While the legislation didn't mention a specific firm by name, the dollar amount and the description of the project pointed to just one possible recipient: Benedict Engineering Co., a Tallahassee firm run by mechanical engineer Charles Benedict.
Benedict's firm, which had previously specialized in providing expert testimony in accident lawsuits, had already struck a deal with officials at Eglin Air Force Base to test a new sand-trapping system it had developed -- and approached Clary about help with funding it.
In a break from previous practice, the legislation required the state agency to enter into a contract directly with the firm rather than a municipal sponsor.
Benedict says he had taken notice of erosion's effects on trips to his vacation home on Dog Island in the Gulf of Mexico. He had been looking for ways to diversify his firm's business mix and wondered whether erosion control technology held promise.
In 1999, after studying the causes of beach erosion and researching existing technologies, Benedict's engineers developed an easy-to-install system called NuShore that they believed would trap sand and rebuild a beach at a fraction of the cost of traditional dredge-and-pump renourishment projects.
The NuShore system consists of plastic meshing attached to poles that run perpendicular from the beach into the water and spaced about 20 yards apart. The system -- funded at Clary's instigation -- was installed at Eglin Air Force Base in 2000 and dismantled earlier this year.
Casting doubt
Benedict is just one of several entrepreneurs who see a business opportunity in sand as the state and its municipalities look for cheaper alternatives to dredging and pumping to restore eroded beaches.
The question that leading coastal scientists and others raise is whether NuShore and other technologies being marketed to communities and to the state -- which has set aside $1 million this year for experimental projects -- do much more than enrich the firms selling them.
In two reports, including a final one delivered in July, Robert Dean, a recently retired professor of coastal engineering at the University of Florida and a leading authority on beach erosion, concluded that Benedict's installations "failed to achieve the project objectives" and produced only minor accretion of sand in the test area.
Moreover, Dean's analysis showed that it would have been less expensive and more effective to truck new sand to the test site.
Benedict Engineering disputes Dean's assessment. "It did work," says Wesley White III, director of business development. "We think we found a system that works. We're excited about the results." Benedict contends, counter to Dean's analysis, that its net groin trapped sand and enlarged the beach.
There are also questions about other attempts to demonstrate new technologies along Florida's beaches.
A $2.2-million system called PEP Reefs installed off Palm Beach was dismantled after it was shown the structures caused more erosion, not less. The system, developed by American Coastal Engineering, is still in use off Vero Beach, where Indian River County paid $2.76 million on construction and monitoring. The county's coastal engineer, James Gray Jr., says the system appears to be working well: "It's holding the beach. In my opinion we should leave them in."
The Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Miss., doesn't share that opinion, however. While the test area showed additional sand accumulated after the PEP Reef was installed, sand also accumulated in areas where there was no PEP Reef.
"We concluded that the PEP Reefs didn't really do anything to hurt the beach, but it didn't do anything to help it either," says Don Stauble, a scientist at the Army Corps of Engineers Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in Vicksburg.
Stauble says the accretion of sand was most likely a result of a phenomenon called a "sand wave," which occurs when large storms cause a mass of sand to move along the coast.
Indian River County officials plan to meet with state beaches officials later this year to talk about whether the PEP Reefs off Vero Beach should be removed.
One leading expert says the nature of coastlines makes it unlikely that erosion control devices will work.
Devices like groins, says Scott Douglass, a professor of civil engineering at the University of South Alabama, may trap sand on one stretch of beach as the sand migrates along the coast but starve a beach farther down the coast.
"There's no magic structure," says Douglass, author of "Saving America's Beaches: The Causes of and Solutions to Beach Erosion." "We've pretty much tried everything that can be tried. If these alternative solutions worked, they would have worked 20 years ago."
Still experimenting
Meanwhile, several other firms touting innovative erosion control technologies, in partnership with local governments, have applied for some of the $1 million the state has earmarked for experimental projects.
Charlotte County and Beach Restoration Inc. are seeking $750,000 to install and test a new system at Stump Pass State Park, which just underwent beach renourishment. Beach Restoration has developed an underwater geo-textile tube system that is supposed to slow beach erosion by lessening wave action.
"Our claim is that if you do a beach renourishment project, our system will extend the life of the renourishment project from, say, five to 10 years," says Allison DeFoor, a director and shareholder of Beach Restoration and the former Everglades Policy Coordinator for Gov. Jeb Bush.
A company that has developed faux sand from ground-up glass bottles also wants to test its product along some of Broward County's most heavily eroded beaches.
In addition, Walton County has submitted a letter of interest to the state and says it will put up $300,000 in matching funds. If Walton is selected, it may team up with Benedict Engineering.
Meanwhile, Benedict Engineering is continuing to meet with local officials on both coasts in hopes of selling the NuShore system. White says the company has been holding talks with representatives from Walton and Gulf counties on the Gulf coast and Volusia, Dade and Broward counties on the Atlantic coast. "People are looking for alternatives," says White.