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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.

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Okay.

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Which apparently there is a vast degree of directions you can go with your emotions when you're a rich person losing your...

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Gonna say is there a category or have we just been following up on the same people?

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You would think.

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Is it why this is broad enough?

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This is different people.

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And they are facing this issue and dealing with their emotions in a different way than our Bostonian friends or Massachusetts friends.

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Can we just establish what the category is called?

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I think...

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Emotional React.

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I...

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Rich people getting a little too beachfront?

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Hmm...

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Maybe something along the lines of rich people and their emotions.

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I think that's just the category.

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And the ocean.

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They're sandy emotions.

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They're sandy emotions.

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Rich people and their emotions and the ocean.

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So, Chelsea, this article comes from grist.org, written on June 4th, 2024 by Jake Bittle.

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Article title, The Homeowner Mutiny Leaving Florida City's Defenseless Against Hurricanes.

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The government is refusing to restore eroded beaches in coastal Florida counties unless homeowners agree to one condition, public access.

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Lisa Hendrickson is almost out of sand.

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Hendrickson is the mayor of Reddington Shores, Florida, a well-heeled beach town in Pinellas County.

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Her town occupies a small section of Razor Thin Barrier Island that stretches down the west side of the sprawling Tampa Bay metro area,

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dividing cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg from the Gulf of Mexico.

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Many of her constituents have an uninterrupted view of the ocean.

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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.

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But that beach is disappearing fast.

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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,

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leaving residents just one big wave away from water overtaking their homes.

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This perilous situation is the result of a standoff between local residents and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

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the federal agency that handles flood prevention and protects many of the nation's beaches.

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The corp often rebuilds eroded beaches by hauling in thousands of tons of sand,

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but the agency is refusing to deliver $42 million worth of new sand to Pinellas County,

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unless the area's coastal property owners grant public access to the slivers of beach behind their homes.

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Hundreds of property owners, however, are in turn refusing to sign documents that grant these points of access, which are known as easements.

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The face-off has brought the area's storm recovery to a near-standstill.

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Is that not blackmail?

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Well, what do you mean by blackmail?

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Well, like, maybe blackmail's not the word I'm looking for, but they're not...

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Yeah, strong-arming.

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I'm into making a decision of something because, I mean, they bought the property, like, thinking they had private beach, right?

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I mean, technically, but let's... Is that the part you're hung up on?

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No, I'm not hung up on the golf.

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Okay.

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Just making observations.

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Well, we'll talk about it at the end.

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The standoff highlights growing tensions between the federal government and homeowners in coastal areas that are threatened by climate change.

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As sea levels have risen and strong storms have caused greater damage than ever before,

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the costs of protecting and ensuring beach fronts in Florida and other states have increased rapidly.

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Agencies like the Corp have had to weigh these costs against the interests of property owners in places like the Tampa Bay region.

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When those interests come into conflict, populated coastal areas can be left exposed or uninsured,

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making them sitting ducks for the next climate-fueled storms.

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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,

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or how we come together to work through it.

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Hendrickson told Grist.

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The Corp's put the easement policy in place decades ago to ensure that it didn't spend public money to restore private beaches,

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but the agency didn't begin enforcing the rule in earnest until Superstorm Sandy in 2012,

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when the Corp tried to replace disintegrated beaches in New Jersey.

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It discovered that it didn't have all the easements that needed.

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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.

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In the years since, the agency has warned Pinellas County and other local governments that they won't get any more sand,

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unless they get easements from all the property owners on their beaches.

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The Corp say it first raised the issue with Pinellas back in 2017,

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but tensions started rising last year after Adalia eroded the area's beaches to a dangerous degree,

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creating a desperate need for new protective sand.

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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.

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The agency says this is only so that it has the ability to help out after future storms.

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When a hurricane wipes out a beach, the Corp's often swoops in to pay for an emergency beach,

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replenishment just weeks later, ensuring homes don't wash away.

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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.

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It also says that it needs easements from all property owners in a given area,

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because nourishment projects don't work unless they're continuous along an entire stretch of sand.

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Pinellas County officials tried their best to obtain these easements,

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even going from door to door and pleading with residents to sign for sand.

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Nevertheless, around half of the 461 property owners along the barrier islands has refused to grant this.

