Posted on April 13, 2017
By Andrew Parent, ShoreNewsToday
Ocean City’s north end looks set for beach replenishment next fall.
Steve Rochette, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said Wednesday, April 5 that the federal agency is almost finished with designs for a project that would pump 700,000 cubic yards of sand on beaches between Seaview Road and 13th Street.
The project may start in late summer at the earliest, but an early fall start time is more likely, he said.
The work would be an emergency fill with federal Flood Control and Coastal Emergency program funds in response to a winter storm in January 2016 that eroded dunes and washed away a layer of sand on beaches that had just been replenished a couple months before as part of a regular three-year replenishment cycle in the northend.
That cycle is part of a 50-year agreement that started in 1991 between the city, the state and the Army Corps. Under the contact, northend beaches are replenished every three years. The federal government picks up 65 percent of the tab with the city and state paying the remainder.
The federal government would completely fund any project to come this fall, Rochette said. He declined to give a cost estimate for the work.
The most recent replenishment project there, which finished in December 2015, was a $12 million job to pour 970,000 cubic yards of sand between Seaspray Road and 12th Street, with the new layer tapering back toward 13th Street. The city paid $1.1 million for its share of the work.
Rochette said the state submitted an emergency replenishment request after the January 2016 storm, commonly referred to as “Jonas.” The request outlined damages to beaches across the state that have replenishment contracts with the Army Corps in place, he said.
“We went through and did an assessment, but no funding was available,” Rochette said. Emergency replenishment for the northend beach was still approved pending funding, which was made available this year, he said.
The Army Corps anticipates advertising the work for public bid in late May, with a contract award expected for late July or early August, he said.
Business administrator Jim Mallon told City Council earlier this year that the city was working with the Army Corps to get replenishment for the north end this fall.
Public information officer Doug Bergen said in an email Friday that the city is hopeful for a fall project, but that nothing is final at this point.
Beach towns around the county sought emergency replenishment after Jonas last year and another nor’easter last month that damaged dunes and wiped away sand in some beaches from Ocean City to Cape May Point.
Massive undertaking on Seven Mile
Avalon and Stone Harbor are undergoing one of the largest replenishment projects in their history. The boroughs are set to receive a combined 1.6 million cubic yards of sand by early summer, Rochette said.
Funded by $10.9 million in FCCE money, work to pump 710,000 cubic yards of sand between 77th and 80th streets in Avalon and 80th Street to 105th Street in Stone Harbor should be complete by late June, according to Avalon business administrator Scott Wahl.
That will start after the contractor, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, finishes a $10.5 million regularly scheduled project in Avalon to take 920,000 cubic yards of sand from Townsend’s Inlet and funnel it onto beaches from Ninth Street to the northern side of 30th Street.
Like Ocean City, the borough also has an agreement for regular beach fills with the Army Corps and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Wahl said Avalon is set to pay $700,000 for its northend job, with the state and federal governments picking up the rest of the cost.
“Jonas and the nor’easter last month really eroded away most of the beach,” he said of the northend. “Fortunately the dunes have remained intact, but right now there’s no beach there.”
Wahl said Avalon is still involved in a lawsuit with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Army Corps over the project. The borough filed the suit after the Fish and Wildlife service ruled that federal money can’t be used to pump sand from Hereford Inlet for Stone Harbor’s portion of the beach replenishment, because the inlet has been considered part of the Coastal Barrier Resource System since 2014.
Wahl said the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982 includes emergency provisions that would have allowed Stone Harbor to pull sand from Hereford Inlet.
The borough has been allowed to pull sand from the inlet using federal dollars for past projects, Wahl said.
Gavin Shire, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Avalon and Stone Harbor worked out a deal in which federal, state and local money will be used to pump the sand out of Townsend’s Inlet for Avalon’s northend, he said. For the federal project in Stone Harbor and the southend of Avalon, the contractor is set to pump sand out of Townsend’s Inlet to a pump sitting in the Atlantic. The pump will then push the slurry through a pipe that leads to 83rd Street beach in Stone Harbor, Wahl said.
Avalon took the lead in the lawsuit and hopes the courts will stop the Fish and Wildlife Service from applying the act in future replenishment projects. The borough also hopes to meet with Rep. Frank LoBiondo in hopes of a future legislative change on the matter.
“LoBiondo’s office is aware of the concerns we have and they want a seat at the table to discuss this with us,” Wahl said. “That request will be forthcoming soon.”
North Wildwood, Cape May get relief
The northeast portion of any barrier island tends to bear the brunt of any beach erosion caused by a powerful coastal storm.
In North Wildwood’s case, that covers just about the whole city.
“Almost the entire length, quite frankly,” Mayor Patrick Rosenello said Thursday, April 6 when asked which areas of the city’s beach is typically eroded most.
According to an Army Corps fact sheet, available online, North Wildwood’s beach was once one of the largest in the state.
The municipality “now suffers from tidal flooding and wave run-up over a formerly protective beach. The municipality of North Wildwood has lost approximately 1,000 feet of beach during the past 5-10 years,” the information states.
On the flip side, beaches in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest have accumulated vast amounts of sand in recent years.
For a short-term fix, a project is underway for the second consecutive year to move 200,000 cubic yards of sand from Wildwood to North Wildwood to repair dunes and fill in some sections of berm. North Wildwood will cover the entirety of the $1 million cost, said Rosenello, who added the job should finish up in mid-May.
In the long term, Five Mile Island is set for its first ever island-wide project as part of an agreement with the Army Corps and the state that was finalized last fall.
The first round of replenishment, estimated at about $22 million, could start as early as 2018, Rosenello said.
The island is among the last on New Jersey’s coast to have a replenishment agreement in place with the state and the Army Corps.
To the south, Great Lakes is set to finish a $15.5 million replenishment project in Cape May and Cape May Point, a cost-share job between the federal government, state and municipalities that calls for 735,000 cubic yards of sand.
That project includes the Coast Guard Training Center, Wilmington Avenue in Cape May, the Nature Conservancy property in Cape May, the western end of Cape May Point State Park and St. Pete’s Beach in Cape May Point. Work is set to be complete by April 22, Rochette said.
