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Highlands Today

City Pier Beach Closed, At Least Until August

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

From left: Anthony Stanley from City of Sebring public works and Capt. Preston Colby set up signs around a 12-foot deep dredge hole just a few feet from City Pier Beach shoreline.

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: June 12, 2008

Updated: 06/12/2008 06:13 pm

SEBRING — There will be no swimming at the city pier until a dredge hole is filled where a drowning took place Saturday, City Manager Bob Hoffman said Thursday.

Highlands County Environmental Health Director Frank Kruppa, who grants public bathing permits, has closed swimming at the beach "until further notice," Hoffman said.

On Saturday, Bobby Clark, 23, developed a cramp and drowned while swimming over the hole. The beach was cordoned off by police tape on Monday.

"We've fenced off the dredge hole with orange construction fencing," Hoffman said. "We've posted 10 'No Swimming' signs around the hole. And we're working with Clell Ford."

Ford, the county lake manager, is calculating the amount of sand that will be needed to fill the hole, which was probably dredged for its sand in the 1960s to create the park behind the civic center, Hoffman said.

When lake levels were higher, the dredge hole was hundreds of feet from the shoreline, Hoffman said. The two-year drought has reduced water levels so low, it's now just a few feet from the beach.
Preston Colby, who was at the scene Tuesday morning, said the hole is about 100 by 25 feet wide and 12 feet deep.

Fire Chief Brad Batz, who was asked to investigate, said the hole used to be in a no-swim zone.
"If it declines any further, we're going to have water in the hole and sand all around it," Hoffman said.

Park Open
Nothing else in the area has changed, Hoffman said. "The pavilion area is open. The beach itself is open."

Independence Day crowds can still gather there. But city beaches do not have lifeguards, Hoffman warned, so city workers will verify twice a day that the signs remain around the fence.

"We have a problem with people pulling those signs up," Hoffman said. On Tuesday, Batz said he had talked with police, who were told the signs had been pulled up months ago by juveniles and dumped in the hole. Diver Preston Colby said Tuesday he didn't see the signs in the hole.

Hoffman said he will put the swimming ban on the agenda so the city council can act, but he doesn't expect the job will be done before August.

Lucianne Blair, environmental administrator for submerged lands and environmental resource permitting, was asked Tuesday by Hoffman if the Department of Environmental Protection would grant an emergency permit. Blair seemed willing, but the permit process would take at least two weeks, she said.

She was agreeable to using sand from the boat launch area of Veterans Beach on the northwest side of the lake. New sand could contain vegetation foreign to the lake.

"I'm just looking for the easiest authority I can give you," Blair said.

The boat launch, north of the Veterans Beach swimming area, is so shallow anyway, it's difficult to get the fire department rescue boat in the water, Batz said, so taking sand from Veterans Beach could solve two problems.

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