Posted on August 26, 2021
OCEAN CITY, Md. – Efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to replenish and support Ocean City beaches in the unpredictable foreground of climate change will commence after Labor Day and are expected to finish before Memorial Day next year.
“We’re protecting such an important part of our state,” U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said during a press event Thursday afternoon. “For a very small investment, we’re going to make sure [visitors] can enjoy a beautiful beach. And they’re safe here. And they know if they own property or own businesses here, we’re taking care of protecting them from the uncertainty of climate change.”
The USACE Baltimore District awarded a $15.7 million contract Aug. 2 to New Jersey-based company Weeks Marine, the latest transaction in a three-decade campaign to build and maintain a protective seawall adjacent to Ocean City’s boardwalk. The Atlantic Coast of Maryland Shoreline Protection Project, which started in 1990 and runs through 2044, sees similar renourishment projects completed roughly every four years. The first took place in 1994, and the last was conducted in 2017.
The 2021 transplant, however, will be the first time Ocean City’s shoreline is supported by sand from federal waters. An agreement signed this Spring by the USACE, Maryland, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) granted access to 1.3 million cubic yards of sand from Weaver Shoal, located more than seven miles off the coast on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf.
The supply previously exhumed from state waters was exhausted during the 2017 transfer, according to the USACE.
The sand will be used to replenish eight miles of beach, including sand dunes planted closer to the boardwalk, that have been worn down by erosion or damaged by severe weather events.
Costs for the protection project are shared between the state, the Department of the Army, Worcester County, and the town of Ocean City. While the estimated total bill sits at $145 million since 1990, according to Ocean City Mayor Richard Meehan, the USACE believes it has prevented $1 billion in storm damages.
“It makes this a poster child, which I think it is, for other projects,” Meehan said.
Though Ocean City’s beaches have been replenished several times over the years, local officials commended President Joe Biden for his commitment to infrastructure and environmental conservation. Specifically cited were the administration’s America the Beautiful initiative, which seeks to preserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, and its overarching Build Back Better agenda, which helped guide a bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate that granted $21 billion for environmental remediation projects like that in Ocean City.
Cardin and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., in addition to supporting the infrastructure bill, have helped secure other funding sources aimed at protecting the shoreline. For the USACE’s 2021 Work Plan, Cardin and Van Hollen helped bring in federal dollars towards the account dedicated to flood and storm damage protection, according to a press release.
The Corps’ continued support of Ocean City was also one of the first decisions overseen by Col. Estee Pinchasin, who took over as commander of the USACE’s Baltimore District July 16.
“Like you, I’ve been on the receiving end of the work of the Corps of Engineers pretty much all my life,” Pinchasin said Thursday. “I realize how much work is behind all this, what has to happen for all this to take place.”
“This doesn’t happen by accident. And so I have to tell you that it’s truly humbling to see and just very exciting for me to be a part of this.”
