Jersey Shore beach gets the sand it’s desperately needed for years (2024)

The sound of sand being pumped onto a small Jersey Shore beach causes a ruckus. It’s roaring and constant.

It’s also music to the mayor’s ears.

“That’s to put it mildly, yes,” a laughing North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. “Having that dredge offshore right now I think is the best sight that I’ve seen from our beach in a long, long time.”

North Wildwood is expected to get more than 700,000 cubic yards — or upwards of 2 billion pounds — of sand across most of its beach by July 4 once the new emergency project is completed. The work, which began this week after making headway earlier this spring, is being led by the state and could cost as much as $15 million, Rosenello said.

“The high tide berm, which is the dry sand, will be about 200 feet wide (at 7th Avenue),” he said.

It comes four years after the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, NJDEP, first cited North Wildwood for conducting beach construction without the proper permits and amid the city’s long-chronicled struggle with erosion.

Until about two years ago, North Wildwood says it was able to manage coastal erosion with smaller projects and by trucking in sand from Wildwood. Officials there have fought for emergency work for more than a year.

The emergency beachfill was ordered by Gov. Phil Murphy’s office after a push by Rosenello, state Senator Mike Testa, R-Cumberland, and residents.

The “North Wildwood Emergency Beach Nourishment Dredging” project is being completed while the city, along with three other municipalities, await more progress on a much larger beach replenishment coming from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

That project still requires real estate easem*nts before moving forward.

“The background work of title searches, surveys and appraisal work continues,” Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the NJDEP, said in April of the larger project. “The DEP anticipates receiving the majority of the easem*nts by this fall.”

The back-and-forth between the Jersey Shore town and state officials culminated in an ongoing $33 million legal spat.

North Wildwood has for years argued steel sea walls it’s built on various portions of the beach were needed because severe erosion had wiped out as much as 10 blocks of its 36 block-long beach at high tide — putting properties and power lines at risk. Rosenello highlighted that a reduced beach, which has prompted closures and spurred a temporary tent ban, threatens tourism dollars too.

However, state environmental regulators have said in the past that some of the physical structures the city has built could have worsened erosion in sections of the small shore.

Almost the whole beach

The New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Office of Maritime Resources is leading the new emergency replenishment, which was contracted out to H&L Contracting and Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.

Of the total cost, $10 million will be paid for by state taxpayers and North Wildwood will put up as much as $5 million. The final cost and amount of sand will depend on the project scope.

The contractors plan to pump sand on the beach at 7th Avenue then head south and wrap around the jetty at 2nd Avenue and John F. Kennedy Blvd., Jim Barry, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said Friday.

“Once this section is complete, it is expected that the contractor will return to 7th Avenue, continuing south,” Barry said, then cautioning people in the area. “Safety is a top priority. (Beachgoers should) stay away from all construction equipment, pipelines and caution zones.”

The mayor said roughly 1,000-foot spans of North Wildwood’s beach will be closed at a time as the work continues. Signs will be posted to inform visitors of the work.

“Overall, I’d say that the consensus here is that this project is long overdue, and a huge asset to the community,” said P.J. Hondros, who has lived in North Wildwood since 2020 but has visited since he was a toddler.

Hondros, who helps run a social media page to track the state of the local shore, previously launched a petition to rally for the state to take more action on emergency beach fixes.

“Hundreds upon hundreds of people have stopped by to watch it get done,” he said Thursday evening. “The only concern I’ve heard people echo is that they believe the project won’t last very long.”

Rosenello has shared that pumping sand, instead of back passing it from Wildwood, means it will offer longer lasting protections.

Based on planning documents and according to the mayor, the sand will be distributed from 2nd to 23rd Avenues. You can read a public notice of the design work here.

“It is essentially our entire beachfront,” Rosenello said. “It does not include the very southern end of our beach only because there is some private property down there that would have required us obtaining easem*nts and we just simply didn’t have the time to do that.”

The sand for the emergency work will come from Hereford Inlet, where sand — that’s hard to get for political and logistical reasons — has accumulated over the years.

The massive federal shore project coming to the larger Cape May County area — including Wildwood, Lower Township and Wildwood Crest — is slated to have a firmer construction start date come summer 2025. It has not been determined when exactly those protections will benefit North Wildwood.

Although that “Five Mile Island” project finalized its feasibility study in 2014, the work was delayed while towns and property owners got onboard with the expansive plans which could cost north of $40 million and will require more than 100 real estate easem*nts before kicking off.

Rosenello on Thursday did not fully blame any one agency or official over having to wait for the work, despite being critical of the NJDEP and Murphy in the past.

“For several years, (the NJDEP) has invested significant time and resources in project design and coordination. We have worked with each of your municipalities, collectively and individually, to craft and finalize the state aid agreements. Yet, final agreement from the Wildwood and Lower Township remains elusive,” Shawn LaTourette, department commissioner, wrote to the mayors of all four towns in the project area in a February 2023 letter obtained by NJ Advance Media.

LaTourette, and the state, that month got the additional towns to agree to the shore project. Municipalities had to sign off before the department could begin to ask for rights of access across private property areas where work was planned.

It’s unclear why some property owners may not have agreed with the project moving ahead initially. The current mayor of Wildwood, Ernie Troiano, shared concerns earlier this year about the potential impact new dunes could have on reducing beach access. He still has those concerns but said for now the city is supporting the work.

The owners of Morey’s Piers in the town shared similar worries over boardwalk access.

“The property owners posed several issues with the state aid agreement and requested changes to the agreement to address their concerns,” Michael Laffey, Lower Township manager, said Monday in an email. Asked to comment on what those issues were, he referred additional questions to the NJDEP.

Efforts to get started on a replenishment in North Wildwood, local officials have emphasized, also ramped up because the city could not obtain sand from elsewhere and harsh winters have only exacerbated the situation.

Regarding the legal battle between North Wildwood and the state, Rosenello said Thursday afternoon that a global settlement was currently being discussed.

He said his office was “actively engaged” in those discussions, which he hopes will be finalized by July along with the emergency replenishment.