The Sebastian Inlet District contracted Taylor Engineering to design and permit a dredged channel to provide safe navigation through the inlet flood shoal to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The project area lies wholly within the Indian River Aquatic Preserve (an Outstanding Florida Water), within an important manatee area, and partially within the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. This location and the associated issues have resulted in numerous unsuccessful attempts to gain approval for the project. Natural resource issues include seagrass impact and mitigation, creation of a seagrass shoal by open water sand placement, and development of a comprehensive natural resource management plan acceptable to a wide variety of public agencies. Taylor Engineering designed and implemented a plan to meet all the environmental concerns and engineering design challenges. Public petitions, letters from private citizens and resolutions of support from two counties, a local marina owner survey, and an inlet boating activity survey provided project need and justification. The EFDC three-dimensional water quality modeling compared a variety of parameters for with and without project conditions. Historic environmental data review and summaries supported extensive biological fieldwork for seagrass and benthic invertebrate communities at impact and mitigation sites. Results from extensive wave modeling suggested the most favorable location and footprint of a protective seagrass shoal for Pelican Island. Additional modeling validated the project area performance of the wave models and demonstrated the stability of the proposed shoal under storm wave conditions. Taylor Engineering developed and submitted the permit application to state and federal agencies. The project was approved by the Florida Environmental Resources Council in late 2006, and the project culminated in successful construction in the middle of 2007.