The Biden administration has rescinded a two-year-old policy that allowed beach towns along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to use sand from environmentally protected areas in federally funded anti-erosion projects
The Biden administration has rescinded a two-year-old policy that allowed beach towns along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts to use sand from environmentally protected areas in federally funded anti-erosion projects.
In a memo released Friday, the U.S. Interior Department said its 2019 decision to allow protected sand removal for federal projects was inconsistent with Congress’s goals to preserve fragile areas and save taxpayer money. Since the 1980s, Congress has designated roughly 3.5 million acres of undeveloped sandy land including barrier islands, sandbars, dunes and coastal aquatic habitats as protected under the Coastal Barrier Resources Act. That designation meant federal money couldn’t be spent on projects that touched the areas, which are located along 2,500 shoreline miles.
In 2019, the Interior Department under the Trump administration reinterpreted the law so municipalities could use that sand. Included were U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-ledThe Audubon Society sued the Trump administration last year, saying sand-mining projects destroy avian habitat, including that for the piping plover and red knot species. A federal judge has yet to rule in that lawsuit.
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