from IN editor Duwayne Escobedo:
Red clay is not allowed to be used for the base in road construction on Pensacola Beach because of fear it’ll spoil the unique sugar white sands found at the beach. Santa Rosa Island Authority officials report the contractor Roads Inc. is removing the red clay as it redoes a section of Via De Luna on the east end of Pensacola Beach. Once Roads Inc. removes the clay from the road, which it is stockpiling near the island’s fire station, it has 48 hours to take the clay off the beach.
SRIA General Manager Buck Lee says the company appears to be complying with the red clay removal requirements. “The pile they stored yesterday is gone,” he says. “I can still see where it was. One problem is when you remove it, do you get every single grain (of clay)? I can’t tell you that.”
Lee says the red clay found in about the 2-mile section that Roads Inc. is working on is there from when the road was originally built back in the 1950s or 1960s.