George Eller: “The simple fact is, we can’t wait. In the thirty plus years I’ve been watching, every time a major dredging operation takes place during the winter it’s a failure or second rate at best–the weather just will not permit it. We have the money now … if we tamper with this process or do something to slow it down, we might use the funding.”
He’s sympathetic to the problem, but “there’s a lot of condominiums, there’s a lot of rooms for people to stay in, but there’s only one pass, only one harbor, only one fleet … the heart and soul of this community has always been this fleet.” And he’s proud the fleet has no finer friend than the city of Destin. “We can’t wait. We can’t take a chance on tampering with the process–everybody knows what happens when you do that.
“Clearly the law could be amended” and he thinks it’s worth working to that effect, but NOT NOW. “I understand every day that goes by, they’re in peril; every minute that goes by, the fleet’s in peril. We just can’t wait.”
Next: Larry Williges, ex-council member, steps up.
Okaloosa Island has argued they’ll lose their drift because sand moves east to west. “The sand that’s in the pass, where did that sand come from that’s blocking the pass? It came from the east? These condo owners at Jetty East, the sand was their sand … to me it seems to be a pretty simple thing.”
John Medina, Holiday Isle Improvement Association board member: Okaloosa Island will get sand as part of Eglin AFB’s beach restoration project, and they’re beaches aren’t eroded yet–so why do they need more? We’re not saying stop the dredging, we’re saying this is a state of emergency.
Scott Robson: “If you can persuade them to get this done in two weeks before the dredge gets here, that’d be great.” But based on experience, “you throw one monkey wrench in … it’ll be March, April.” And it’ll be too rough to dredge the worst part of the harbor. It has to be done now to be effective.