The SE Florida Regional Climate Compact in Key West and GLARING ERRORS about the "living shoreline" in Lake Worth

Here is the link to a Miami Herald article by Jenny Staletovich on the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact meeting in Key West this week. This coincided with the on-going United Nations Climate Change Conference which continues in Paris through December 11. Representatives from four south Florida counties (Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe) were part of the south Florida gathering which included some reports of good news amidst "doom and gloom of climate change" from across the region. Lake Worth and Palm Beach County receive mentions albeit with glaring errors:

     Around the region, they [local, state and federal officials] said, advances are being made in the war on rising seas, and not just in Miami Beach where pumps have drawn national attention.
     In Fort Lauderdale, sea walls are being built higher. Palm Beach County teamed up with Lake Worth to replace a crumbling sea wall protecting a municipal golf course with a “living shoreline” inhabited by wildlife. And in Miami-Dade County, new wastewater facilities are being built up to 17 feet higher to fend off sea rise and storm surge.

First, there is no seawall "protecting" the City's golf course. That job is being done by mangroves, sea grass, and other natural processes. Second, I have no knowledge of a "crumbling sea wall" along our Intracoastal waterway. If it is crumbling it's news to me and I bet a lot of officials in Palm Beach County also. (Should warning signs be installed to protect the community?) And lastly, the "living shoreline" is at Bryant Park, south of the City's golf course. I wonder who supplied the reporter with all this false information?

In short, the "living shoreline" has nothing whatever to do with climate change or the rising sea level debate. That effort is about restoring the environment for native plants and animals such as birds. The City's municipal golf course floods from time to time and I've heard reports of golfers seeing schools of snook in large low-lying parts of the course. The golf course was originally designed for water run-off from western parts of Lake Worth and only later was in-fill added to create a golf course. And it's a wonderful course also.

Lake Worth City Manager Michael Bornstein and Mayor Pam Triolo hamming it up: City's golf course makes the news!

At the climate conference there was also a discussion of Everglades Restoration and how salt water alters the brackish and fresh water environment. It is my understanding that Lake Worth commissioners Maier and McVoy attended so we should be hearing about this at the next City Commission meeting on December 8th and at great length most likely.

Perhaps Commissioner McVoy can also explain why the City never properly inspected our beach seawall when the Casino was rebuilt and why the structure isn't on pilings, especially with the prospect of coastal erosion and any possible rise in sea level. And I'm certain many residents in Lake Worth living with insufficient street lighting and the lack of fire hydrants will be impressed with all the information these two commissioners bring back.