Kingsley Plantation Seawall and Shoreline Extension Floodplain Statement of Findings

The NPS is proposing to repair the existing damage to the shoreline and seawall at Kingsley Plantation to provide future storm resiliency by extending the seawall to the extent of the cultural landscape. TIMU protects the natural ecology of over 46,000 acres of lands and waters and over 6,000 years of human history along the St. Johns and Nassau rivers in northeast Florida. In September 2022, Hurricane Ian, a Category 3 storm, made landfall at Kingsley Plantation damaging the existing shoreline and seawall. Due to this damage, the park is now unable to successfully protect the natural ecology of land and water and the 6,000 years of human history on site. In addition to the adverse impact to the cultural landscape, the failure of the existing seawall could result in the permanent loss of buried artifacts and negatively impact nearshore habitat and tidal water.

It is NPS policy to preserve floodplain functions and values and minimize potentially hazardous conditions associated with flooding, including threats to human health and safety, risk to NPS capital investment, and impacts on natural and beneficial floodplain values. If a proposed action is found to be in, or possibly affecting a floodplain, and relocating the action to a non-floodplain site is considered not to be a viable alternative, then a formal Floodplain Statement of Findings (FSOF) must be prepared. The FSOF must (a) describe the rationale for selection of a floodplain site, (b) disclose the degree of risk associated with the chosen site (with respect to human life, health and safety, resource protection, and capital investment), and (c) explain strategies for mitigation of flood risk.

Document Content:

FSOF_TIMU_2026_Kingsley_2026-0820 508.pdf   (2.6 MB, PDF file) Disclaimer: Links within the above document(s) were valid as of the date published. Note: Some of the files may be in PDF format and can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. You may download a free copy of from Adobe Systems.