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Beginning Saturday, over one million cubic yards of sand will begin to be pumped onto the shoreline between Asbury Park and Avon-by-the-Sea.

The $18.3 million Army Corps of Engineers beach nourishment project, which will move offshore sand onto beaches in Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Bradley Beach and Avon, was announced Thursday through a news release by Senator Frank Pallone’s office.

Workers will begin Jan. 4 in Avon and work north along the coastline, provided the impending Nor’easter does not hinder plans, according to Joe Bongiovanni, Asbury Park’s beach safety supervisor. Bongiovanni has worked on the beaches of Asbury Park for the past 45 years and has seen several beach replenishment projects completed during that time.

It will take about a month for work in Avon to be completed. Replenishment should hit Asbury Park beaches by April or May, depending on the weather, but the entire project must be competed by June 12, Bongiovanni said.

The federally funded project, made possible by Sandy aid packages passed by Congress and contracted to the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, is slated to restore the beaches to “better than pre-Sandy conditions,” the release said.

No measurements of the shoreline were taken before the storm hit in late October of 2012 so the Army Corps will be basing their levels on a previous replenishment project completed in 2001 from Asbury Park to Manasquan, said Bongiovanni.

The slope of the graded sand will be 20:1 [about 20 feet of horizontal space per one foot vertical drop in elevation] for approximately the first 50 feet and then change to a 10:1 grade thereafter, he said.

“I’m pleased that this important project, which will help to protect homes and businesses from future flooding, as well as repair the destruction caused by Sandy, is underway,” said Pallone in the release.  “Our beaches are a fundamental part of life on the Shore, both for residents to enjoy and as drivers of tourism and our local economy.  I have fought for this and other beach replenishment funding for years because I know how important it is to protect some of our most fragile coastal infrastructure.”

“It makes the beaches wider, and I think that is a good thing,” said Bongiovanni. The further the waves break out in the ocean and dissipate as they roll to shore means they don’t have as much power when they reach the shoreline, he said.

Daniel Russo, 55, is an Allenhurst resident and lifelong fisherman. He does not view beach replenishment the same way.

“Imagine if we think we can hold back the ocean, it’s just a silly idea,” said Russo. “They’ve been doing it, I think, since 1995 and every couple of years they have to come back and pump it again,” he said. “It’s just a big, vicious cycle and it doesn’t make any sense. There are places where maybe, in a bad storm, get destroyed and maybe we should retreat from those places and not continue to try to build and alter a landscape that is impossible to alter. The ocean is too powerful — I just don’t think it works.”

In terms of recreational fishing in the area, the sand falls into the crevices along the jetty, filling in the places where fish usually hide, so, they tend to seek shelter in other places, he said. It can take years for the conditions to go back to normal, said Russo.

The Jersey Shore Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit, environmental organization that seeks to protect oceans, waves and beaches, has been working since the 90s to “educate the public and decision makers about the problems associated with beach replenishment,” according to their website. 

“By doing replenishment, the sand doesn’t stay where you put it, so it’s not a long-term solution. Whether it takes three months or three years, depending on the severity of the storms, the places that get highly eroded, end up highly eroded again,” said Joe Woerner, activist and member of the Surfrider Foundation.

“The idea of replenishment with out the establishment of a dune system just doesn’t make any sense,”  according to Woerner. “We did replenishment in the 90s in Monmouth County without dunes, and people can judge for themselves if that offered protection during Sandy and other storms.”

In Asbury Park, “there would be very little space there for beach-goers if dunes were built,” Bongiovanni said. As far as protection to the shore, the dunes would have to be about 50 feet wide and about 20 feet high.”

Nourishment projects change the natural slope of the beaches and pump sand into jetties, but once the beaches grade themselves, things returned to normal, according to Bongiovanni.

Replenishment projects may have also ruined surf breaks elsewhere in Monmouth County for a time, but the 90s replenishment made the breaks better in Asbury Park, Bongiovanni said, especially the First and Second avenue beaches.

“It made the surf pretty spectacular in the winter time,” he said.

A total of $102 million was allocated by the federal government in May for five beach nourishment projects throughout coastal Monmouth County from Sea Bright to Manasquan, according to a May release from Pallone’s office.

The Army Corps recently completed the first replenishment contract in Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach.  Construction in Long Branch and the section from Belmar to Manasquan began in November and is currently ongoing.  The section of the coast from Elberon to Loch Arbour will move forward under a separate contract in autumn of 2014.  Sand has not previously been placed along this section of the coast. It is the largest beach nourishment project ever undertaken by the Army Corps and the world’s biggest beach-fill project, in terms of sand volume, the Thursday release stated.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is providing oversight on the project, Bongiovanni said. He and city officials from Asbury Park, along with the other towns involved in this leg of the project, will attend weekly meetings as the nourishment project gets underway to voice concerns and receive updates, he said.

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