County Chamber Calls for Larger Shore Protection Fund

SWAINTON – The $25 million set aside for the past two decades in the state’s Shore Protection Fund doesn’t stretch as far as it once did, hardly enough to stretch 127 miles from Cape May to Sandy Hook. Considering those beaches are the top attraction for tourists, who pump millions annually into the Garden State’s economy, Cape May County Chamber of Commerce believes it is time to raise fund.
At the chamber’s July 17 meeting at Sand Barrens Golf Club, the membership voted to support a resolution seeking more beach protection and replenishment funds.
The document, signed by Scott Campbell, chairman, Vicki T. Clark, president, and Cheryl Wachter, secretary, notes that the state is “recognized as a national leader in shore protection, serving as a model for states throughout the nation.” It noted that the $25 million “has served as a catalyst for the state to acquire federal matching dollars of 65 percent to New Jersey’s 35 percent share for important shore projects.
The fund not only helped repair eroded beaches on the coastline, but bolsters 83 miles of shorelines on Delaware and Raritan bays..
Sandy beaches, boardwalks and coastal waterways “contribute over $19 billion annually or one half of the state’s total $38 billion tourism revenue,” the resolution continued.
The state, working in concert with the Army Corps of Engineers “must develop a more comprehensive plan that includes inland waterways that increasingly flood coastal and urban communities, including the back bays and barrier island,” it continued.
The chamber believes “the $25 million allocated from the Shore Protection Fund is insufficient to meet current and anticipated future matching costs of the Corps of Engineers and State of New Jersey replenishment projects and other needed coastal protection projects around the state, especially with the anticipated reduction in federal funding for beach replenishment projects in 2015.”
Because of that, the chamber called on all state officials “to increase funding for the New Jersey Shore Projection Fund in order to meet the needs of future coastal protection projects, and to provide a future incentive for federal matching funds.”