Chelsea, this article that I am going to read is kind of a continuation of our subcategory of rich people dealing with the impending loss of their oceanfront property.
Okay.
Which apparently there is a vast degree of directions you can go with your emotions when you're a rich person losing your...
Gonna say is there a category or have we just been following up on the same people?
You would think.
Is it why this is broad enough?
This is different people.
And they are facing this issue and dealing with their emotions in a different way than our Bostonian friends or Massachusetts friends.
Can we just establish what the category is called?
I think...
Emotional React.
I...
Rich people getting a little too beachfront?
Hmm...
Maybe something along the lines of rich people and their emotions.
I think that's just the category.
And the ocean.
They're sandy emotions.
Rich people and their emotions and the ocean.
So, Chelsea, this article comes from grist.org, written on June 4th, 2024 by Jake Bittle.
Article title, The Homeowner Mutiny Leaving Florida City's Defenseless Against Hurricanes.
The government is refusing to restore eroded beaches in coastal Florida counties unless homeowners agree to one condition, public access.
Lisa Hendrickson is almost out of sand.
Hendrickson is the mayor of Reddington Shores, Florida, a well-heeled beach town in Pinellas County.
Her town occupies a small section of Razor Thin Barrier Island that stretches down the west side of the sprawling Tampa Bay metro area,
dividing cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg from the Gulf of Mexico.
Many of her constituents have an uninterrupted view of the ocean.
The town's only protection from the Gulf of Mexico's increasingly erratic storms is a pristine beach that draws millions of tourists every year.
But that beach is disappearing fast.
A series of storms culminating in last fall's Hurricane Idalia have eroded most of the sand that protects Reddington Shores and the town around it,
leaving residents just one big wave away from water overtaking their homes.
This perilous situation is the result of a standoff between local residents and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
the federal agency that handles flood prevention and protects many of the nation's beaches.
The corp often rebuilds eroded beaches by hauling in thousands of tons of sand,
but the agency is refusing to deliver $42 million worth of new sand to Pinellas County,
unless the area's coastal property owners grant public access to the slivers of beach behind their homes.
Hundreds of property owners, however, are in turn refusing to sign documents that grant these points of access, which are known as easements.
The face-off has brought the area's storm recovery to a near-standstill.
Is that not blackmail?
Well, what do you mean by blackmail?
Well, like, maybe blackmail's not the word I'm looking for, but they're not...
Yeah, strong-arming.
I'm into making a decision of something because, I mean, they bought the property, like, thinking they had private beach, right?
I mean, technically, but let's... Is that the part you're hung up on?
No, I'm not hung up on the golf.
Okay.
Just making observations.
Well, we'll talk about it at the end.
The standoff highlights growing tensions between the federal government and homeowners in coastal areas that are threatened by climate change.
As sea levels have risen and strong storms have caused greater damage than ever before,
the costs of protecting and ensuring beach fronts in Florida and other states have increased rapidly.
Agencies like the Corp have had to weigh these costs against the interests of property owners in places like the Tampa Bay region.
When those interests come into conflict, populated coastal areas can be left exposed or uninsured,
making them sitting ducks for the next climate-fueled storms.
Quote, our coastlines are the first line of defense against storms, and our golf beaches are just eroding away. I don't know where we go with it now,
or how we come together to work through it.
Hendrickson told Grist.
The Corp's put the easement policy in place decades ago to ensure that it didn't spend public money to restore private beaches,
but the agency didn't begin enforcing the rule in earnest until Superstorm Sandy in 2012,
when the Corp tried to replace disintegrated beaches in New Jersey.
It discovered that it didn't have all the easements that needed.
Local government spent years trying to obtain them, and the state government had to use eminent domain to seize the portions of the beach in order to satisfy the agency.
In the years since, the agency has warned Pinellas County and other local governments that they won't get any more sand,
unless they get easements from all the property owners on their beaches.
The Corp say it first raised the issue with Pinellas back in 2017,
but tensions started rising last year after Adalia eroded the area's beaches to a dangerous degree,
creating a desperate need for new protective sand.
The Corp requires that easement be perpetual, which means that the public will always be able to access the beach area behind an owner's property.
The agency says this is only so that it has the ability to help out after future storms.
When a hurricane wipes out a beach, the Corp's often swoops in to pay for an emergency beach,
replenishment just weeks later, ensuring homes don't wash away.
