ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, Fla. – The St. Augustine Beach pier is closed for fishing because the pier is surrounded by sand, and doesn’t even reach the ocean.
It’s all part of the St. Johns County Shore Protection Project. The goal is to renourish the eroded shoreline between the southern limits of Anastasia State Park a few miles south of St. Augustine Inlet.
Many beachgoers we spoke with on Tuesday were shocked to see the state of the pier.
“There’s no chance of them being able to fish now,” one person said.
“It used to be that the water came out until here, somewhere maybe or maybe further,” another person said.
But, it’s a welcome sight for people like Kevin Wilson, who has more ground to cover with his metal detector.
“It would take me years to get through it all, but just to have to be in the right place at the right time,” he said.
The new sand is thanks to a federal shore protection project, overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Nothing good yet. Every time they dredge, you’d think they would pull in old stuff from the sea, but some other guys might have beat me here,” Wilson said
“This federal project is designed to take the brunt of coastal storm action and erosion and be the buffer that protects the infrastructure and the communities behind it,” David Ruderman with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
The USACE has placed close to 2.5 million cubic yards of sand on the critically eroded beaches of St. Augustine, extending three miles south from Anastasia State Park.
“I know it looks funny, it could be perplexing for people. That’s the part of the beach that’s most sensitive to erosion. That’s why the design fill for this renourishment extends so far out from the sea wall, from the land itself, that it has left the pier temporarily standing on sand,” Ruderman said.
Since 2003, the shoreline has been renourished every five years or significant hurricane events.
The Corps. began designing this renourishment after the impacts of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022. Ruderman says the ocean will eventually take back some of the sand from the renourishment project. But how long that takes depends greatly on the storms to come.
“The greater the storm action is, the faster the buffer that’s designed to wash away and reenter the beach profile,” Ruderman said.
The pier is still open for sightseeing, but no fishing poles are allowed for the time being. It’s expected the sand will erode so there are no plans to extend the pier.