Avalon Secures Added Funding for Beach Replenishment

AVALON – Mayor Martin Pagliughi announced that the borough had secured an additional $8.5 million toward its already scheduled federal beach replenishment Oct. 12. The added sand the money will allow on the beaches will be very welcome.
Cape May County beaches have had special difficulty holding on to sand this year. A Mother’s Day nor’easter hung around like a relative who would not leave, causing flooding, erosion and even the collapse of a partially built house on Stone Harbor Boulevard. While the erosion from that storm was not as bad as it could have been, any erosion removes protection and increases vulnerability to the next storm.
After Hurricane Ian pounded Florida and the Carolinas, its remnants helped produce a second South Jersey nor’easter that severely eroded beaches, ate into dune protection and left unsafe eight-to-ten-foot sand cliffs along much of the shoreline. 
This all comes with a federal beach replenishment already scheduled for early 2023. The plans for that replenishment did not anticipate the severity of the erosion the shoreline has just experienced. Bids for the project went out in late September, prior to the havoc caused by Ian. 
Even while a supplemental disaster relief bill is being debated in Congress, Avalon, with the help of Warwick Group Consultants, has secured the additional funding. Pagliughi pointed to the rising costs associated with hydraulic beach fills as well as the erosion caused by the storm’s wave action as the reason why additional funding was necessary.
“The beach system did exactly what it was designed to do during the storm,” Pagliughi said. “Sand is meant to be sacrificed to protect human lives, critical infrastructure, and property.” 
At a meeting of the Avalon Council Oct. 12, Assistant Business Administrator James Waldron made the same point while urging support for pending state legislation that would increase funding for the Shore Protection Fund. “This is not about sunbathing, it’s about protection.” 
Waldron also called attention to the dangers of the current situation.
“Hurricane season is not over,” he cautioned, “and we are very vulnerable right now.” 
Waldron added that all of the sand transferred during the pre-season back-passing effort is gone. “Five days took it all away.” 
Keeping sand on the beach is the modern-day equivalent of the punishment of Sisyphus. We are condemned to a task that cannot ever be completed in any final sense. Yet sand on the beach is the number one protection for coastal zone lives and property. It is also the engine that drives a multi-billion-dollar economy. 
Thoughts? Information? Email vconti@cmcherald.com.