Posted on January 17, 2017
By MaryAnn Spoto, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
More than four years after Hurricane Sandy battered the New Jersey coastline and left many beach towns in shambles, the northern Ocean County peninsula is getting its first beach replenishment after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $128 million contract to get the long-awaited but controversial project started in the spring.
The awarding of the contract to Weeks Marine of Cranford for beach fill between Point Pleasant Beach and Berkeley Township marks the last major stretch of replenishment work for New Jersey’s Atlantic Coast after Gov. Chris Christie ordered the construction of engineered beaches along the state’s coastline to protect against major storms in the future.
Long a hold-out of beach replenishment work that the Army Corps had designed in New Jersey since the 1980s, the northern Ocean County peninsula – with many areas of beach reduced to narrow ribbons of sand – suffered heavy damage still visible from Sandy’s storm surge in October 2012.
“We are very pleased that this crucial project is moving forward,” state Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said Wednesday in announcing the contract. “When completed, all of New Jersey’s coastal communities will be afforded the level of protection that comes with beach and dune systems that meet Army Corps’ engineering standards.”
The project in northern Ocean County has been on the books for decades but had no federal funding until after Hurricane Sandy in 2012
To accomplish the coastal replenishment, the state needed to acquire 525 easements from oceanfront homeowners who agree to give up a portion of their property for the construction of 22-foot high dunes and 300-foot wide beaches. But because many homeowners have not voluntarily granted those easements, the work will start in towns where the state isn’t battling in court with the property owners over those easements.
So far, the state has obtained nearly 350 easements through voluntary offerings from residents and another 54 through condemnation proceedings through eminent domain.
Because the strongest resistance to the work has come from property owners in Berkeley, Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head and northern Mantoloking, the replenishment project will start in southern Mantoloking and continue through all of Brick, Toms River, Lavallette, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, Martin said.
Work in the remaining towns will begin in a second phase after the state acquires the easements, he said.
The first phase of the project has a $92 million price tag but the contract is expected to jump to $128 million when the second phase is completed, he said.
The federal government will pay for 65 percent of the project with federal Sandy aid and New Jersey will pay for 35 percent of the project from the state’s Shore Protection Fund. But because the 50-year agreement calls for periodic replenishment, opponents of the project have said availability of funding for future work is unpredictable, potentially leaving towns more vulnerable because they will have given up control of the oceanfront with the easements.
In addition to those objections, oceanfront residents in Bay Head and northern Mantoloking won’t sign over easements because they contend a rock wall in front of their homes is sufficient storm protection.
A trial to determine whether that area can go without the replenishment is scheduled to start Feb. 6.
In Point Pleasant Beach, the owners of Jenkinson’s Pavilion in a federal lawsuit accused the state of using replenishment to turn privately owned beaches public.
Source: NJ
