Bob Hill, a heavy mobile equipment mechanic with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Philadelphia District, surveys the tornado-stricken landscape of the city during a break in debris removal operations here July 24. Hill is one of more than 300 Corps employees who've volunteered to support federal recovery operations after an EF-5 tornado ripped through the city May 22. More than 8,000 commercial and residential buildings were damaged or destroyed, including St. John's Regional Medical Center, visible in the background. The Federal Emergency Management Agency tasked the Corps with removing debris from public rights of way and some residential properties, constructing temporary critical facilities such as schools and fire stations, and building temporary housing parks. (Mark Haviland/DVIDS)
(Tribune News Service) — Just because the summer’s over doesn’t mean beaches at the Jersey Shore are less active.
If anything, this is prime time for a different kind of beachgoer: federal crews with heavy machinery and bounties of sand ready to spruce up starved beaches.
New work coming in the next month or so will drop sand in several shore areas including parts of Atlantic City.
Local business leaders and city officials in the seaside gaming and resort destination raised concerns — and closed some beach entrances — earlier this year when erosion was seen to have hit parts of the shoreline just months before the busy summer season.
Steve Rochette, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia District, told NJ Advance Media this week that the newest work coming will include:
Absecon Island
Long Beach Island
Timelines and full costs for replenishments can vary until work is finalized.
Hopper dredges and a cutterhead dredge will help make the work possible in the listed Jersey Shore project areas (a graphic to see how it works can be seen here).
“On Absecon, beachfill activities are concentrated to the north end of Atlantic City and most of Ventnor City,” said Rochette, noting the most recent major federal work took place in those areas in 2021. “Typically construction takes 2-3 months.”
Army Corps officials noted the $92.6 million worth of sand replenishment work is funded — like most other beach nourishments historically — through Congressional appropriations.
In the end, the feds cover 65% of the cost and the state and municipality split the other 35%.
Although sand replenishments are expensive, getting costlier and unsustainable in the eyes of some conservationists and experts, the work by now is inextricably tied to New Jersey’s history and part of the state’s spending habits.
The work is also controversial because while some may view these projects as protective of the coast especially in the era of climate change, others find it to be wasteful and something that only enables more shoreside development.
NJ Advance Media took a flight over the state’s 130 miles of coast earlier this year to trace the story of where our constant reliance on sand to rebuild beaches could go. Despite federal Army Corps work continuing, state environmental regulators have noted that other means of building beaches — using living shorelines — and re-considering how towns are protected from storms all continue to be on the table.
As for the upcoming work, Rochette at the Army Corps said 1,750,000 million cubic yards of sand will be taken from an approved offshore sand borrow area for the Long Beach Island area.
“The sand will be pumped onto the beach at a number of the most eroded portions of the project within Harvey Cedars, Beach Haven and Long Beach Township,” he said, also pointing to a 2-3 month timetable.
Shore protection steps continue in other parts of the shore as well.
Crews are now determining planned work for the project area that spans from Manasquan to Barnegat — which has previously been funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Army Corps said this week updates for that work — as well as other replenishments — are still pending.
It will all add to New Jersey’s total sand replenishment tally, which Western Carolina University today places at 246,421,703 cubic yards of sand for north of $3 billion.
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