With the Five Mile Dune, Are North Wildwood’s Neighbors Taking One for the Team?
For a project that has been beyond the initial planning stage for over 10 years now, it’s shocking that there’s a glaring need to rethink whether the plan in place will work. But that’s exactly what seems to be going on with the Five Mile Dune Project, at least regarding the ten replenishments over the 50-years post-construction that are included in the funding.
Unfortunately for Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Diamond Beach, the state Department of Environmental Protection’s laissez faire approach to North Wildwood’s devastating erosion the past decade has now put the three neighboring towns in a bind.
As it is currently designed, to build the dune, offering shore protection to the Wildwoods from Hereford Inlet to Cape May Inlet, a novel method will be used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The borrow area – where the sand required to build the dune and berm complimenting it will come from – is within the island. The massive amounts of sand needed will not be dredged from an inlet or borrow site offshore.
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It’s late to be asking questions, but some are too important to leave unanswered.
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While it remains to be seen whether or not the actual engineering of the plan may prove tricky (just last week renowned scientist and beach replenishment expert Stewart Farrell told the Herald in an interview the Army Corps had been having “extensive difficulties with the design”), there are so many other moving parts that have prevented the project from getting to construction that concerns over the actual engineering have been on the back burner, hardly discussed. The Army Corps has an excellent track record but did tell the Herald they have no experience with this type of project, at least in this district.
The initial construction is going to require a lot of sand. Understandably, with it coming from the beaches of Wildwood and Wildwood Crest, there has been a serious dragging of the feet in those towns, especially Wildwood. That city uses its beach to host events, like the Barefoot Country Music Festival, bringing an economic boon that reverberates throughout the island.
While some of the concerns raised have to do with the dune obstructing views or creating beach accessibility challenges for the elderly or disabled, those are either shortsighted or have been contemplated and addressed in the design.
While the afforded protection for North Wildwood outweighs those concerns, they are still something that the project partners should be comprehensively addressing and the immediate impacts on how the beach can be used on the ocean side of the dune are worth considering, given the unique characteristics of Wildwood.
With the dune occupying a percentage of the beach’s existing square footage, the concerns over if large events can be held, how other businesses – like monster truck rides – will function, and how other traditions – like the annual marbles tournament – will be impacted are very real. And the concerns are aggravated by the fact that the beach is also going to shrink, not only because of space the dune will occupy, but because the sand to create the dune is also being removed from the beach. It’s a double whammy.
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Poor planning will perhaps
lead to problems down the line.
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In a town with such an enormous beach, there should be time to rethink this, right? Wrong.
North Wildwood needs this dune and berm now; but was it ever really smart to leave that area of the island dependent on its neighbors, given the unique concerns in Wildwood, interests of private beach owners in Diamond Beach, and that in the Crest the need for a constructed dune isn’t obvious.
As reports out of our newsroom have recently made clear, there is a renewed determination for the project to go forward. The DEP may finally be attempting to get its act together, something it shouldn’t have delayed doing for years. There is no other way without imposing further delay than to build the Five Mile Dune as it’s currently planned.
That doesn’t mean it’s actually the best way to have designed a project that will forever alter the Wildwoods.
At the request of North Wildwood’s mayor, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s office is currently working to get a General Reevaluation Report done on the project’s borrow area, but only to supplement the existing zones within the island, especially for the every-five-year follow-up replenishments.
If Van Drew secures funding for the reevaluation, the Army Corps would search for other offshore borrow sites to dredge sand from, the more traditional method. And it’s only necessary to go deep offshore in the first place because of the ban on using federal money to dredge Hereford Inlet.
Millions of cubic yards of sand that sit in the inlet are not available using the federal funding that is already in place for the dune because of a federal agency’s determination, and one that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. The inlet is practically unnavigable and is dangerous to boaters who do attempt it.
On top of that, much of the sand that clogs Hereford Inlet washed down from Avalon, Stone Harbor and the other barrier islands to the north, which got the sand from other federal replenishment projects using different inlets.
All this rethinking seems prudent, but it’s late in the game, especially on a project that has been plagued by endless delays. Something that has taken so long to get off the ground may have been poorly planned from the very beginning.
Wildwood, the Crest and Diamond Beach may have the luxury of time to rethink whether the design is actually in their best interests, but unfortunately doing so wouldn’t be very neighborly, considering right now there is nowhere else from which North Wildwood can get the sand it desperately needs.
In turn, what may turn out to be poor planning will perhaps lead to problems down the line, causing those who look back on the dune project in the years that follow its construction to use a word to describe it that seems almost inconceivable right now – rushed.
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From The Bible: In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.– Romans 8:28
