According to our staff from environmental and also from our County Attorney's Office.
See the latest opinions from just this morning, below.
From the county attorney's office:
Commissioner:
I agree with Tim’s opinion that public beach access was not
created by the use of public funding to construct the emergency berm on Perdido
Key following Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis.
As you know, the boundary between private land and sovereign
state land is the mean high-water line (MHWL). It may help expand on
Tim’s email to provide a brief explanation of how the MHWL is established and
how it moves over time.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
maintains series of water level monitoring stations off the coast of the Gulf
of Mexico that measure the changes in the tides. The tides are influenced
by the moon, and the mean high-water level is calculated as the rolling average
of the high tides over a 19-year period (which is one lunar cycle). The
intersection of the horizontal projection of the mean high-water level and the
coastline forms the MHWL.
As I mentioned in my earlier email, the MHWL moves as
gradual imperceptible changes occur with the tidal average and the natural
movement of the coastline through processes of erosion and accretion.
However, the MHWL does not change due to avulsion. Avulsion is the sudden
or perceptible loss or addition of land along the coastline; hurricanes and
beach renourishment projects are considered avulsive events. So, although
the hurricanes may have perceptibly caused the beach to recede north, the MHWL
remained in the same place after the hurricanes as it was the day before.
Accordingly, the renourishment projects that restored the emergency berm north
of the MHWL on Perdido Key placed sand on private property, and it remained
private property after the completion of the project.
