Posted on July 10, 2023
It’s finally summer, and people are flocking to the Jersey Shore.
But harsh weather has taken out some of the beaches, and New Jersey has been doing what’s known as “beach replenishment” — widening the beach by pumping in sand dredged from offshore.
More than $2.6 billion has been spent replenishing the Jersey shore with sand since 1922. With beach erosion likely to worsen in the future because of expected sea level rise and climate change, that technique could become unsustainable.
Steven Rodas, a journalist for New Jersey Advance Media, has been reporting on beach replenishment and the challenges it may face going forward. He spoke with WNYC’s Sean Carlson for All Things Considered; the transcript of their discussion below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Sean Carlson: Can you explain the process of beach replenishment to us?
Steven Rodas: So beach replenishment, also called beach nourishment and sand replenishment, essentially means the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers heads out offshore, or in some cases to federal inlet sites, in order to dredge sand, basically collect it from the bottom of the ocean and then pipe it in or pump it back onto the natural coastline.
So as we said, it’s really expensive to do this. Can you tell us how long it’s been going on for and do other places do it?
So it’s super expensive. More than $2.6 billion has been spent in New Jersey, but that figure might actually be higher once Western Carolina University, where we got that data from, updates its figures this fall.
Do other states do it? Yes. But per foot of shoreline, New Jersey has been, how one group told me, “the most productive,” and how another group phrased it, “the most wasteful.”
Oh, how long has Jersey been doing it for?
Steven: It depends on who you ask. Some folks say since the early 1900s. The data that we collected for our recent story goes back to 1922. So there are a few different years in terms of exactly when it started, but at least the last century.
So when we talk about this method, the whole crux of the conversation here is dredging sand and replenishing the beaches. Is it sustainable?
So whether it’s sustainable, it is something that a lot of people have debated. It is something that folks do for protecting physical homes and structures that are built up along the coast. It’s also done in order to fend off the erosion that naturally develops on our beaches. It is currently something that the state says we are looking at, something that makes sense as an option in order to replenish the Jersey Shore and different beaches.
Ultimately, though, according to experts I’ve spoken with, there’s a tipping point where it’ll be very, very, very expensive and will have to be done so frequently that it won’t actually make sense as something that we can always look to as an option.
What is happening this summer at the shore? Is the replenishment happening?
So the replenishment typically happens during the off season — so the fall or winter months — but it can happen during the summer. In fact, in Stone Harbor, they are in the process of replenishing a beach now, and for the town officials there, that wouldn’t be the best-case scenario. They would have preferred to start the replenishment earlier. Storms and other factors made it so that they had to push the project ahead.
So that is toward the, I would say, middle to end of completion. But for the most part, a lot of towns are in the stage where they can welcome people into their beaches.
So the Jersey Shore is such a huge part of Jersey’s identity, right? It’s hard to associate New Jersey with something more than the Shore. So it makes sense that people would want to keep it a tourist attraction. Are there other solutions state officials and experts are talking about when it comes to protecting the towns from erosion and seasonal flooding?
Towns want to protect and to keep their beaches plentiful. Everyone loves to visit the shore, as I do every year. The alternatives outside of sand replenishment haven’t been studied or explored too extensively.
Now, “livings shorelines” (using native vegetation to stabilize the shoreline) is one option that one group said is something that we can look at on a larger scale. There are also hard structures such as t-groins and jetties that experts say could be an alternative to make replenishment less required.
But again, they haven’t been invested in, in a large-scale way like sand replenishment has. We as a state haven’t been supported when it comes to using our budget or other financial tools to invest in those alternatives
We have looked at pairing hard structures, jetties, t-groins, things of that nature with replenishment pouring the sand onto the beach. In Neptune, a bay area there, they’re using coconuts to develop a living shoreline. Again, making it so that replenishment and pouring of sand isn’t needed as often.
