NEWS

Erosion threatens iconic NASA launch pads

Jim Waymer
FLORIDA TODAY
Railroad tracks, built in the 1960s to deliver fuel to Saturn V rockets at Launch Complex 39A, now teeter unused on the dune’s edge.

The ocean ticks a countdown of its own, along this thin strip of beach where rockets blasted to space from NASA's two iconic launch pads.

Waves lap ever closer to the concrete pads at Kennedy Space Center, as the moon that man reached from these sands drives tides that threaten the pads' foundations.

The space program's past and future hinge on these pads. They held up Apollo rockets and space shuttles. But to keep exploring space from here, KSC needs a bit more room for comfort along this edge of the Atlantic.

The public has until July 20 to comment on the space center's recently released environmental assessment of four beach-building options under consideration.

"The long-term benefits certainty outweigh the short-term construction impacts," Don Dankert, a NASA biological scientist at KSC, said of the environmental impacts of future beach-building.

NASA is preparing the northernmost pad, 39B, for launches of crews on deep-space missions aboard its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule. The rocket's first, unmanned test launch is targeted for late 2018, followed by a first crewed flight by 2022.

NASA leased Pad 39A to SpaceX, which will launch its Falcon Heavy rockets from there.

Storms have eaten away at the beach between NASA’s two main launch pads and a railway at Kennedy Space Center. NASA recently released an environmental assessment of sand replacement options to widen the shoreline to protect the launch pads. The rail is now non-usable.

But if nothing's done, erosion along 4.6 miles of the KSC shoreline, coupled with sea-level rise, "would result in large-scale inundation, habitat alteration, and land loss along the coastal strand," the environmental assessment says.

That could result in damage to launch infrastructure and seawater flooding into nearby marshes.

Sea level at KSC could rise from 6 to 25 inches (2 feet) by the 2050s and 10 to 49 inches (4 feet) by the 2080s, according to the environmental assessment.

Meanwhile, planning is under way for several potential new launch pads in the same area.

KSC is accepting proposals for two potential new commercial sites just north and south of the two existing pads.

And Space Florida is studying the environmental impact of developing one or two commercial pads near KSC's northern border, on property NASA shares with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Aerial photos from 1943 show 39A was built on a spot where the ocean at times washed over, forming small openings where sand fanned out into a tidal delta of small sandbars.

Since 1943, the ocean has thinned KSC's beach width by about 66 yards, NASA officials say.

Storms in 2004 caused severe erosion and more than $100 million in damages at KSC. Then storms in 2010 further eroded the shore in front of the pads.

In 2010, the space center built a 15-foot high, 725-foot long secondary dune along the worst spot between the two shuttle pads as proof a new dune could help protect launch infrastructure.

After Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, that was the only stretch of dune left intact.

Along almost two miles of beach, dunes retreated seven feet after Sandy. The ocean undercut the railroad track along a 218-yard stretch near Pad 39A, where waves topped the tracks, flooding a nearby lagoon and partially washing away some of the railway base.

An almost $3 million dune repair project in 2013 and 2014 removed about a mile of old railroad and bedding damaged by Hurricane Sandy and built a new dune atop the former railroad.

According to the environmental assessment, there are four options to deal with the vanishing beach:

•Alternative one: This is KSC's "preferred" alternative. Trucks would haul in 420,000 cubic yards of sand. The project would build a new 3.5-mile secondary dune immediately inland of the existing dune. About 2 miles of remaining shorefront railbed would be removed or buried.

•Alternative two: Reestablishes the historical condition of 10 to 15 years ago along about 4.4 miles of beach. The project would put 2.8 million cubic yards of sand dredged up offshore and pump it on to the beach. Periodic renourishment would be needed every 6 to 10 years.

•Alternative three: A "hold-the-line" strategy to reinforce the beach and dunes at current, eroded locations. Dredges would put 2.3 million cubic yards of sand along about 4.4 miles of beach. About 3,700 feet of rail bed could be buried by the dune fill near the south-central end of the project area. Periodic renourishment would be needed every 6 to 10 years.

•Alternative four: Partially restore the primary dune and beach in the short-term and build a secondary inland dune in the long-term. Put 2.3 million cubic yards of dredged sand. About 2 miles of rail bed could be buried by the dune fill or removed. Periodic renourishment would be needed every 6 to 10 years.

NASA officials would not provide cost estimates for any of the four options.

"It's a little premature to attribute cost to it," Dankert said.

At Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s mobile launcher stands at launch pad 39B during tests in November 2011. The 355-foot-tall structure is being modified to support NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.

But the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, has faced similar, costly erosion problems. In 2012, an Illinois dredging company pumped 3.2 million cubic yards of sand on beaches at Wallops in a $45 million project to protect over $1 billion in federal and state assets there.

A long-term beach repair plan for KSC could prove just as costly and involve roughly four miles of coastline from Playalinda Beach to south of Pad 39A, NASA officials have said.

Wallops anticipates having to do repeat sand pumping every three to seven years.

KSC has yet to come up with a formal timeline for a major beach building project. Federal funding must flow first, before a new buffer for the old launch pads can bolster NASA's next big blast-offs.

But the agency that won the Space Race is used to racing against time.

"Our two biggest risks are to our critical launch structure, as well as to our coastal habitat that we have on our beaches," Dankert said.

Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com Follow him on Twitter @JWayEnviro

NASA's plans for renourishing its beaches

Read the report here.

It's also available at the Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, Merritt Island, Port St. John and Titusville public libraries

Public comments must be submitted before July 20 and can be addressed to:

Donald Dankert, KSC Environmental Management Branch,

Mail Code: Si-E3

Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899

email: donald.j.dankert@nasa.gov