Water Resources Development Act of 2016
Floor Speech
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Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I bring this amendment on behalf of myself and Mr. Curbelo of Miami, Florida. It is a very excellent commonsense amendment. It is an authorization that requires no money, and it strikes an archaic, 30-year-old provision from law.
I would like to explain how it affects our home State of Florida.
Quite simply, the law is an obstacle to Florida's tourism and shoreline protection. We are one of the top travel destinations in the world. We have over 100 million visitors with a $70 billion impact to Florida's economy, and beaches play a very big role not only for visitors, but for our shore protection and for protection of our property, people, and the environment.
Just like Northern States have to fix their potholes after a bad winter, in Florida, we have to restore our beaches. What has happened is that Dade and Broward Counties have run out of useable sand to dredge off our coast to put back on the beaches. After the Sandy Hurricane, our sand supply is completely depleted. We now have to rely on sand from northern counties. Taking sand from inland is very, very expensive. To try to take sand from the coastal communities literally causes a public uproar and threats of litigation. It is our version of water wars. We call them sand wars in Florida.
There is a very easy solution, and that is to allow the counties in south Florida to buy sand from the Bahamas.
What is preventing that?
There is language in a 1986 law--a 1986 WRDA bill written at a time when sand in south Florida was very plentiful. The language prevents State and local governments anywhere in the country from buying foreign sand to replenish their shorelines without the Army Corps first finding--and this requires a study and another study--that there is no domestic sources of sand for environmental or economic reasons. It is one more task that an overburdened agency does not need to perform.
So what this amendment does is it simply strikes that outdated requirement.
Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to help end the sand wars and support my amendment.
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