Posted on August 30, 2020
To the Editor:
After the Tuckerton Council meeting Aug. 17, the leadership of the Tuckerton Beach Association Infrastructure Committee agreed to look into breaking down the lagoon dredging special assessment by area – west of South Green Street, east of South Green Street and Paradise Cove and Thompson Creek – to speed up the ability to dredge the lagoons.
The borough council presented three options it was looking at during the February meeting: one was for the entire borough to pay for the lagoon dredging, the second option was all the waterfront communities would pay for the dredging and the third option was for the three areas to pay separately. The borough has not made a decision because officials are waiting to host a town-wide meeting on the dredging that the COVID pandemic has prevented.
Neighboring Little Egg Harbor performed the waterfront dredging by sections and each section was responsible for paying for it. Doing it by sections puts the burden on each area and people there can then vote if they want the assessment or not. Having all the waterfront properties cover all the costs is unfair.
Tuckerton Beach as a whole is assessed at $3,254,418 (from the 2019 assessment). A special assessment for dredging each area and the cost to remove the materials based on prior information provided and assuming the cost to remove the dredge materials and truck it away is the same as Little Egg Harbor’s.
For Tuckerton Beach east of South Green Street, with 412 waterfront homes, prior studies have estimated the mud to be removed is 27,000 cubic yards or 34.8 percent of the town-wide dredging at an estimated cost of $2,160,000. This would cost each property owner $5,243 in additional tax or $524 a year if paid over 10-year period. Tuckerton Beach west has 165 homes and prior studies have estimated 7,000 cubic yards to be removed at a cost of $3,394 or $339 a year for 10 years. Paradise Cove/Thompson Creek has 89 homes but has the most to be dredged, 43,500 cubic yards because of the creek. It would cost each homeowner $39,101 or $3,910 for each of 10 years.
Among the positives of doing the assessment by area, there would be no need to negotiate with Mr. Gomez for his property. The contractor can de-water on a barge and truck materials immediately out of the area to local sites. I believe Mathis has room to accept the material currently. We would be able to accommodate 62 percent of waterfront homeowners if we did this by sections and completed Tuckerton Beach east first. In this case, 13.36 percent of the homes affected (Paradise Cove) is stopping over 60 percent of the homes from having navigable waterways at low tide!
We can most likely get dredging done for over 60 percent of the homes in the borough right after the Little Egg Harbor Boulevard peninsula and Lanyard’s Lagoon projects are completed. Most likely, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will take care of the mouths of lagoons facing Tuckerton Creek when it dredges the creek with no cost to the borough.
Among the negatives of assessment by area, Paradise Cove, which entails 13.36 percent of the homes, would still need to fight the fight to get Thompson’s Creek addressed and this only impacts 89 waterfront lots in the borough. We do not give up the fight; we just continue the fight.
By doing the special assessment by sections, upland homeowners are not upset, and the majority of the waterfront homes, over 86 percent, are satisfied. Hopefully at the council meeting on Sept. 8 this will be the approach taken.
My estimates for dredging and mobilizing include a 20 percent premium of what the currents costs are for the contractor to perform this work. Currently LEH has paid $65 per cubic yard, just in case there is more material that needs to be removed.
I would be more than happy to discuss this with Councilwoman Susan Taylor, the liaison for the Environmental Commission.
Peter Gioiello
Tuckerton Beach Assn. Infrastructure Committee
Source: thesandpaper
