Siesta construction project drains water into Gulf

If you’re out on Siesta Key Beach, be sure to watch your step — you don’t want to step on the dewatering hose stretching from the dunes down to the shoreline between Access 3 and Access 4.

Residents may have already noticed the large hose extending out from a small construction area on 89 Beach Road, where a new six-unit townhouse building is going up. And, according to Sarasota County spokesperson Drew Winchester, the hose is a part of a temporary dewatering process being done by the property owner, JB Development of Sarasota.

“When you’re building on the beach anywhere, as soon as you start digging a hole, it fills with water,” on-site Gates Construction employee John Masuhr explained. “So, what they do is, around the perimeter of where you’re working, they drill down 20 feet and they put a pipe that’s perforated. It draws all the water away from the site where you’re working … and gets pumped out.”

The hose itself extends out to 10 feet beyond the mean high-water line. This is done to help prevent impacts to dunes and limit beach scour, according to the approved permit by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The dewatering process is also natural and is not expected to have any adverse impact on the environment or the water.

“The dewatering is a natural run of the water,” Masuhr said. “ You can actually watch it fluctuate with high tide and low tide, so it’s all clean, undisturbed water that gets pumped back out.”