Panel SA: Ilhabela is studying filling a strip of sand on the beach

Toninho Colucci, mayor of Ilhabela, on the north coast of São Paulo, is preparing a tender to carry out a study on sand deposits that can be used to fill strips of beach in the city.

According to him, this is not a project to fatten the beach as it was done in Balneário Camboriú (SC), but it has technical similarities.

“The objective is to replace sand in some stretches of beach that, over the years, due to the increase in the tide, the port of São Sebastião, the expansion of the Almirante Barroso terminal, the anchoring of some ships, the water flow has changed and consumed some beaches in the city,” says the mayor.

Colucci claims that the idea began to be analyzed in 2015 and was taken to the INPH (National Institute of Waterway Research). He predicts the need for somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 cubic meters of sand.

“We are evaluating carrying out these studies, we are going to hold a public hearing, show that it is a recovery of a strip of sand, not fattening, as is the case in Camboriú, but it has many similar principles”, says the mayor, who was recently in Santa Catarina to visit the works.
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Colucci cites the Perequê stretch that extends to the center, interspersing interventions in some parts of a 5-kilometer long shore.

“There is a need in several areas, but at first the idea is to do it. For example, even on Castelhanos beach, not because of the port’s interference, but due to the melting of glaciers, the rise of the sea, there are already areas where phenomena that occurred , somehow, reached the beaches. The environmental and economic issues, of tourist development, are important”, he says.

According to the mayor, the study should survey nearby deposits to make the operation less complex and costly.

with Mariana Grazini e Andressa Motter