Missing - 3 Year Old...Beachfill

Missing: Three to four year-old beachfill.

Missing From: Surf City, NJ.
Missing Since: Winter 2010.
Features: Light, sand-colored
Distinguishing Marks: Unexploded ordnance
Last Seen: Possibly traveling south during one of the many Nor'Easters this winter.
Traveling With: Typically associates with Members of Congress and large amounts of taxpayer money.

If you see this sand, please call the Army Corps at 215-656-6515.

This picture above is not of a badly eroded beach that desperately needs beach replenishment. It is a picture of a beach that was replenished just a short time ago in the winter of 2006-2007 at a cost of roughly $5 Million. They dredged up unexploded ordnance (bombs and fuses) with it, and the cleanup cost about $25 million.
More from the Press of Atlantic City.

LA Times: Southern California beach erosion is worst in a decade

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vanishing-beaches2-2010apr02,0,2223726.story



...In January and February, powerful swells, high tides and strong winds swept away tons of sand from the coastline, stealing as much as 30 to 40 feet of beachfront at some locations.

In the month or two since the El Niño-driven storms, coastal communities -- Laguna Beach, Malibu and Manhattan Beach among them -- have worked to patch the damage by making repairs and trucking in fresh sand, but some worry whether nature will return the sand as it has in the past.

The sand loss is a familiar phenomenon.

Shifting sand is part of a natural cycle that happens each year. Each spring, potent storm surges pull sand from the beaches out to sea. Over the summer, gentler waves gradually push it back ashore.

Periodically, beach cities throughout Southern California try to make up for the so-called sand deficit by pumping the material in from offshore.

Global warming and sea rise are contributing to the deterioration of beaches in the long term, scientists say, but those forces are not to blame for this spring's dramatic changes.

It's the exceptional level of damage this year that has been cause for alarm.

Beach Fill: Fleecing of America

An interesting piece on NBC about beach fill (nourishment). Be sure to let the second video load, as it contains some extra raw video from the interviews. I particularly like (or dislike) Harry Simmons' (president of ASBPA)quote: "Retreat is unamerican" apparently he thinks we're at war with the ocean.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

DIY Dunes in Long Beach Township, NJ

Long Beach Township, NJ passed an ordinance recently requiring oceanfront homeowners to repair damaged dunes like these if they are on private oceanfront property. But there is a catch. If you signed the construction easement for the beach replenishment project, the town will fix the dune damage themselves, as they always have.

The unanswered question is will these Do-It-Yourself homeowners have to get permits from the state DEP to legally enter and manipulate the dunes? Oceanfront homeowners typically wait 5 months for a CAFRA permit when doing any work on their homes. The new ordinance says the work needs to be done in 15 days. Hmmm.

Imagine 25 homeowners all hiring different contractors wielding bulldozers in a mad rush to fix their dunes in two weeks. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

More here http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/ocean/article_4cdf75a4-07a4-11df-a7d9-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story

Beachfill and Eminent Domain - Perfect together

Would you give up this piece of property voluntarily, without compensation?

Things are getting ugly on Long Beach Island New Jersey where in order to do a beach replenishment project, the Army Corps requires a construction easement to do the work. Sounds simple enough, but there are a few catches. The State of NJ has asked all oceanfront property owners on LBI for a permanent easement. This easement would take away ownership, but the homeowner would still have liability and the homeowner would still have to pay taxes on the property. Furthermore, the easement wold be transferable meaning an entity that may not even exist today may someday own this easement (Boardwalk Authority anyone?).

Understandably, a lot of people won't sign these easements. One town, Long Beach Township is taking drastic measures and introducing an ordinance that would take the property via eminent domain. It is all sad and unnecessary considering similar projects in North Carolina asked homeowners for temporary easements.

http://www.app.com/article/20100113/COMMUNITY/1130304/Beach-easement-holdouts-to-pay---one-way-or-the-other

