zoomU.S. Rep. Bill Posey speaks at press conference at Port Canaveral’s Jetty Park. (Photo: Canaveral Port Authority)

U.S. Rep. Bill Posey praised the soon-to-be-completed Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass Project (Phase 5) as a unified effort that keeps the region’s economic engine running while restoring 3.5 miles of shoreline south of Canaveral Inlet to the pre-inlet levels of the early 1950s.

Ealier this week, Canaveral Port Authority Commission Chairman Micah Loyd led a tour by water of Port Canaveral for the Congressman to review progress on the nearly completed Sand Bypass Project and to highlight critical current and future Port infrastructure projects.

Joining the tour was U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Andrew Kelly, commander and district engineer for the Jacksonville District.

“The Sand Bypass Project is a very important project to our community and critical to preserving this coastal region,” Chairman Loyd said.

“The Sand Bypass Project is a key element of the Port’s long-term inlet management plan to protect our coastal environment while ensuring continued economic growth,” Posey said at a press conference at Jetty Park after a boat tour of the replenished coastline. “Now, residents and visitors alike enjoy restored beaches and benefit from the recreation and storm protection that the beaches provide.”

When completed in early May, the six-month long Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass Project – the largest volume effort in the Port Canaveral area since the first in 1995 – will have pumped almost 1.4 million cubic yards of sand taken from the shoreline north of Port Canaveral along Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to beaches south of the Canaveral Inlet from Jetty Park to less than a half-mile south of the Cocoa Beach Pier.

Locally sponsored by the Canaveral Port Authority and funded and administered by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the federally authorized $18-million effort is replenishing the the Jetty Park shoreline and points south in Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach to pre-Port levels of the 1950s.