About SAISSA
South Amelia Island Shore Stabilization Association, Inc.
Incorporated in 2000, SAISSA is a Florida not-for-profit corporation created to manage beach renourishment projects on the south end of Amelia Island. Through an agreement with the Board of County Commissioners of Nassau County, Florida, SAISSA administers the projects of the South Amelia Island Municipal Services Benefit Unit (MSBU) which undertakes and finances beach renourishment within the boundaries of the MSBU.
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This MSBU service area is comprised of oceanfront boundaries that extend from the southern limit of Burney Park on the north to
the northern limit of the Amelia Island State Park on the south and encompasses all of Amelia Island Plantation (except for Osprey Village); the Amelia and Seaside Retreats; the Residence and Residence Commons; the Sanctuary; and the undeveloped tract
between the Florida State Park and the Sanctuary. Both developed and undeveloped properties are included.
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SAISSA provides administration, management, oversight and supervision of the MSBU projects.
President
Terry Cole - Retreat
Vice President & Secretary
George deTarnowsky - AIPCA
Treasurer
Ron Nelson - AIPCA
Communications Committee Chair
Mary Axetell- AIPCA
Trustee & Past President 2012-2023
Andrew (Drew) Wallace - AIPCA
Trustee
Jim Raycraft, Jr. - AIPCA
Trustee
Anne Gower- AIPCA
Trustee
Eric Schmidt - AIPCA
Trustee
Frank Bennett - Sanctuary
Trustee
Ken Pavlich - Residence
Trustee
Chris Corrada
SAISSA Coastal Engineer
Al Browder
Project Manager
Bill Moore
Attorney
Buddy Jacobs
SAISSA Coastal Engineer
Erik Olsen
Amelia Island Management Staff
Nick Lambiase, Jr.
Amelia Island Management Staff
Jane Kalem
Governing Documents
Check out our interactive archive of all documents related to the management of our organization.
News and Events
Get all the news about SAISSA through newsletters, articles, web links and letters from our President.
Our Projects
Terry Cole, SAISSA Vice President, presents project update at AIPCA Annual Meeting in February of 2023.
Stream video courtesy of AIPCA.com
Current Project
Check out our current project progress, including an interactive map (scroll down), where you can see where we are working to stabilize the South Amelia Island shoreline.
January 2018
FDEP Agreement 17NA1 was approved by the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners Acting as the SAISS MSBU Governing Body and by the Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in January, 2018. This Agreement provided State Cost-sharing to the SAISS MSBU to reimburse the District 40.80% of the cost of the Year Five (2016) and Year Seven (2018) Post-Construction Physical Monitoring; and, Year Five (2016), Year Six (2017) and Year Seven (2018) Shorebird Monitoring. The monitoring portion of the grant is up to $132,069.60. This Agreement also will also reimburse the District 39.21% of the cost of Design and Permitting Tasks for the Third Renourishment Project. The Design and Permitting portion of the grant is up to $312,062.40. The total Grant will reimburse the District up to $444,132 on total expenditures up to $1,119,574.50.
July 2018
The Nassau County Board of County Commis-sioners acting as the SAISSA MSBU Govern-ing Board approved the Local Government Funding Request (LGFR) requested by the SAISSA Trustees, to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for FY 2019-2020 State Cost-sharing program. The Application’s focus with the State Cost Sharing Request for the State’s FY 2019- 2020 Fiscal Year. The request is for $7.643 million. Most of this request is cost-sharing or the Third Renourish-ment and a small component, $132,000 is for Monitoring reimbursements.
August 2019
For the past 25 years, property owners within the boundaries of the South Amelia Island Shore Stabilization Association (SAISSA) have committed to preserving and protecting our beach and dunes by helping fund initial beach restoration. The need to once again renourish our beach is fast approaching. While many long-time property owners may recall some of the history of SAISSA and previous beach restoration and renourishment efforts, many new owners may know little about this history and these efforts.
Click this link: “Beach Renourishment 2021: Your Important Role” to read background information about SAISSA, its history, members, governance and funding.
February 2018
SAISSA released its HURRRICANE IRMA (FEMA DR-4337) POST-STORM DESIGN &
ANALYSIS. This report documents the impacts of Hurricane Irma on the engineered beach. Hurricane Irma impacted the South Amelia Shore Stabilization Project from September 9-12, 2017 with elevated storm surge and damaging storm waves. Elevated surge levels, peaking over 6.34 ft,NAVD88 (~3.95 ft above the Mean High water), impacted the shoreline for nearly 2 days and wave heights exceeding 20 ft occurred at the edge of the
project limits . The wave and tidal surge conditions combined to produce wave run-up exceeding 10-11 ft, NAVD, based upon the observation of wave over-wash of sand and wrack debris. Erosion damage to the engineered beach as a result of Hurricane Irma is a loss of 134,100 cy of beach sand. Of that total, 126,050 cy occurred along the SAISSA Shoreline segment of the Project and 8,050 cy along the Amelia Island State Park shoreline segment.
August 2018
Andrew L. Wallace, SAISSA President, with assistance from Dr. Al Browder, P.E., A.I. Jacobs, Esq., Board Attorney and William R. Moore AICP, Project Manager, updated the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on July 18, 2018 with the a slide program. This presentation reinforced the importance of the on-going beach program, identified the variables related to renourishment timing and offered a Preliminary Opinion of Probable Cost for the next nourishment. President Wallace, reported that SAISSA continues to monitor beach conditions but at the earliest the renourishment can’t occur before the spring-summer of 2020 assuming the beach warrants a renourishment and all Federal and State Permits will be available.