January 13, 2010 Beach easement holdouts to pay — one way or the other By NICHOLAS HUBA Staff Writer LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP — In the continuing fight to acquire the easements needed for the federally-funded beach replenishment project, the township is aiming to make homeowners who have not signed over the easements pay for repairs to the beaches in front of their homes by toughening an existing ordinance adopted in the 1970s. The ordinance calls for all beachfront homeowners to be responsible for the maintenance of the dunes in front of their homes and if not completed within 15 days, the township will do the work and then bill them. "If they are not going to allow the state and Army Corps to have access to the property, then they are not going to allow us," said Mayor Joseph Mancini. "A similar ordinance has been on the books for 39 years and we are now cleaning it up." Mancini said by the not signing over their easement, the homeowner also is denying the township the right to fix any erosion issues that come up. "If they don't sign the easement and their porch is hanging off into the ocean, they have not granted us access to the property and it's their responsibility to get it fixed," Mancini said. The proposed changes to the ordinance come on the heels of the township officials saying they would go as far as using eminent domain to acquire the needed easements. Under the proposed plan, Long Beach Township would get three appraisers to determine the value of a property, and then the township would move on with the eminent domain process from there, Mancini said. He said he hopes to have the ordinance introduced in the coming weeks. The township needs to acquire the easements for the beach replenishment project. The Army Corps of Engineers will not start any work until all of the easements have been signed over. The corps currently is overseeing the project in neighboring Harvey Cedars. The aim of the replenishment project is to increase the size of both the beach and the dunes. Township Attorney Richard Shackleton said the ordinance is similar to one that was adopted in Surf City. "If they are not going to give the Corps access, then they are not giving us access," Shackleton said. A public hearing on the ordinance is scheduled for 4 p.m. Jan. 22 at the municipal building, 6805 Long Beach Blvd.

Sand Bypass Experiment - Sort Of

When we first heard of a plan to dredge sand from the bottom of the Navesink River and put it on the beach in Monmouth Beach, NJ we were skeptical about the quality of the sand. Any time sand is taken from the bottom of a river there should be an abundance of caution. Thankfully there is no industry along this river and no known potential sources of pollution. Still, we think the sand should be tested; it is cheap relative to the cost of the project. On numerous occasions unexpected items have been dredged up. We don’t want those unexpected items to be toxins or harmful bacteria.

Typically, the State or the Army Corps will test the material for its composition and grain size only. They never test for toxins if they find the material to be 90% sand. (No one has ever explained what that other 10% is allowed to be.)

Interestingly, the sand is being brought via pipeline over land to its intended beach. It is very similar to a sand bypass system that we have advocated as an alternative to large beachfill projects for years. In this case a pipeline is takes sand off the river bottom, brings it across the narrow barrier spit of Monmouth Beach, under State Highway 36, and over the seawall. The pipe runs down the seawall to the south and discharges on the ocean side, about midway down the wall.

We have long maintained that a sand bypass system could be a less expensive solution in many areas of the Jersey Shore. Namely, areas where there is an abundance of sand on a wide beach not too far away from an eroded area. The idea is to pump the sand from one to the other as opposed to pumping from

offshore, or from the bottom of a river. Think Sandy Hook; very wide to the north, narrow to the south. Or Long Beach Island where the beaches are a half mile wide in Barnegat Light, and nearby Harvey Cedars has very little beach at all.

Let’s hope this sand bypass-ish experiment works, and we see more of this in the future.

Life and Death in the Sandy Shadows of Coastal Armor

Photo by Paul Wellman

When seawalls are constructed on an eroding coastline they cause the beach to narrow through a process known as passive erosion. Not surprisingly this compression of the beach ecosystem squeezes out the intertidal zone. The result?....

Fewer macroinvertebrates (we call them beach fleas or beach hoppers). It turns out these little guys play a critical role in food web of beaches by devouring kelp that washes ashore and by providing a food source for birds.

Jenny Dugan, a researcher at UCSB, has measured and quantified this effect. She found that:

Shorebirds were more than three times more prevalent in non-armored beaches. Those with sea walls yielded significantly fewer macroinvertebrates as well as intertidal zones — the middle area between the high- and low-tide points on a beach — that were 47 to 67 percent narrower that those of their “unprotected” counterparts. Basically, what Dugan’s research proved was what many a beachgoer has long suspected or at least detected: The beaches in front of sea walls are different.

Read more in this great article from the Santa Barbara Independent:
Life and Death in the Sandy Shadows of Coastal Armor