St. Lucie Inlet

The first accurate surveys of the Indian River Lagoon by Gerard de Brahm and Bernard Romans in the 1760s and 1770s do not record any open inlet in that area.

Nor was any open inlet recorded there by Charles Vignoles during his survey of this area in the early 1820s.

In 1844, before the modern dredge, Samuel Peck and settlers of the Indian River Armed Occupation Colony took picks and shovels making the first recorded opening.

Besides restoring the beach and dunes, the sand will help protect infrastructure, such as MacArthur Boulevard, from storm surges.

Kathy FitzPatrick, Martin County coastal engineer stated “Dredging will help open up the channel, enhancing navigability, and the sand pumped from there to the beach will enable us to open a nourished beach to residents and visitors once again".

The dredge will remove about remove 500,000 cubic yards of sand — enough to cover a football field 9 feet, 3 inches deep — from the inlet and put it in site called a "borrow area" off the coast of the Town of Jupiter Island.