any project . . . shall not exceed one-third of the cost of the project, and the remainder shall 

 be paid by the State, municipality, or other pohtical subdivision in which the project is 

 located."^ ^^ The practice that was generally established was that the remaining two-thirds 

 of the costs would be distributed in some fashion between the local community, county, or 

 State. The agency sponsoring the project could be from any one of these governmental 

 levels. 



Up to this time, no Federal moneys had been available under any authorized program to 

 help in the protection of privately owned shorelines. In fact. Congress had gone out of its 

 way to prevent the establishment of such a poUcy. In terms of adequately dealing with shore 

 erosion, however, this ruling had presented numerous problems of its own. For example, the 

 ruling made it difficult to apply in the field the concept of the physiographic unit of beach. 

 Part of that might be privately owned, part Federally owned, and part owned by a State or 

 other pohtical subdivision. Theoretically, any funds aHoted by the Federal Government 

 could not be used in such a way as to provide shore protection for that section of the beach 

 in private ownership. 



Public Law 826 attempted to deal with this situation in a more realistic, yet equitable, 

 fashion. It stated several conditions under which "shores other than public" would be 

 eligible for Federal financial assistance. One of these conditions was "if there is benefit such 

 as that arising from public use or from the protection of nearby public property." Another 

 was if the benefits to the private shore were "incidental" to a project protecting public 

 property. However, there was the stipulation that the Federal contribution to projects that 

 provided benefits to other than public shores was to be adjusted "in accordance with the 

 degree of such benefits." 



If, for example, the shorelines to be protected were all publicly owned, and the total first 

 costs of the approved project was $3 million, then the Federal financial aid, at that time, 

 would have been one-third of these first costs, or $1 million. Now consider the case where 

 one-half of the property is publicly owned and one-half of the property is privately owned. 

 Assume that it has been determined that of the benefits that would be developed from the 

 protection of this private section, one-quarter of them would, in some way, accrue to the 

 general public, while the remaining 75 percent would be private benefits. For comparative 

 purposes, it is also assumed that the proposed project costs $3 million and that this cost is 

 proportioned exactly 50-50 between the public and private property. Barring any 

 complicating factors, the Federal share for the pubUc section would now be one-third 

 of $1.5 million or $500,000. The Federal share toward the private section would be 

 $1.5 million multiphed by one-third times the ratio— public benefits in private section, total 

 benefits in private section. Thus, the adjusted rate for Federal cost-sharing in the privately 

 owned segment would be one-third times one-fourth, or one-twelfth. One-twelfth of 

 $1.5 mUhon is $125,000. The "total" Federal contribution for the entire $3 million shore 



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