End Use of Townsend’s Inlet Sand for Stone Harbor Beaches, Coastal Research Center Recommends

AVALON – At an Avalon Borough Council work session Feb. 22, Kimberly McKenna, interim executive director of Stockton University’s Coastal Research Center, and Steven Hafner, assistant director of the center, said that any ongoing effort to mine sand from Townsend’s Inlet for use on Stone Harbor beaches has the risk of negatively impacting the “inlet recharge rate,” which could, in turn, hurt an emerging capability for sand to naturally move to Avalon’s often severely eroded north end shoreline.
Hafner said the natural movement of sand is changing in ways that allow some of that sand from north of the inlet to bypass the inlet and help the north-end beaches in Avalon that have been erosion hot spots.
If this trend continues to develop, it will place less burden on the borough’s expensive back passing process, which is used to restore north-end beaches in years between federal nourishment efforts.
This year will mark the second time that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will borrow sand from Townsend’s Inlet for use in Stone Harbor. This process was last utilized in 2017.
The transporting of Townsend’s Inlet sand to Stone Harbor beaches was the Army Corps and DEP response to a ban on the use of federal funds for mining sand in a Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) protected zone, which includes Hereford Inlet adjacent to Stone Harbor. The ban results from a CBRA interpretation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
McKenna and Hafner said the Coastal Research Center is recommending that the Army Corps not engage in any future use of Townsend’s Inlet sand for Stone Harbor since doing so harms the development of a natural process that favors Avalon beaches.
Hafner described Stone Harbor’s current strategy as one involving physical changes to jetties and other shoreline structures that might help the borough retain sand longer between replenishments.
Such efforts, while they might bring some relief to Stone Harbor, do not substitute for a source of sand to feed federal replenishments on a three-year cycle.
There are funds in the 2023 Seven Mile Island beach replenishment project that the Army Corps will use to investigate a separate offshore alternative borrow area for Stone Harbor, hopefully before the next three-year cycle replenishment.  
Thoughts? Questions? Contac the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.