Officials defend planned $4M beach replenishment project
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 August 2011 15:06 Written by Columb Higgins Tuesday, 16 August 2011 02:48
STRATHMERE – Officials responded last week to criticism of a planned $4 million beach replenishment project in Strathmere.
Upper Township Committee voted Tuesday, Aug. 9 to approve a $4.2 million bond to fund the beach fill, scheduled to be completed before next summer.
Mayor Richard Palombo took exception to a letter in the Gazette that likened the funding to “throwing money in the ocean.”
“I would argue we have an obligation to protect the infrastructure and personal property in Strathmere,” he said. “The beaches there protect ($400) million in ratables.
“These are the kinds of things we need to do to protect these precious ratables,” he added.
The township is required to bond for the entire cost of the project up front but it is eligible for 75 percent reimbursement from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for the beach fill. Also, the state has agreed to pay for the entire cost of replenishing the Corson’s Inlet natural area on the north end of Strathmere, according to township engineer Paul Dietrich.
Upper Township completed a $6 million beach replenishment project in 2009. The beach fill was the largest in Upper Township’s history, pumping 203,000 cubic yards of sand onto the state-owned natural area and 691,000 cubic yards on Strathmere and Whale Beach beaches.
Much of the sand remains, but portions of the beaches on Strathmere’s north end have eroded due to severe coastal storms.
The 2009 Veteran’s Day storm and subsequent storms have carved a major portion of sand from Strathmere beaches, but the storm surge and wave damage never reached beyond the toe of the dunes.
An October report on the state of Strathmere’s beaches by Dr. Stewart Farrell, director of the Coastal Research Center at Richard Stockton College, showed the beach fill project was mostly holding up. Beaches extended 600 to 800 feet when the project was done.
Farrell, who is a consultant on coastal erosion for Upper Township, said storms had pushed the high tide line about 300 to 400 feet landward at Corson’s Inlet. Moving south, beaches saw between a 30 to 50 percent loss in sand, but nowhere had the storm surge breached the dunes.
Palombo said that hopefully this second project will build up the beach to the extent that the township will not have to address it anytime soon.
“Hopefully we won’t have any bad storms like the kind we have seen in the past few years,” he said.
Deputy Mayor Curtis Corson, Jr. said he has been asked by residents why the township doesn’t invest in a seawall in Strathmere. He said there are bulkheads on the northern end of Strathmere, but building a seawall further south would require Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and CAFRA approvals.
“The permitting would be impossible,” he said.
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