By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City’s storm-damaged beaches may not be replenished with fresh sand until sometime after Labor Day, according to the federal agency that will oversee the project.
In an update on the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that it expects to award the beachfill contract in July.
Under that timetable, work will likely start in late summer or possibly after Labor Day, said Army Corps spokesman Ed Voigt.
If the work begins after Labor Day, it means that the summer beach crowds will not have to contend with the heavy construction equipment and massive pipes that are typically used for replenishment projects. At the same time, beachgoers may find that some of their favorite spots are badly eroded.
The estimated $30 million beach replenishment project will include Sea Isle, Strathmere and the southern end of Ocean City. Voigt explained that the Army Corps typically leaves it up to the contractor to decide the order in which the towns will receive new sand.
“We leave the sequencing up to the contractor who gets the award. There are timing restrictions for the protection of threatened and endangered plants and animals that may impact the order of operations. It’s too early to say now,” he said in an email Thursday.
Surveys have not yet been completed to determine the amounts of sand that will be needed for the project. The Army Corps must also determine the specific beaches that will be replenished in each town, Voigt said.
“Surveys aren’t finalized until shortly before beachfill operations get underway. Both total and relative quantities (of sand) will vary between now and then. What’s important is that we’re planning to fully restore the project to its design template – as when first constructed. The areas that have eroded more will get more sand, but the final outcome will be as designed,” he said.
Empty during the off-season, Sea Isle's beaches will be crowded when summer arrives.
George Savastano, the city business administrator, said in February that Sea Isle wants the Army Corps to restore the eroded beaches in the downtown area between 29th and 50th streets and in the south end of the island from generally 75th Street or 80th Street to 94th Street near the Townsends Inlet Bridge.
Those are generally the same beaches that were widened and replenished during Sea Isle’s last replenishment project in the summer of 2020. At that time, more than 750,000 cubic yards of new sand was placed between 28th and 52nd streets and from 74th to 93rd streets in Townsends Inlet.
In the meantime, Sea Isle has been using a process known as “sand harvesting” to temporarily fortify sections of the dunes that are badly eroded in the general area of 88th Street to 92nd Street.
The plan calls for taking beach sand from the edge of the water during low tide to shore up the dunes. Earthmovers are used to push the sand up against the dunes. Sand scraped away near the ocean is then naturally restored by the waves during the incoming tides, so nothing is really lost, Sea Isle officials say.
Sea Isle began sand harvesting operations in February after the dunes were sheared away between 88th and 92nd streets. The edge of the dunes had become mini-cliffs towering about 10 to 20 feet high.
Another bout of storms in March washed away much of the new sand that was placed against the dunes in February. Mayor Leonard Desiderio said in March that the city will continue with its sand harvesting operations to protect the oceanfront homes that overlook the eroded dunes in the vicinity of 90th Street.
Sea Isle’s work crews will continue to strengthen the dunes until the beaches begin to replenish themselves through the natural buildup of sand that typically occurs in late spring and the summer, Desiderio explained.
For the beaches’ long-term improvement, though, Sea Isle will depend on the huge amounts of fresh sand that will be pumped onto the shoreline during the replenishment project in late summer or after Labor Day.
A Public Works employee uses a front-end loader to level off the beach pathway at 39th Street in February.