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County officials are still urging residents to submit, but they have obtained few new easements since last year.

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The strange thing about the easement controversy is that these waterfront residents don't fully own the beaches behind their houses anyways.

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In fact, most of the county's beaches are already public.

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State law provides that all Florida beaches with artificial sand are public to the erosion control line,

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which is about the same as that which marks the high tide.

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In other words, everything from the water to the high tide line is open for anyone to walk, tan, or spread a blanket.

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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,

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which in many cases is just about a few dozen feet.

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Quote, for most of the project, the beach is wide open to the public.

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A lot of the easement areas aren't even on the beach. They're in the dune behind the beach,

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said John Bishop Pinellas County's coastal management coordinator.

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End quote.

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Owners' reasons for refusing easements are numerous, but most cite fear that granting public access to the sand behind their property

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will encourage tourists to venture up on their dunes or sit on the seawalls behind their homes.

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Sure, they can't stop tourists and beachgoers from using the beach that sits between the erosion line and the water,

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but they don't want them coming any closer.

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I think that's far enough for us to kind of have an idea of what's going on in this story.

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Chelsea, do you want to give any opinions on this?

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You plan to opine?

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I don't... I don't... I just go. I don't plan. I just talk.

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I'm just trying to picture how this would be, so their house is in the middle of the beach?

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Well, it's on beach. It's just like...

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It is on beach. That doesn't sound smart in the first place.

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No, it sounds awful. And in fact, let's look at a picture of Pinellas County.

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Yeah, can we?

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So, I mean, eventually, if they wait long enough, the whole front of their house is going to be public beach anyway.

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Yeah, pretty much.

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And if they're lucky, to the back of their house as well.

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And yeah, that's... I find it hilarious that they would rather their houses be swept away by the ocean

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than have common folk come nearer their property.

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Probably just a sunbathe and not bother anybody.

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Yeah, because let's face it, if they were going to do anything anyways,

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they're probably going to do it and it would be illegal either way.

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True.

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But I find that hilarious.

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They only got half of the people to sign off on saving their property.

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The government putting $47 million towards saving your property.

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I don't think it's unreasonable to say if we're going to put public money into it,

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the public needs to be able to access it.

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Well, the reasoning was there. I will say that much.

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And more probably.

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Waiting for this picture, though. I'm trying to picture it.

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And I don't know if this is what the place we're talking about, Chelsea,

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but I'll share my screen here really quick.

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Yeah, please. I need to know what we're dealing with.

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So, we're talking about where the people are in that photo would be the public beach already.

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You would just be talking about those sand dunes behind them.

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Behind the public beach?

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Yes.

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Okay.

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I think, of course, this might not be where they're talking about it.

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They could be in different locations.

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I thought we were talking about there's beach, then house, then sand dunes.

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The way it was said.

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Oh, okay.

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Okay, I mean...

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But, yeah.

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I don't see the problem, to be honest.

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It's overreach, apparently, to save your fucking house.

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I mean...

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Who dare they?

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I mean, to each their own...

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Let's keep that private.

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I really think this is going to be an ongoing...

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Yeah, it's going to be one of these ongoing follow-ups that we're going to see,

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with different rich people reacting in different ways across the coasts of the world,

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with their lost property.

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Because for some reason, rich people really like building in the shit...

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Nice looking, but shittiest areas to actually build.

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Well, yeah.

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I mean, they got the money.

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Well, they don't always have the money.

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They don't want to spend the money, though.

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No, they don't.

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Because that's not how they got rich.

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They got rich by bleeding the rest of us dry.

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Okay, the category will be...

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I don't know.

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We need more time.

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Rich people's emotions about the ocean.

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I still feel like rich people's sandy emotions is good.

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We got some good contenders, but I feel like it doesn't do it enough.

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There's something that's good out there.

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But I'm quite enjoying whatever this category is.

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Oh, yeah.

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This is like watching Real Housewives.

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This feels like Real Housewives, and I'm sure that we'll actually cover them at some point,

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because I guarantee you some of them won't be from properties.

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Anyhow, people look into that, see if that's something we should be covering.

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You've got 48 hours to get back to us.

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Yeah, do it.

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Okay, bye.

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Bye.