The agency says that it can't commit to doing this emergency work unless it can be sure that the beach access will remain public for good.
It also says that it needs easements from all property owners in a given area,
because nourishment projects don't work unless they're continuous along an entire stretch of sand.
Pinellas County officials tried their best to obtain these easements,
even going from door to door and pleading with residents to sign for sand.
Nevertheless, around half of the 461 property owners along the barrier islands has refused to grant this.
County officials are still urging residents to submit, but they have obtained few new easements since last year.
The strange thing about the easement controversy is that these waterfront residents don't fully own the beaches behind their houses anyways.
In fact, most of the county's beaches are already public.
State law provides that all Florida beaches with artificial sand are public to the erosion control line,
which is about the same as that which marks the high tide.
In other words, everything from the water to the high tide line is open for anyone to walk, tan, or spread a blanket.
The land in dispute between the corpse and the owner is only the section of sand between the backside of a beach house and the high tide line,
which in many cases is just about a few dozen feet.
Quote, for most of the project, the beach is wide open to the public.
A lot of the easement areas aren't even on the beach. They're in the dune behind the beach,
said John Bishop Pinellas County's coastal management coordinator.
End quote.
Owners' reasons for refusing easements are numerous, but most cite fear that granting public access to the sand behind their property
will encourage tourists to venture up on their dunes or sit on the seawalls behind their homes.
Sure, they can't stop tourists and beachgoers from using the beach that sits between the erosion line and the water,
but they don't want them coming any closer.
I think that's far enough for us to kind of have an idea of what's going on in this story.
Chelsea, do you want to give any opinions on this?
You plan to opine?
I don't... I don't... I just go. I don't plan. I just talk.
I'm just trying to picture how this would be, so their house is in the middle of the beach?
Well, it's on beach. It's just like...
It is on beach. That doesn't sound smart in the first place.
No, it sounds awful. And in fact, let's look at a picture of Pinellas County.
Yeah, can we?
So, I mean, eventually, if they wait long enough, the whole front of their house is going to be public beach anyway.
Yeah, pretty much.
And if they're lucky, to the back of their house as well.
And yeah, that's... I find it hilarious that they would rather their houses be swept away by the ocean
than have common folk come nearer their property.
Probably just a sunbathe and not bother anybody.
Yeah, because let's face it, if they were going to do anything anyways,
they're probably going to do it and it would be illegal either way.
True.
But I find that hilarious.
They only got half of the people to sign off on saving their property.
The government putting $47 million towards saving your property.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say if we're going to put public money into it,
the public needs to be able to access it.
Well, the reasoning was there. I will say that much.
And more probably.
Waiting for this picture, though. I'm trying to picture it.
And I don't know if this is what the place we're talking about, Chelsea,
but I'll share my screen here really quick.
Yeah, please. I need to know what we're dealing with.
So, we're talking about where the people are in that photo would be the public beach already.
You would just be talking about those sand dunes behind them.
Behind the public beach?
Yes.
Okay.
I think, of course, this might not be where they're talking about it.
They could be in different locations.
I thought we were talking about there's beach, then house, then sand dunes.
The way it was said.
Oh, okay.
Okay, I mean...
But, yeah.
I don't see the problem, to be honest.
It's overreach, apparently, to save your fucking house.
I mean...
Who dare they?
I mean, to each their own...
Let's keep that private.
I really think this is going to be an ongoing...
Yeah, it's going to be one of these ongoing follow-ups that we're going to see,
with different rich people reacting in different ways across the coasts of the world,
with their lost property.
Because for some reason, rich people really like building in the shit...
Nice looking, but shittiest areas to actually build.
Well, yeah.
I mean, they got the money.
Well, they don't always have the money.
They don't want to spend the money, though.
No, they don't.
Because that's not how they got rich.
They got rich by bleeding the rest of us dry.
Okay, the category will be...
I don't know.
We need more time.
Rich people's emotions about the ocean.
I still feel like rich people's sandy emotions is good.
We got some good contenders, but I feel like it doesn't do it enough.
There's something that's good out there.
But I'm quite enjoying whatever this category is.
Oh, yeah.
This is like watching Real Housewives.
This feels like Real Housewives, and I'm sure that we'll actually cover them at some point,
because I guarantee you some of them won't be from properties.
Anyhow, people look into that, see if that's something we should be covering.
You've got 48 hours to get back to us.
Yeah, do it.
Okay, bye.
Bye.