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Dredge Project Coming to North Wildwood Before Summer

Michael Heenan/ File Photo
A dredge will come to North Wildwood for an emergency beach replenishment project, Gov. Phil Murphy and Mayor Patrick Rosenello announced. Shown is John F. Kennedy Beach Boulevard between Second and Third avenues in March.

By Shay Roddy

NORTH WILDWOOD – Following recent collaboration between Mayor Patrick Rosenello and Gov. Phil Murphy, a dredge is coming to replenish the city’s badly eroded beaches.

The “plan will begin over the next few weeks and is expected to provide relief to the community over the next few months,” according to a joint statement issued to the Herald April 25 by the governor and mayor. The two had more frequent talks in recent weeks, after Murphy showed increased interest in North Wildwood’s beachfront problem.

The state Department of Transportation’s Office of Maritime Resources is working to design and authorize the emergency dredging project, which will be a holding measure for the resort town until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Protection are able to complete the Five Mile Dune Project, according to the statement.

Survey boats were visible earlier in the week around Hereford Inlet and elsewhere off the North Wildwood coast. The borrow area for the project and other details have not yet been publicly disclosed.

Also not disclosed is who will pay for the project and how much, if any, of its cost will fall to North Wildwood.

There were at least two remote meetings between city officials, the governor’s office, state Sen. Mike Testa, the DOT and the DEP in the past two weeks. A public records request submitted by the newspaper for communications between those agencies and the city was denied earlier this week. The city clerk, W. Scott Jett, cited an exemption to the public records law for “inter-agency advisory, consultative, or deliberative material.”

In the release, Murphy, a Democrat, and Rosenello, a Republican, highlighted the bipartisan cooperation that led to the interim project.

This is a developing story… It will be updated once more details become available…

Reporter

Shay Roddy won five first place awards from the New Jersey Press Association for work published in 2023, including the Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Award for Responsible Journalism and Public Service. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, spending summers in Cape May County, and is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

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