Posted on March 12, 2025
An enormous federal project meant to protect the coasts of multiple Jersey Shore towns is on the precipice of no longer happening at all because local mayors can’t agree on whether it makes sense.
The “Five Mile Island” project, most recently estimated to cost about $54 million, has been more than a decade in the making.
The beach work is meant to benefit Wildwood Crest, Lower Township, Wildwood and North Wildwood — the last of which has been particularly desperate for a spruced up beach due to severe erosion.
North Wildwood has not had a federal replenishment since Hurricane Sandy.
However, the massive project — led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with help from the state — has continued to hit stumbling blocks.
First, because some property owners and town officials expressed concerns about shore access and beach views being marred by high dunes and an altered coastline.
Wildwood’s mayor specifically has called out how beach construction could curtail the city’s famous wide beach which it uses for large events. In February, the mayor in Wildwood Crest said he also worried taxpayers would have to shoulder future sand replenishment costs and lamented that beach space for tourism and access to a fishing pier would be affected too.
Private homeowners on Diamond Beach in Lower Township have additionally criticized the process of finalizing the project.
On Tuesday, in a sternly-worded letter, New Jersey’s Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn LaTourette said the Five Mile project was now “in serious jeopardy.”
“If the project is to proceed, each municipality must reaffirm its unqualified commitment to our existing project agreements to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in writing by March 18, 2025,” LaTourette wrote in the letter obtained by NJ Advance Media on Tuesday afternoon.
The shore work, which would be covered by federal (about $34 million) and state (about $19 million) allocations, was designed to provide the Wildwoods with an engineered beach and dune system “that will protect public safety and property by reducing coastal erosion and storm risks,” the DEP said.
More beach replenishments have been needed across the coast as severe erosion, made worse by climate change, only becomes more frequent. They are typically covered by taxpayers and while projects are designed to wash away over time, erosion is making these kinds of investments more precarious.
Before the latest reversal, all signs pointed to the Army Corps starting the federal project in 2026 after another slight delay. The state has been working to get property owners to agree to “easements” for temporary beach access.
LaTourette said Tuesday the federal work is contingent on the multi-town design and everyone being onboard.
If the towns withdraw from the project and it is canceled by the state, North Wildwood may take the matter to court, the city’s Mayor Patrick Rosenello told NJ Advance Media on the phone Tuesday afternoon.
“We clearly are not afraid to defend our rights in court,” Rosenello said, alluding to a past lawsuit with the state DEP. “We’ve shown that. I would hope that it doesn’t come to that. But again … North Wildwood would expect that all the parties to that contract honor the contract, pretty simple.”
While all the Cape May County mayors previously signed state aid agreements, officials said those were drawn up when the project was not fully fleshed out.
“The state aid agreement was signed four years ago to keep the project moving in hopes there could be aspects of the project we could support and negotiate out. However, at that time it was based on 60-65% of the details,” Don Cabrera, mayor of Wildwood Crest, said Monday. “Now at 95%, the issues presented are much more apparent and some things have changed.”
Those issues, Cabrera listed, included loss of beach space, emergency and public safety limitations and loss of ADA access.
The latest project plans show swaths of the shore, namely down south in the Wildwood Crest area, being used as “borrow areas.”
Asked earlier this week about intentions to introduce a resolution to withdraw from the federal project, Cabrera said the borough continued to do research to evaluate best next steps.
In his letter sent to all four mayors Tuesday, the commissioner said 2023 marked a breakthrough for the project — likely because North Wildwood was missing a sizable section of its beach and faced severe storms.
A temporary emergency beachfill solved the immediate issue but Rosenello said Tuesday the federal work is part of a longer term commitment. He also said more storms are inevitable.
LaTourette outlined also that in December 2024, municipal leaders met with the state to move the beach project forward.
It was made clear, he said, that ”Wildwood Crest’s and Wildwood’s principal concerns were not about protecting against coastal storms and erosion, but instead about maintaining exceptionally wide beaches viewed as necessary to hosting large revenue-generating events.”
LaTourette noted that the project will not dramatically limit the beach in Wildwood or Wildwood Crest.
Wildwood Crest provided a video of what it determined were hard to ignore impacts the project would have on its shore.
“We disagree with many of the opinions shared in (LaTourette’s) letter,” Cabrera said Tuesday, adding that the town believed it had more time before having to make a decision on a final project agreement.
“Wildwood Crest remains available to further discuss potential revisions to the project to not harm the brand of Wildwood Crest which residents and vacationers enjoy every summer,” Cabrera said. “The same people that pay various taxes that help fund the state budget.”
LaTourette said beaches in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest ”would remain capable of hosting monster truck races and concerts, with plenty of blanket space available for beachgoers.”
Those towns, he said, face severe risks from future storms on the coast too.
In addition, LaTourette said taking up the alternative of acquiring sand from a different source for the Five Mile Island work — not the Wildwoods — would mean foregoing funds already set aside for this work.
That work, the DEP highlighted, has already meant over $1.5 million in state and federal expenses for things like designing, planning and acquiring project easements.
LaTourette was blunt.
“This project unfortunately stands at the brink of cancellation today due to an unnecessary parochial dispute over sand that the state cannot resolve for you,” LaTourette said.
“In short, the project as authorized by Congress and agreed to by your municipalities, depends on utilizing accumulated sand from the exceptionally wide beaches of the Wildwoods in order to construct the dune system and nourish the island’s narrower, eroding beaches,” he added.
In re-iterating the March 18 deadline, the commissioner said the state was told that would the New Jersey towns withdraw from the project — those federal funds would be directed to other Army Corps needs throughout the U.S.
“In short,” LaTourette said, “this is the Wildwoods’ final opportunity to proceed with this project.”
Officials in Lower Township and Wildwood could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
