We hope you enjoyed the “local summer”. Are you looking forward to a fall, winter, and spring of surfing, fishing, and enjoying the beach? Well, don’t be.
The Army Corps of Engineers is planning to dump tons of sand on your local beach. This will bury the sandbars and jetties that provide habitat for marine life for fishing, waves for surfing, and protection for local swimmers.
This statewide replenishment project is part of the answer to Superstorm Sandy. Unfortunately there is very little we can do to stop it. But we can work to get it modified and document the damage they do this time, so we have leverage the next time around (could be as soon as next year for phase II).
What can you do:
1. Monitor and Document Beach Conditions Prior to Replenishment: Record the state of your beach right now in photos, video, and verbal descriptions (especially at low tide). Our hope is to show our beaches are not horribly eroded while having some offshore sandbars providing protection and recreational uses. The replenishment project will bury all this under sand so it is important to document its existence now. If interested please email michellescott849@gmail.com for more information or to start collecting info.
2. Advocate for Modifications to the Beach Replenishment Projects: Ask your town council to request modified replenishment from the ACOE and DEP. Here is a model Beach Fill Resolution (municipal) that you can bring to your town requesting a more gradual slope at the waters edge, protection of sandbars and jetties, and the creation of dunes as part of the project.
3. Document Your Ocean Uses: To ensure that your favorite recreational areas are considered in future projects it is important that we document all recreational uses such as beach going, swimming, beach wildlife viewing, surfing, kayaking, windsurfing, and diving. To complete the survey go to http://www.surfrider.org/mid-atlantic-recreation and enter your email address. This survey does take about 15 minutes, so set some time aside to do it.
If you want to learn more about beachfill, here is a detailed article.
I have been going to Village Beach Club for 47 years. I learned to body surf there from my parents and have taught my children as well. We go to the beach because of the OCEAN! Not just to work on our tans. It is a great source of fun and exercise for all the kids who swim, boogie board, surf and body surf. Not to mention the paddleboarders and the kayakers as well. Kids ages 8 to 80. If you think I am kidding take a poll. The 80 year olds still get in there to body surf.
If this replenishment goes through we lose all of that. We lose our history, our source of summer fun, and our future.
Please do not let this happen. The beached between Allenhurst and Loch Arbour have NOT lost any sand. As usual the sand travels between the 3 beaches and some years we have more and some years it travels back to Allenhurst.
Just go look at the beach now. We have more sand then we have EVER HAD! The small jetty to the north of Village Beach is now covered by rocks. It never used to be.
This is unnecessary and unwanted. Give the sand to someone else and leave us our one precious source of recreation at the beach!
I wish there was a way to stop it. The problem is that surfers and beach goers are the minority. After Sandy the shore is looked at as the front line of the war against sea shore property loss. Billions were paid out from Sandy and the Government only knows one way to correct the issue. Pump more sand to protect the shore area but more important protect the massive payouts. I can tell you first hand that pumping sand is a temporary answer. I watched last Dec in Sea Bright the Amy Corp pump hundreds of yard of sand on to the beach right after Sandy. Two major winter storms took most of it away by March. This summer people that did not travel to beach during the winter asked why they did not pump sand already. My Answer- “They did and it is all gone.”
One of the best summers for surfing in Sea Bright in 15 years. All Jetty’s were exposed again.
I will bet after a couple major storms again this winter the sand will be taken back by the ocean. There has to be another way to slow the currents that travel south to north during the storms. I heard of concrete break waters, but that never went anywhere. Hope they can find a good solution to stop wasting money. For now we have to watch and wait what happens this winter…
Pry for Surf!