By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
After being swept away months ago by torrents of water, the beach on the bay side of the Townsends Inlet Bridge in Sea Isle City appears to be filling back in naturally, but the dunes continue to collapse in an avalanche of sand and trees.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio and City Business Administrator George Savastano accompanied representatives of the bayfront Townsend Shoals condominium complex on a recent tour to survey the beach and damaged dunes.
“Even though some sand has returned to the inlet on its own, the Mayor and Business Administrator promised that the City would continue to monitor the situation and work with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine the best path forward in order to preserve Sea Isle City’s southern-most beach,” the city said in a statement.
Russ Napolitano, president of the Townsend Shoals condo association, said he is encouraged by the city’s commitment to find a way to repair the erosion.
“It seems like they’re serious about doing that,” he said in an interview Sunday.
Napolitano and Joe Civitillo, vice president of the Townsend Shoals condo association, joined Desiderio and Savastano on an hour-long tour Nov. 5 to assess the beach and dunes.
“It raised the level of awareness about the importance of the erosion,” Napolitano said.
Several months ago, the beach on the bay side of the Townsends Inlet Bridge was stripped of its powdery top layer of sand – washed away by the water. However, much of the sand seems to have returned naturally in recent weeks.
“The beach is building back up. The sand is building up,” Napolitano said.
Condo owners at Townsend Shoals, though, remain concerned about the eroded dunes. The dunes continue to collapse, creating sharp, cliff-like walls about 30 to 40 feet high. Trees and bushes on top of the dunes have toppled down onto the beach and died.
The trees and bushes are part of the Townsends Inlet Waterfront Park, a tranquil hideaway classified as a maritime forest. The park is considered one of Sea Isle’s most significant natural assets.
Napolitano is worried that the eroding dunes could eventually pose a threat to the adjacent Townsend Shoals condominium complex, a four-story building perched directly over the beach and water on the bay side of Townsends Inlet off 94th Street.
“The dunes provide the most protection,” he said of the barrier that they create when they are not badly eroded.
For months, Sea Isle officials have been discussing possible ways to slow down or stop the erosion to the beach and dunes. Now, the city is waiting for help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to develop a long-term strategy.
In the meantime, the city is considering a process known as “sand harvesting” as a short-term fix for the erosion. Sand would be taken from healthy areas of the beach and used to repair the damaged dunes.
“George’s solution was to do sand harvesting because that’s what they did in Ocean City years ago and it worked,” Napolitano said of Savastano. “It sounds like that’s what they’re going to do, but I don’t know when.”
Previously, Savastano had discussed the possibility of sand harvesting or trucking in loads of fresh sand in the fall. But he also expressed concern that any new sand placed on the eroded dunes and beach might simply be swept away by Townsends Inlet, the powerful and deep channel that separates Sea Isle and Avalon.
Savastano acknowledged during a City Council meeting in October that Sea Isle doesn’t know how to stop the erosion.
“It’s really a difficult situation because there’s not much we can do,” he told the Council members then.
Ultimately, the city hopes to persuade the Army Corps of Engineers to include the bay side of Townsends Inlet in Sea Isle’s next beach replenishment project, which likely won’t be done until 2023 unless the schedule is accelerated to 2022, Savastano said.
The Army Corps replenished the beaches on the ocean side of the Townsends Inlet Bridge in 2020. However, the eroded beaches and dunes on the bay side of the bridge were outside the boundaries of the project.
In an interview in September, a spokesman for the Army Corps said the federal agency has no plans to change the scope of its project to replenish the beach on the bay side of the bridge.
What the Army Corps will do is to share technical data that it gleans from its ongoing surveys of Sea Isle’s shoreline to help the city devise a strategy to protect the beaches and dunes on the bay side, the spokesman said.
Napolitano said he is confident that the city will ultimately find a solution for the erosion. He believes the beach tour with Desiderio and Savastano was a positive start. At the same time, he said he plans to hold the city to its promise that it will take action.
“I’m just encouraged that we got the attention of the mayor and the business administrator and they are seriously taking a look at it,” he said.
