Anna Maria Island: More new sand planned to protect beaches

Keeping the beaches on Anna Maria Island pristine is an ongoing battle. If county staff don’t pay enough attention, Mother Nature might wash them away from existence.

Charlie Hunsicker, director of Parks & Natural Resources, briefed the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday on beach renourishment efforts to protect the county’s top economic driver. He explained how storms wash up to 12 feet of Anna Maria Island beach shores a year and what the county is doing to stop it.

“After a storm, the waves come in and and move that sand into deeper water,” Hunsicker said. “The beach nourishment plan aims to restore that.”

But storms aren’t the only natural factor that erodes beaches in Manatee County. Currents also drag beach sand both north and south, piling up the eroded sand into Passage Key to the north and into the Longboat Pass Inlet to the south.