In This Issue:

• Coastal Calendar
• FEATURE: Greening the Garden State Through Remediation, Assessment, and Restoration
• Jersey Beaches on "Shore" Footing
• Fishing for Regulatory Solutions
• Shellfish Restoration Program Enters Fifth Year
• Marine Science Competition Plumbs Oceans of Knowledge
• Shore Takes Center Stage in Survey

Jersey Beaches on “Shore” Footing

by Dr. Stewart Farrell, Director, Richard Stockton College Coastal Research Center

(cont'd from page 1)

       Detractors claimed that the beach restoration project in Sea Bright would be gone in less than 3 years. However, eleven years later, no further work has been required for the project at this and many other locations along the Jersey Shore with a few exceptions. One hot spot of erosion in Monmouth Beach has been repaired twice and continues to require attention, while the southern limit at Long Branch was filled again in 2008 due to end-effect losses to Elberon and Deal where no federal work was authorized due to the lack of real estate easements on private oceanfront lands. The project continued from Asbury Park south to the Manasquan Inlet and that segment has had no subsequent pumping since 1999 – 2000.

Northern Sea Bright, NJ prior to the Federal beach restoration project in 1987 and the same view in the fall of 2007 showing a 200-foot wide dune system and a 200-foot wide dry beach that has been in place at this location since 1996 as the project progressed between 1994 and 2000 across 21 miles of Monmouth County’s shoreline (cost $210,000,000, 65% Federally funded, 35% State and local at a 75 – 25% ratio).

       Other projects have been completed in Ocean City, Brigantine, Atlantic City – Ventnor City, Avalon – Stone Harbor, Cape May City and Cape May Meadows and Cape May Point. State – local projects have occurred in Strathmere, Sea Isle City and Harvey Cedars. Sand management is becoming a proven science and in spite of slowly rising sea levels, has managed to provide the State’s beach-going public with demonstrably wider, safer beaches at most of the popular resort communities.