Beach renourishment in Brevard in Space Coast, Florida

Brevard County lists four shoreline segments with beach and dune restoration projects between Jetty Park and Sebastian Inlet, and leaves out the federal Patrick Space Force Base shoreline (Brevard County Beach Management Program).

Three of the four segments make up the federal Brevard County Shore Protection Project, which the US Army Corps of Engineers manages with Brevard County as the local sponsor (Brevard County Beach Management Program). The North Reach runs from the Port Canaveral Jetty to the northern border of Patrick Space Force Base, the Mid Reach from the base's southern border to Flug Avenue in Indialantic, and the South Reach from Flug Avenue to Spessard Holland Park North. The fourth segment, the South Beaches, is a county project with no federal partner that runs south from Spessard Holland to Sebastian Inlet State Park, a stretch the county gives as 14.5 miles (Brevard County Restoration Projects page).

The official lengths do not agree, and the gaps are shown here rather than resolved. The Corps describes a North Reach of 9.4 miles and a South Reach of 3.4 miles, and says the Mid Reach began as 7.8 miles excluded from the original project because of near shore hard grounds (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

Sources for the table: (Brevard County Beach Management Program), (Brevard County Restoration Projects page) and (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

The state designates a continuous shoreline segment south of Canaveral Inlet as critically eroded (FDEP Critically Eroded Beaches in Florida, June 2026), and Florida law lets the state pay part of the cost of restoring and nourishing a critically eroded beach (Section 161.101, Florida Statutes).

In its June 2026 report, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection counts two critically eroded areas totaling 41.2 miles and two non-critically eroded areas totaling 12.1 miles in Brevard County (FDEP Critically Eroded Beaches in Florida, June 2026). South of Canaveral Inlet, a continuous 36.5-mile segment from monument R1 to R202 is designated critically eroded, and the department says the southernmost 11.5 miles of it became critically eroded after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. The threatened resources it lists are development, recreational interests and wildlife habitats.

North of the inlet, a 4.7-mile segment along Kennedy Space Center is critically eroded, threatening launch pads, Phillips Parkway and buried infrastructure, and the department says beach and dune restoration there is being investigated (FDEP Critically Eroded Beaches in Florida, June 2026). Two Canaveral National Seashore areas farther north are listed as non-critically eroded and are not monitored.

The report says Brevard is reviewed annually and that its most recent revisions were made in June 2012 (FDEP Critically Eroded Beaches in Florida, June 2026). The Port's north jetty is part of the story as well. Brevard County says the jetty interrupts the natural southerly flow of sand and is estimated to cause losses of approximately 156,000 cubic yards a year on the beaches south of the inlet, which the federal Sand Bypass Project offsets by moving sand from north of the inlet to the Cape Canaveral shoreline (Brevard County Restoration Projects page).

Brevard County's project history records sand placements on every reach since 2000, from the 2.8 million cubic yard initial North Reach fill to smaller storm repairs after 2004 and 2012 (Brevard County Restoration Projects page).

The offshore Canaveral Shoals borrow area supplied the 2014 North Reach sand from about 6 miles east of Cape Canaveral, and the county calls it the sand source for the entire North Reach (Brevard County Restoration Projects page). The Patrick Space Force Base shoreline has its own record: the county page says four projects implemented and managed by the U.S. Air Force have taken place there since 1998, starting with a 1998 truck haul of 165,000 cubic yards.

The Mid Reach was left out of the federal project for years because of nearshore coquina rock outcrops, and it joined formally only when a Project Partnership Agreement was signed on August 31, 2016 (Brevard County Restoration Projects page).

Brevard County explains that the rocks, sometimes loosely called worm rock, shelter fish, marine turtles and attached plants and animals, and that the National Marine Fisheries Service designates them Essential Fish Habitat (Brevard County Restoration Projects page). The state and federal permits the county obtained allow burial of up to 3 acres of rock, and the impact is to be mitigated with an artificial reef of about 4.8 acres at ten sites roughly 1,000 feet from the beach.

The county's Mid Reach record gives May 2017 as the start of reef placement at the ten sites (Brevard County Restoration Projects page). The Corps project summary records the Mid Reach mitigation contract award in September 2016, with a period of performance from April 2017 to August 2018 limited to the May to August work months (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County). The county's Beach Management Program page states that North Reach and Mid Reach restoration work in response to Hurricane Ian and Tropical Storm Nicole was completed in 2024 to 2025 (Brevard County Beach Management Program).

