Posted on June 30, 2016
By Karen Wall
Paul Jeffrey smiled, a wide grin of both happiness and relief, as he stood outside the new Ortley South Lifeguard Station in Ortley Beach on Friday afternoon.
“It’s all coming together,” said Jeffrey, president of the Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association. His happiness wasn’t just about the reopened lifeguard building — another sign of the ongoing rebirth on the barrier island after the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy nearly four years ago.
Jeffrey also was happy because he’d received word that a long-awaited Army Corps of Engineers dune project on Ocean County’s northern barrier island should finally go out to bid later this summer — meaning the barrier island, at long last, will get an engineered dune constructed to protect homes and businesses.
Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher, who was on hand for the ribbon-cutting for the new Ortley South Lifeguard Station, said he was relieved that all the needed easements were in place at last.
“I wanted to kiss (the person handling the paperwork) when she brought me the last one to sign,” Kelaher said with a grin.
“It is terrific news that there is finally some light on the horizon,” Brick Township Mayor John Ducey said. “I am feeling cautiously optimistic that the much-needed project will be here by next summer.”
Residents of Ortley Beach, which suffered the most destruction during Sandy, have clamored for the dune project for months, protesting in Trenton to get the attention and support of state officials. That has resulted in telephone calls to update the OBVTA on progress — and it was the most recent call that brought the good news, Jeffrey said,
“They (The Department of Environmental Protection) told us the final easements were signed,” Jeffrey said.
Edward Voigt, the chief of public and legislative affairs for the Army Corps of Engineers’s Philadelphia division, said the DEP has all the property needed to seek bids for the main piece of the project, from Mantoloking through Seaside Park.
“It will probably be September” when the Army Corps advertises for bids, Voigt said. “The actual construction will likely begin in the spring,” he said.
The project, estimated to cost $167 million to build, will take more than a year to complete, Voigt said.
Leland Moore with the state Attorney General’s office, which has been handling the eminent domain proceedings against property owners who had not initially signed easements, also confirmed, saying “subject to some administrative paperwork, the state has obtained all the required property” for the Mantoloking-to-Seaside Park stretch, which is the base contract.
Jeffrey said that in Toms River, residents who already had signed easements “did a lot of backroom work” to convince holdouts to sign, particularly after the Army Corps told the township that side agreements it had worked out with some of the beach associations were not valid and had to be replaced with Army Corps-approved easements.
“We had to chip away at it,” Jeffrey said, but in the end, they were able to convince enough holdouts that easements for even the beach associations could be completed.
The state also received assistance in obtaining the property needed from a ruling by Superior Court Judge Marlene Lynch Ford, who in March rejected the claims of 28 property owners that the eminent domain proceedings were an attempt to turn private property into public beaches, allowing the DEP to move forward.
Because the project likely won’t begin until the spring, it will mean another winter of managing the beaches through storms. Toms River has spent $2 million adding sand to shore up its dunes through nor’easters, with the state reimbursing about $1.75 million.
The township also has spent several thousand dollars installing walkways over the existing berm — to the chagrin of some — that will have to be removed when the dune project goes through.
Brick Township received sand from the DEP this spring to build up its beaches after the impact of the winter’s storms left the steel revetment wall that the DEP installed in Brick and Mantoloking exposed by as much as 19 feet. Its officials, too have been criticized over the temporary sand replacement.
Voigt acknowledged that waiting through another storm season will be difficult, but said at least now residents have more definite timeframe on construction.
“At least it’s in sight,” he said.
“To have the hopes of having an engineered beach next year is a great recreational asset,” Ducey said, “but more importantly, a necessary protection for our residents and their properties.”
Voigt said that the Army Corps isn’t forgetting about Bay Head, Point Pleasant Beach, and the South Seaside Park section of Berkeley Township. In Bay Head, property owners are fighting the beach project contending that their rock wall is sufficient protection. In Point Pleasant Beach, the owners of Jenkinsons Boardwalk have sued to stop the project on the premise that it will create a public beach that will become the responsibility of the private property owners.
But for now, the Army Corps is focusing on the main portion of the project, Voigt said. That should give officials time to work through the issues with the remaining portions of the northern barrier island.
Source: Patch
