Posted on May 1, 2018
By John DeRosier, Cape May County
The city began a $1.5 million dune restoration and beach replenishment project last Monday after several storms took a bite out of the beach earlier this year.
The project is funded through the city’s capital budget, so residents will not see a tax increase, Mayor Patrick Rosenello said.
“Unfortunately, this is the third year in a row we’ve had to do this,” Rosenello said. “We make sure to plan for it in the budget.”
Over the past three years, North Wildwood has spent about $5 million on dune repair and beach replenishment.
For this project, about 150,000 cubic yards of sand will be moved from Wildwood to North Wildwood in trucks, Rosenello said.
The sand from Wildwood is being taken from the outfall pipes, which clog up and cause drainage issues.
“Wildwood has an issue where they have too much sand,” Rosenello said. “They have been really good to us in letting us dig out that sand (in the pipes) and bring it over.”
North Wildwood used to have the largest beach in the state, but lost about 1,000 feet in the past decade. Now, the roads, Boardwalk and homes are threatened with every major storm, Rosenello said.
This replenishment project is separate from two other projects to protect North Wildwood. One of them will extend the seawall between Second and Fifth avenues, paid for by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the city.
The other will construct dunes all across the Wildwoods, designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Army Corps plans to take as much as 500 feet of beach from Wildwood and Wildwood Crest and use the sand to build a dune system for the entire island.
The agency hopes to have the project done by 2020, Army Corps spokesman Stephen Rochette said.
Wildwood Crest already has dunes, but they are not up to Army Corps standards because they have gaps for people to walk through, according to Press archives. The new dunes will require people to walk over them.
The Army Corps project is part of the same initiative that caused controversy in Margate, where dunes were built and water pooled behind them. Margate residents opposed the dunes before they were built because most flooding in town comes from the bay side, not the ocean.
Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano previously told The Press that Wildwood also sees flooding from the bay side, but the city hasn’t fought the project like Margate did.
Instead, Troiano said, he worked with the Army Corps and the DEP to limit the amount of sand taken from Wildwood.
Rosenello said large beaches in his city come and go.
“This is all very cyclical. … We had a large beach (around Second Avenue) for many years,” he said, adding pictures in the city’s archives show the cycle of growing and shrinking beaches over the past 100 years. “Fortunately, it looks like the DEP will help us pay for the extended seawall.”
Source: Cape May County
