Posted on September 21, 2026
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Money for sand led to applause in a meeting room at Presque Isle State Park’s Tom Ridge Environmental Center. Members of the Presque Isle Advisory Committee had just heard at their Sept. 17 meeting that federal funding for sand replenishment on the state park’s beaches had come through after months of waiting. A portion of the money will be spent this year, with most of it saved for 2027 work. Despite their joy over learning this year’s federal contribution was finally available, committee members still worried about future funding for sand at the peninsula.
“My concern is that they’ll say in 2027, ‘Well, you don’t need any money,'” member Matthew Wolford said. Presque Isle State Park typically receives $3 million annually for the sand work, with half coming from Pennsylvania and the other half from the federal government. The money is used to purchase new sand to fill in where erosion has occurred and to compensate for sand that no longer moves naturally to the peninsula since groins were installed along Lake Erie to the west. Funding uncertainty Presque Isle only received state money for the project in 2025 and officials were originally told that would be the case again in 2026, meaning half the usual work would occur two years in a row. That changed in June when U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said federal funds for sand would come to Presque Isle this year through the Army Corps of Engineers. However, the federal money hadn’t materialized as of Sept. 14. Park Operations Manager Matt Greene told the advisory committee Sept. 17 that he learned the federal money was in Army Corps hands in Buffalo as of that morning.
“It’s in the project,” he said, after which applause broke out. Greene told the advisory group that part of the money would be used to create a sand stockpile and do some gravel work at Beach 10 this year. That would leave about $1 million in federal money in the project fund for 2027, he said. “There’s goods and bads to that,” Greene said. “The best case scenario would have been all that money would have been spent this year on beach nourishment. The good news is there’s going to be probably at least a million dollars in that project pot moving into 2027.” Having money already in hand could mean an earlier start to sand work in 2027, possibly as soon as April, he said. Because of this year’s funding delays, sand replenishment didn’t start in the first half of the year.
Also at the meeting
In other business, Greene told the committee that work to replace the beach house and restroom at Beach 6 has started. He also said construction of the new beach houses and restrooms at Beach 10 and 11 should wrap up by the end of September. All three will be same style of building and all are expected to be open for the start of swimming in May of 2027. Greene said that numerous trees were downed in the recent powerful storm that hit Erie and forced the park to be closed most of Labor Day weekend. However, he said that fortunately, damage to buildings was limited to one branch that came down on Shelter 1. Dana Massing can be reached at dmassing@gannett.com.
