Posted on August 24, 2021
OCEAN CITY, Md.- Right on the Ocean City Boardwalk, leaders in Maryland announced a beach nourishment project.
This is part of a bigger Atlantic Coast or Maryland Shoreline Protection Project. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) says the 8.3-mile shoreline will be just a small part of what has already prevented $1 billion in coastal storm damage since 1990.
USACE Baltimore District Commander Colonel Estee Pinchasin explains where the sand for the project is coming from.
“We worked with BOEM to sign an agreement to access over one million cubic yards of sand from the outer continental shelf which is absolutely essential to this project because we already exhausted the sand from our state designated borrowing areas,” Colonel Pinchasin said.
Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan recalls when the boardwalk was demolished by a storm in 1985.
“I was here when Hurricane Gloria went through and this boardwalk you see today was destroyed,” Meehan said. We had to replace the entire boardwalk and this was something we were doing routinely after storms. But Gloria was the last time we had to do that. 1986 was when we began to discuss plans for the beach replenishment project.”
The project is expected to begin after Labor Day and is expected to be completed by next Memorial Day.
