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Water-Related News

City of Sarasota celebrates Lido Beach renourishment

Officials and residents came together at Lido Beach to commemorate the completion of a shoreline restoration project decades in the making.

Addressing a crowd of dozens at Lido Beach, about 100 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, City Manager Marlon Brown made clear the degree to which a recently completed sand-dredging project had reshaped the barrier island’s shores.

“Where you sit today, you’d be sitting in water,” Brown said of the beach before the project.

The city had branded beach balls on hand for the event.

Brown was speaking at the city’s Lido Beach Renourishment Celebration, held today to commemorate the completion of a shoreline protection initiative that dates back to the 1990s. The city teamed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replenish Lido Beach with sand taken from Big Pass, which had not been dredged before.

The idea was dormant for years before 2013, when the Army Corps and the city publicly reintroduced the proposal. Although the dredging drew opposition from Siesta Key residents — including a series of failed legal challenges — the project team ultimately gained state approval and began construction last year.