Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort described their plan to protect the beaches at the resort. In a letter to owners, John Russell, President of Sandestin described it this way:
Unfortunately, it appears we have reached the stage in the oil spill that we need to begin to take proactive steps to protect our beach. This evening, the major operations of the community including the SOA, The Hilton, and our own resort met to concept and fund a plan to proactively respond to the threat of oil on our beach. The plan is simple and implementation begins this evening with a voice mail message to all occupied units.
- Wednesday, perhaps as early as 5 am, heavy equipment will be deployed on our beaches to
begin to scrape clean sand from near the waters edge and push it in to mounds far enough removed from the water line to insure the oil does not touch it. - The second step in the plan is to dig a trench approximately 18 inches deep and only several feet wide just above the high water line. This trench will catch oil if, through high winds or tides, the surf should rise above normal levels.
The two steps should insure that oil damage is minimized and that we will have clean sand to replace any sand lost due to oil. Our beach will remain open during this time; work is expected to continue 16 hours a day through the rest of the week. The plan is to be completed before the
weekend. We will start in front of Finz and work outward both east and west. The last portion we will work is in front of the Beach Club. Our operations will continue to serve our guests, including the Beach Concierge and the Tikki Hut.
We will continue to keep watch along the Destin and Sandestin shorelines and report what we are seeing and hearing.
Please call us at 850.837.1388 if you would like to discuss this.
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