The shifting sands of time – Beach erosion and re-nourishments in Dania Beach.

It was the quintessential postcard beach!

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When I moved back to South Florida in 2006, it was just after a huge beach re-nourishment project had taken place at John U Lloyd State Park (now Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park). This was in response to previous erosion over the decades prior and to hurricanes Katrina and Wilma which had just devastated parts of Florida. As you can see in the images below, the new beach was nice and wide with a good elevation and a small sand ledge.

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My vintage surfski “ONE WAY” on the Park beach in December 2006.
Paddling on Whiskey Creek at Mizell-Johnson (John U Lloyd) State Park in Dania Beach.

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The brand new rejuvenated beach at Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park in December 2006.

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Satellite view of the 2005 – 2006 beach renourishment project at Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.
Click for large version.

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Mizell-Johnson (John U Lloyd) beach aerial view afternoon panorama in April 2012.
Click for a 360 degree interactive panorama!

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Unfortunately, it didn’t take that long for the sand to erode. Already in only five years a lot of it was gone, and by 2017 even before Hurricane Irma the beach had eroded close to the vegetation line. Of course that hurricane didn’t help things at all and the beach showed cliffing right into the vegetation as you can see.

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By April 2017, the Park beach had eroded to the vegetation line.

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Ironically, this sign itself would later become a victim of beach erosion in only a few months!
Pictured in April of 2017.

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Just after Hurricane Irma hit South Florida, the beach was further eroded, September 2017.
Hurricane Irma aftermath at Dania Beach and Mizell Johnson (John U Lloyd) State Park.

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Hurricane Irma aftermath at Dania Beach and Mizell Johnson (John U Lloyd) State Park

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Severe cliffing after Irma in September 2017, yet the vegetation helped to save the beach!
Hurricane Irma aftermath at Dania Beach and Mizell Johnson (John U Lloyd) State Park.

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By July 2019, the (reduced) Park beach naturally stabilized itself into this state.

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Paddling on Whiskey Creek at Mizell-Johnson (John U Lloyd) State Park in Dania Beach.

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Summer storms looming overhead in August 2019 show low tide at the beach.

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High tide up to sand cliffs in September 2019.

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At the start of 2021, a (relatively) small beach re-nourishment took place as part of a general dredging project for Port Everglades in the intracoastal waterway to the west. Essentially the dredged material was pumped and reused as beach fill using large temporary pipes. This was called the “Sand Bypass” project.

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The sand bypass project took place in February of 2021.

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A “crosswalk” on the beach to launch into the ocean, February 2021.
Got me some Loose Change for a Gulfstream Elan Crosstrainer surfski!

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This large iron pipe transferred sand from the intracoastal waterway dredging operation to the beach, February 2021.

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While the dredged fill definitely topped off the beach it also created large 5 to 6 foot tall cliffs at the waterline!

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Six foot beach ledge after the sand bypass job in March of 2021.
The surfski is 20ft long for comparison!

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Pulled up onto the beach ledge in June 2021. Note the Sargassum weeds!

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Satellite view of beach changes from May 2017 to July 2021 at Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.
Click for large version.

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On November 1, 2021, the latest beach re-nourishment project started and is expected to take six months to complete. This project also includes the beaches of Hallandale, Hollywood and the City of Dania Beach. An estimated one million cubic yards of sand will be trucked in and deposited over a six mile stretch of Broward beaches! Why truck in sand? Apparently both Broward and Miami-Dade counties have already exhausted the (easily) accessible offshore sand supply during the last big project.

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Specialized segmented offroad trucks haul the trucked in sand around the beach, Dec 2021.

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The Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park beach is about two miles long, so that would be one third of the million cubic yards, which equals 333333 cu yds. Each truck holds 15 cu yds of sand, so with simple math we can estimate the number of truck loads needed to accomplish this task. This number comes out to about 22222 loads hauled. If this should take six months with an estimated 20 work days per month, we get 120 total working days. Now, we get 185 truck loads per day, or about 23 loads per hour coming into the Park.

This means that for six months a truck will be rolling into the Park every three minutes!

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Beach re-nourishment done one truck load at a time, December 2021.

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The trucked in sand is coming from sand pits near Lake Okeechobee and has been selected to match the type of sand naturally found on the east coast of Florida. Still, this represents a lot of driving and trucking. It’s obviously not an very efficient way to do this kind of job, yet somehow it is cost effective – otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

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The trucked in sand is deposited into large hills to be spread around the beach in Dec 2021.

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Watching all this action from the safety of my surfski in the water, I can not help but see a giant sand box play set. Everything is there – the trucks, the loaders, the noises and lots of sand. Essentially this is what is happening here on a real life scale, just shoving sand around.

Moving sand from Lake O. to Dania Beach, one truck at a time!

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Good article on the scope of Florida’s beach problems

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At the end of 2021, Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park is a construction zone!

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“Mount Dania” towers over the beach at Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park on April 1st, 2022.

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Kayak sliding at Mount Dania! 😮

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Let’s hope this new beach lasts us a while!

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! Bless UP

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© 2022 Flex Maslan / kayakfari.com / awakenthegrass.com. All original photographs, artworks and music in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Flex Maslan, unless otherwise noted. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited.

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With that said..
Blessings friends!

🙂