GULF SHORES — A beach renourishment plan scheduled to start in November to repair erosion from recent hurricanes will not begin for another year, Gulf Shores officials said.

Mark Acreman, city engineer said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not issued the permits needed to start the project.

“We met with FEMA, they’ve given us a timeframe of about three to four months before they’re willing to release the environmental permits for the joint beach renourishment project that includes Gulf Shores, the Gulf State Park as well as Orange Beach,” Acreman said.

He said that if the cities began the program as soon as permits are available, the sand would be pumped onto the beaches during the height of the summer tourist season.

“Right now, it would be my recommendation that we defer this until after the summer because with that schedule, it puts us starting June 1 with beach restoration and that would put us with hundreds of thousands of people on the beach during a major construction project on the beach for about four to five months, so I would be very concerned about the safety of our visitors as well as our permanent residents in that condition,” Acreman said.

Gulf Shores City Administrator Steve Griffin said the city will continue preparing for the program but will not start work until after the tourist season.

“We’re going to continue the permitting and we’re going to continue the bid process, but the letting of the bid won’t be until November of next year,” Griffin said.

According to engineering reports, the work will require about 1.12 million cubic yards of sand pumped onto 40,700 feet of shoreline in Gulf Shores, 235,000 cubic yards of sand placed on 11,700 feet of beach at the Gulf State Park and 649,000 cubic yards of sand on 28,400 feet of shoreline in Orange Beach.

The total of about 2 million cubic yards would fill about 125,000 medium-sized dump trucks.

The last renourishment project was completed in 2013. Since then, Hurricane Nate eroded the shoreline in 2017 and Sally did the same in 2020.

City officials had planned to start the project on the west end of the project area in Gulf Shores in October with crews working their way east and reaching Orange Beach by December or January.

When the project begins, material will be pumped from three sand bars about a half mile south of the beaches. The sand bars are about 50 acres in size and have been used for restoration projects in the past, according to reports.

Dredges will pump the sand from the sand bars through pipes where it will be placed on the beaches.