Posted on October 14, 2026
Emergency dredging could begin as soon as next week in Townsends Inlet to remove a massive buildup of sand that is making it dangerous for commercial and recreational boats passing through the busy channel between Sea Isle City and Avalon.
Voting unanimously at a meeting Tuesday, Sea Isle’s City Council approved an agreement with Avalon for each town to contribute $650,000 toward the $1.6 million dredging project. Cape May County will contribute $250,000 and the Cape May County Bridge Commission will kick in $50,000 to complete the funding.
Beginning last spring, a massive sandbar formed in the channel that runs underneath the Townsends Inlet Bridge, creating an “imminent threat” to commercial, charter and recreational boats trying to navigate the waterway that connects the bay and ocean.
“As a result, the conditions have worsened over the summer and many commercial and charter captains have expressed fears that at the current level of shoaling, the inlet may soon become impassible,” the dredging agreement between Sea Isle and Avalon says.
(Video shows how sand has encroached into the channel at the Townsends Inlet Bridge).
Dredging equipment already in place in Townsends Inlet for a beach replenishment project in Avalon will be used to remove the huge sandbar. By using dredging equipment already there, the project should be done quickly and at a savings to taxpayers in the millions of dollars.
“The total cost of the project will be about $1.6 million. This would be substantially more if we didn’t do it now, as we are saving on mobilization costs with the dredge pipe and equipment already in place,” Sea Isle Mayor Leonard Desiderio said.
Desiderio explained that the buildup of so much sand has been “choking” the inlet. The dredging project will clear out a 200-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep section of the waterway to create safe passage for boats.
Sea Isle Business Administrator George Savastano said during the Council meeting that dredging is expected to begin next week and should be completed in about three days.
Sand removed from the inlet will go toward Avalon’s beach replenishment project, Savastano said in an interview after the meeting.
Exactly how the sandbar formed and got so large remains a mystery, but the same thing happened in Townsends Inlet five years ago before the sandbar simply disappeared on its own at that time.
The Cape May County Bridge Commission, which operates the Townsends Inlet Bridge, has said that the channel’s deep and rapidly flowing water creates a whirlpool effect that causes changes to the surrounding beach.
Savastano, who is also an engineer, told SeaIsleNews.com in August that he doubted that the sandbar may have been caused by Sea Isle’s recently completed beach replenishment project. The beaches between 29th Street and 55th Street were replenished with 479,000 cubic yards of new sand.
He pointed out that the beach replenishment project came nowhere near Townsends Inlet, which is just off 94th Street in the far southern tip of Sea Isle.
Bob Rush, owner of the Sea Isle-based Starfish Boats charter operation, told the Council members that Townsends Inlet was dredged in 1992 or 1993 during a similar buildup of sand.
Rush pointed out that the sandbar has made it even more difficult to steer his large charter boat through the narrow inlet. He said the inlet is already challenging enough to navigate because of the tides and a whirlpool of water near the bridge.
Rob Burcaw, whose family owns a commercial fishing and lobster operation in Sea Isle, said that boat captains must be extremely careful when steering their large vessels underneath the bridge – even more so now with the shifting sand that is clogging the channel.
“It’s getting bad again,” Burcaw said of the inlet.
Townsends Inlet currently is not a designated federal navigation channel, so it remains unclear exactly which government agency is responsible for it, Sea Isle officials say.
Looking ahead, Congressman Jeff Van Drew hopes to have Townsends Inlet studied as a federal navigation channel to establish a permanent source of funding for maintaining the waterway.
In the meantime, the U.S. Coast Guard has placed buoys in the inlet to guide boaters through the channel and underneath the Townsends Inlet Bridge.
Desiderio also thanked state Sen. Michael Testa, whose First Legislative District includes Sea Isle and Avalon, for working with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to help get the dredging project done on an emergency basis.
“This is the way government is supposed to work – everybody is working together,” Desiderio said.
