Flagler Reach 2: 1.5 million cubic yards of offshore sand on 5.5 miles of beach
Nov 4, 2026
While Flagler County gathers public input on Reach 3 (meetings Monday, Nov 9), the much bigger Reach 2 job is already under contract. On Aug 3, 2026, the County Commission unanimously awarded Weeks Marine a not-to-exceed $34 million contract to rebuild the beach and dunes from North 7th Street in Flagler Beach north to Varn Park, about 5.5 miles through Flagler Beach, Beverly Beach and Painters Hill. With engineering and inspection, the total is about $35 million.
- How much sand: about 1.5 million cubic yards, cut from the 1.8 million in the bid to fit the budget. That works out to 20 to 80 cubic yards per foot of beach.
- Where it comes from: the same offshore borrow area used for Reach 1, about 11 miles out, with mechanical screening in the bid.
- When: staff first said November 2026. In September, the county said Weeks Marine may mobilize around mid-February 2027, and the work takes four to six months.
- Monitoring budget: the four bids priced environmental monitoring at $75,000 to $275,000, on bid totals of $39.1 million to $52.1 million.
Five and a half miles of new sand will bury the swash zone where sand fleas (mole crabs) and coquinas live, and where sanderlings, willets and surf fish feed on them. In one North Carolina study, these animals were 86 to 99% lower 5 to 10 weeks after sand placement (see the science). The grain size of the Reach 2 borrow sand isn't in the public documents we found.
Questions for Flagler County:
- How closely does the offshore borrow sand match the native Flagler Beach sand in grain size and shell content, and will the test results be published?
- Does the environmental monitoring include before-and-after counts of mole crabs, coquinas and ghost crabs, or only sea turtles and shorebirds?
- If work starts in mid-February and runs four to six months, how will the schedule protect nesting sea turtles and shorebirds?
Full details are in the Project Tracker. Want to ask these questions on Nov 9? Take action.