Project Profile: Reconstructing Collapsed Neighborhood Canal Banks
Living on a canal loses some of its luster when the canal banks collapse into the water, taking part of the yard and maybe the fence or a dock with it.
That’s what homeowners in Oriole Estates in the city of Lauderdale Lakes, FL, had been facing after years of erosion and neglect. But now, homeowners have a fortified “living shoreline” behind 43 canal-front homes.
The eroded canal banks were on city property, and it was the City of Lauderdale Lakes that sought solutions to this vexing problem. The City had installed geotube on sections of the canal in the past, but it had failed, resulting in the present conditions. A geotechnical engineering report by Terracon, an independent consulting firm, advised against using geotubes again. City officials were set to move forward by repairing the canal walls with rock-filled gabion baskets, even though the high cost allowed only a portion of the neighborhood to be done; only 12 of 43 homes would get restored banks.
The savvy general contractor, Abbey Fiallo of Metro Equipment Service Inc. in Miami, already had the job, but he discovered that if the project used Sox Erosion Solutions’ Shoresox living shoreline product, it could expand to include many more feet of shoreline. He got a bid from Lake and Wetland Management, the exclusive service provider of Sox Erosion Solutions in Florida, and together they were able to demonstrate how all 43 canal-front homes could get restored banks for less money than using the gabion baskets on just 12 property fronts.
City officials and engineers approved Fiallo’s plan to lay a foundation of rock rubble base on sections of the shoreline and install Shoresox on top to create a living shoreline. The kicker was that this solution would save the city of Lauderdale Lakes $2.5 million. “The option is definitely less expensive than other methods like building seawalls,” says City Manager Phil Alleyne. The $1.5 million job to strengthen 3,250 feet of shoreline is the city’s largest canal bank restoration effort so far.
Fiallo describes the final product as aesthetically pleasing. With his crew working concurrently with the Lake and Wetland crew, Fiallo says, the entire project took six to eight weeks, with four to five of those weeks concentrating on the Shoresox installation. “Both companies planned together and maximized production time,” says Fiallo. “In addition to the $2.5 million saved by the city, we actually saved them another $24,000 because we never had a change order.”
As a result of the work, backyards grew by several feet, putting a safer distance between the erosive waters and residents’ pools, pool decks, docks, and cabanas. “We reclaimed approximately 6 feet of shoreline in the back of their yards,” says Brian Fischer of Sox Erosion Solutions. “It definitely improves home values.”