The Corps awarded a fully federal storm rehabilitation contract for the Mid and South Reaches (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

The county reports the North and Mid Reach work completed in 2024 to 2025 and the South Reach work not finished within its contracted window (Brevard County Beach Management Program).

According to the Jacksonville District, a $47.6 million contract went to The Dutra Group of San Rafael, California, on Sept. 29 for a Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies rehabilitation of both reaches (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County). The release describes approximately 1.125 million cubic yards of sand on 11.5 miles of critically eroded beach from the southern border of Patrick Space Force Base through Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach and Indialantic to Spessard Holland Beach Park in Melbourne Beach, dredged from a borrow site approximately 8 nautical miles offshore from Port Canaveral, in two phases: the Mid Reach from late November through April 2024, then again from November 2024 with an estimated completion in April 2025. It also states that the rehabilitation is 100 percent federally funded to restore damages from Hurricanes Ian and Nicole.

A March 14, 2024 release changed the order of work because of delays in equipment availability: crews focused on the Mid Reach dunes between South Patrick Shores and roughly the Indian Harbour Beach Club until nesting season began on April 30 (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

Brevard County now says the South Reach between Spessard Holland Park and Flug Avenue was contracted for nourishment between December 2025 and April 2026, and that the Corps and Dutra Group failed to meet that deadline because of equipment problems (Brevard County Beach Management Program). The county's Beach Management Program page posts the revised South Reach schedule and links a South Reach progress map.

Brevard County's project records show costs shared among the federal government, the state and the county (Brevard County Restoration Projects page), and the county's share of most projects draws on the tourist bed tax collected from hotels and motels (Brevard County Beach Management Program).

The county says its Tourist Development Council has dedicated a portion of the bed tax to the local cost share of most county beach management projects (Brevard County Beach Management Program). Its project history shows one split in detail: for the 2009 to 2010 South Reach work, the federal share was $7.0 million (56.3%), the state share $2.6 million (20.8%) and the county share $2.8 million (22.9%), out of $12.4 million in total, with the county money collected from local hotels as a Local Option Tourist Development Tax (Brevard County Restoration Projects page). Storm repairs can be different: the 2014 Hurricane Sandy work on the North and South Reaches was 100% federal, the county says (Brevard County Restoration Projects page), and the Corps calls the post-Ian and Nicole rehabilitation 100 percent federally funded (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

State law sets the rules for the state share of Brevard County projects. Under Section 161.101, the state may pay up to 75 percent of the actual costs of restoring and nourishing a critically eroded beach, with the local government responsible for the balance, and assists with an equitable share of the nonfederal cost of a project Congress has authorized (Section 161.101, Florida Statutes). The same section requires a state-funded project to provide adequate public access and protection for threatened and endangered species, and bars state funding for projects that provide only recreational benefits.

Sand placement on Brevard beaches pauses for sea turtle nesting (Brevard County Restoration Projects page), and the county says no dune restoration project is truly complete without native vegetation (Brevard County Beach Management Program).

The project history shows the deadline shaping the work: in 2002 about one mile of beach north of Nance Park in Indialantic could not be finished before the May 1st start of nesting season, and in 2000 no sand went on the beach until the nesting season ended (Brevard County Restoration Projects page). The Corps' own 2024 release names April 30 as the date when all work on the beach must cease (USACE Jacksonville District, Brevard County).

On the South Beaches, the county completed dune sand placement from Bonsteel Park northward to Spessard Holland Park South between December 2025 and April 2026, then planted sea oats from April 6 to 18, 2026, in some of the most eroded areas (Brevard County Beach Management Program). The Dune Vegetation page lists the native species used in previous county dune reconstruction projects: railroad vine, beach elder, panicgrass, salt joint grass, beach cordgrass, sea purslane and sea oats (Brevard County Dune Vegetation page). The county adds that dune plants also act as a visual barrier for nesting turtles, without which a turtle risks venturing onto A1A, and that habitual foot traffic kills the plants.

Questions about a specific reach go to Brevard County Natural Resources Management at (321) 633-2016, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera (Brevard County Beach Management Program). The Space Coast sea turtle nesting guide covers the lighting rules that apply once the sand is in place.

Last verified: October 21, 2026, after re-reading the Brevard County Beach Management Program, Restoration Projects and Dune Vegetation pages, the Corps' Brevard project page and releases, the Brevard section of the June 2026 FDEP critically eroded report and Section 161.101.