Posted on February 5, 2025
When the Army Corps of Engineers released its updated 2024 back bay protection plan in December, the study area was well known to the agency as home to 10 active coastal storm risk management projects.
The recently released draft report for the back bay covers an area of 950 square miles across five New Jersey counties and 89 municipalities. It involves 3,500 linear miles of shoreline, from Long Branch in the north to Cape May Point in the south.
The Corps’ Philadelphia District is responsible for the New Jersey shoreline from Manasquan Inlet south to Cape May Point. The relationship with the army corps and the communities along this stretch of 130 miles of coastline began years ago.
The Corps formally established its coastal storm risk management program with the creation of the national planning center for expertise in coastal storm risk management in 2003. Beach replenishment projects have an even longer history, dating to 1923 but more formally to the the mid-1950s.
In 1956 the Corps was first authorized to carry out beach replenishment for shoreline protection. The program has affected 350 miles of shoreline, most of it on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
New Jersey established a state shore protection fund in 1994 to provide stable funding for the state’s share of the cost of these projects. The usual cost share arrangement with the federal government is a 65% federal share, with the remaining 35% usually broken down to 26% state share and 9% local share.
Protection of the coastal areas can involve hard structures like levees, dams and sea walls. It can often also involve more natural approaches such as wetlands restoration, beach replenishment and marsh creation.
A big part of the relationship of Cape May County with the Army Corps involves the various beach replenishment projects that keep county beaches in place for shoreline protection. The Corps says a replenished beach helps to reduce negative consequences from flooding and coastal storms. It does this by absorbing wave energy, protecting upland areas from flooding and mitigating natural erosion.
In the study area for the back bay protection plan, the Corps has 10 active beach projects. All replenishment cycles are dependent on congressional appropriation of funds.
In geographical order, the projects begin in the north with one of 14 miles that runs from Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet. A dune and berm system was constructed in 2019 and is on a four-year periodic replacement cycle, with the next expected replenishment in late 2025 or early 2026.
Next comes a 15-mile project from Barnegat Inlet to Little Egg Harbor Inlet, covering all of Long Beach Island. Here the initial construction was completed in 2016. Repair work was done in 2018, and the project is on a seven-year replenishment cycle.
Just south of that is a project dating from 2006, for 1.8 miles for Brigantine Island. The dune and berm construction was complete in 2006, with replenishments in 2018 and 2023. It is on a six-year cycle.
The Absecon Island project follows. The 8.1-mile project had an initial section in 2004 for Atlantic City and Ventnor. Margate and Longport followed in 2019. The project included a seawall in 2018.
Ocean City is split between two Corps projects along the coast. Great Egg Harbor Inlet to Pikes Beach deals with Ocean City down to 34th Street. It is one of the oldest projects, with initial construction in 1992 over a 4.5-mile stretch. Replenishment is ongoing on a three-year cycle to maintain a 100-foot berm.
Ocean City south of 34th Street, along with Strathmere and Sea Isle City, are part of the Great Egg Harbor Inlet to Townsends Inlet project of 2.6 miles, with initial construction in 2016. It is on a three-year cycle for replenishment.
Further south, the Corps has the Townsends Inlet to Cape May Inlet project, including Avalon, Stone Harbor and sea wall work in North Wildwood. Initial construction dates to 2002, with sea wall work in 2009. The project is on a three-year cycle and has been helped by recent legislation that allows sand from Hereford Inlet to be used for Stone Harbor replenishment.
Another of the earliest projects covers Cape May Inlet to Lower Township. Initial construction dates to 1991. It is 3.5 miles in length and has a two-year cycle. The Coast Guard Base benefits from this project.
Lower Cape May Meadows, a 2.5-mile stretch initially constructed in 2007, is on a four-year replenishment cycle.
The last of the 10 active projects is in Salem County, the Oakwood Beach project of 1.8 miles with an eight-year replenishment cycle.
In addition to the 10 active projects, there are three authorized but unconstructed projects in the back bay study area. These are the Hereford Inlet to Cape May Inlet project across the shoreline of the Wildwoods, still in the design phase and easement accumulation, a Villas and Vicinity project, an ecosystem restoration effort that has not received funding since 2006, and Reeds Beach and Pierces Point project, also an ecosystem restoration project that requires funding for initial construction.
These projects don’t exhaust the Corps’ involvement in the state and county, but are an effort at shore protection mostly at the “front door” – the ocean shoreline. The new back bay plan is a look at a reduced and more immediate plan for the “back door,” on the bay side.
The ongoing study project on developed shorelines at Western Carolina University estimates that the federal government has spent more than $10 billion on shore replenishment projects since the first one recorded in the school’s database, in 1923. Adjusting for inflation to 2022 dollars, the data show spending in the five years from 2020 to 2024 of $490 million through June of this year.
