bishop Harbor.
Jillian Hoffman coming to Island Jan. 10
Mystery novelist Jillian Hoffman will be on the Island Jan. 10 to talk about her first novel, "Retribution."
The book is a legal thriller that takes place on Florida's east coast. Hoffman knows from what she speaks in the courtroom, because in real life she's an attorney with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
What makes her first book especially interesting isn't found on the pages but in its formation. She had a bidding war going on between eight publishing houses for "Retribution," with Putnam winning out.
Most first-time-out authors have to beg to get someone to publish their book; for eight of the biggest publishers to go after a novice novelist is pretty much unheard of.
Hoffman has also already sold the European rights to the book, and Warner Brothers has bought the film rights and is rumored to already have started development of the film.
Not bad for a book that isn't even in the stores yet, although it should be out any time now.
Hoffman will be at Circle Books on St. Armands Circle at 1 p.m. Jan. 10, and will be at Ooh La La! Bistro in Holmes Beach at 3:30 p.m. Tickets for the cocktail party and book signing at the restaurant are $50, and include a first-edition copy of "Retribution." Reservations are a must, and may be made by calling 778-7978.
Sandscript factoid
"Inlets are natural or manmade channels connecting the coastal Gulf to estuaries with strong tide-induced currents that build up supplies of sand, called shoals, just inside or adjacent to their channels," according to Dr. Gustavo Antonini in his book, "A Historical Geography of Southwest Florida Waterways, Volume 1."
There are four types of inlets in Southwest Florida: tide-dominated, wave-dominated, mixed-energy with straight shape and mixed-energy with offset shape.
Longboat Pass is a tide-dominated inlet with a well-defined ebb-channel and ebb-tidal delta - a big sandbar outside of the inlet.
Longboat Pass is a federally maintained channel which receives periodic dredging to allow navigation through the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. |
