Cape May Nixes Cove Beach Renourishment Pact with State

CAPE MAY — Can birds close a beach? The answer: Maybe.
City Council did not want to run the risk of finding Cove Beach closed to bathers if a nest of piping plovers appears. Council voted 3-2 Mon., Nov. 15 not to approve a state aid agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection for beach renourishment from Third Avenue Jetty through the Lower Cape Meadows to Cape May Point.
Council’s decision could halt beach replenishment to Cove Beach this winter.
At issue, the city could be signing away rights to keep the beach open to bathers if piping plovers nest there.
City Manager Bruce MacLeod said negotiations have been continuing for months between the city and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its deputy attorney generals. He said the Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract for beach replenishment, and a pre-construction meeting is scheduled for Fri., Nov. 19.
“If we don’t move forward as a governing body to accept the revised agreement, chances are probably pretty high that we will not participate in this replenishment project,” said MacLeod.
He said he did not think additional time was available for negotiations.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. and Councilwoman Terri Swain voted for the agreement. Councilpersons Jack Wichterman, Deanna Fiocca and Bill Murray voted against it.
MacLeod said City Solicitor Tony Monzo inserted language into the agreement with DEP to protect the city from losing use of Cove Beach if an endangered species nests at the location. MacLeod said the DEP’s Bureau of Coastal Management and Engineering had indicated, “such language was going to be acceptable.”
He said Monzo received an e-mail from DEP regarding the language in the agreement from the city that protected Cove Beach from closure. MacLeod said the city removed the language that concerned DEP, inserting two “whereas,” and adding new language reciting the work to be completed in the area of Cove Beach on city property which involves placement of 120,000 cubic yards of sand with an option for 40,000 additional cubic yards clearly stating no new dunes are to be created.
New dunes could create additional areas deemed as “set aside space for the protection of vegetation and or wildlife,” which DEP does not want.
Wichterman said he was concerned the state insisted leaving out of the agreement the fact that Cove Beach would always remain open as a bathing beach.
“This is one of the most popular beaches in the town for families with young children,” he said. “It’s a very gentle slope going into the water.”
Wichterman said the city was paying a share of the beach replenishment most cost, about $214,000. He said he could not support the agreement, but was also concerned if the decision would affect future beach replenishment on the city’s other beaches.
Wichterman said he believed Cape May was too important of a tourist destination for the state to refuse future beach “renourishment.”
MacLeod said if a pair of piping plovers built a nest on any of the city’s beaches, the state and federal Divisions of Fish and Wildlife would rope off an area around the nest whether it was located at the Cove or a prime beach. He said there was language in the agreement’s 25 paragraphs, which addresses keeping beaches open but also items referencing the Endangered Species Act, which allows certain actions on beaches.
Councilman Bill Murray said he was concerned with “any ambiguity” in the contract pertaining to Cove Beach.
Murray noted when piping plovers appear on other beaches, the entire beach is not closed. He said the city needed to find out the reason DEP is not willing to accept some kind of reservation on the Cape May’s part to preserve Cove Beach for bathers.
Mahaney said there was a difference in the two beach replenishment projects for Cape May. The project running from the Coast Guard base west to the Cove was a 50-year shoreline protection program primarily to protect the base from erosion, he said.
The project from the Cove to Cape May Point was an eco-systems program to protect the Lower Cape May Meadows wildlife habitat, said the mayor. Mahaney said a beach management plan adopted by the city already makes the city vulnerable to federal and state enforcement.
He said there has not been a federal budget since the “first George Bush was president that included any straight line appropriation for beach replenishment.” Mahaney said it has been handled by “earmarks,” and a movement is afoot to stop such practices.
He said it will be difficult to get beach replenishment in the future and not signing the current agreement with DEP could affect future restorations.