The idea of a sandless beach is nearly as impossible to conceive as a treeless forest. One defines the other ... unless you happened to live in Belleair Beach, Florida during the 1980's and 1990's.

When Florida started to boom in the 1970's with the proliferation of air conditioning, coastal development was the rage. It seemed everyone who had ever shoveled snow off their sidewalk wanted to be able to shovel sand off a beachfront patio in Florida. To be "on the beach" was a dream developers relentlessly fulfilled. Condos and homes were built without much regard for Nature, especially on barrier islands like Sand Key that fronted the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the Florida coast is lined with these barrier islands which essentially are giant sand bars meant to serve as protection for the mainland against Florida's frequent storms.

The old-timers recall Sand Key in the 1950's and 1960's. Bridges between the mainland and the island were few and rickety. There were a some homes - summer cottages, really - here and there, and getting to the north end of Sand Key was a bumpy ride along an unpaved sandy road. Hard to imagine it today. The once-natural habitat to nesting birds and sea turtles today is plastered wall to wall with high-rise condos and concrete.

Back then, there was a beach. How did it disappear?

In the 1970's, there was 80 feet or more of beach protecting waterfront properties, as shown in this aerial photo taken in 1975 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Twenty years later, the beach had eroded to 10 feet or less, leaving many seawalls exposed to the pounding surf.

Overdevelopment is not solely to blame. Along with the desire to live on the beach came a booming interest in boating. This meant that shallow passes had to be dredged and jetties built to keep them navigable.

In 1975 a jetty was constructed at Clearwater Pass which separates the north end of Sand Key from Clearwater Beach. This rock groin stretches from the shore hundreds of feet into the Gulf.

The jetty accomplished its intended purpose of keeping the pass navigable for commercial and pleasure craft. However an unintended result showed up slowly over the next decade. The beaches to the South were losing sand!

To understand why, one has to understand the natural action of currents. Sand naturally moves up and down a beach in a pattern called the littoral drift. In the Summer along Florida's west coast, sand moves in a Northerly direction; in the Winter it moves back South.

There's some truth to the claim that the "sand comes and it goes." And that's how it always worked until the jetty was built. The natural rhythm of sand movement was interrupted by this man-made obstruction and within 15 short years, the sand no longer came back and had all but gone for good from the majority of the shoreline several miles south of the jetty.

In 1991, a small group of Belleair Beach residents, saddened and worried about the disappearing beach, formed a Task Force to study the erosion and find a solution. What followed was a 7 year struggle to restore the beach that involved many heated debates and much political wrangling. The resulting beach is proof that  "Yes, You CAN Fight City Hall!"