Smaller Than Anticipated Beach Fill for Cape May

CAPE MAY — The beach replenishment scheduled here for this fall will be scaled back due to high bids received for the project which will eliminate the use of dredge and require sand to be brought in on dump trucks.
In August, the Army Corps of Engineers accepted bids on beach replenishment for Cape May, the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center and Cape May Point.
The bids received for the dredging project came in 60 percent over budget, said Interim City Manager Bruce MacLeod at a Sept. 9 City Council meeting. The budget for the beach replenishment is $10 million.
A large part of the project is the Coast Guard base, which makes it necessary to award a contract on or before Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
The Army Corps notified Cape May that an alternative plan, which will be approved before Sept. 30, will result in sand being trucked into the city to the Coast Guard base rather than using a dredge, the method used in previous beach fills.
MacLeod said the project would most likely begin in October.
While the city initially believed the Army Corps would deliver about 400,000 cubic yards of sand, with the Coast Guard base receiving most of the sand 360,000 cubic yards and Cape May receiving about 40,000 cubic yards for the Wilmington Avenue Beach area, a meeting Sept. 11 with Corps and state Department of Environmental officials indicated the project would only be 200,000 cubic yards of sand.
MacLeod said less sand would reduce the length of the beach fill project from five to six months to as short as six to seven weeks. He said exact figures would not be available until the Corps goes through the bid/ negotiation process to secure a contractor and prices for sand.
MacLeod said the 400,000 cubic yard figure probably included beach fill for Cape May Point.
The Army Corps is expected to rebid the Cape May Point portion of the original project in the next two months. MacLeod said the rebid will be for a dredging project but it will not include any sand replenishment for Cape May.
According to the Army Corps, mapping and surveying have found the Cape May beaches to be in satisfactory condition and not in need of additional sand.
Dump trucks will enter the city on Lafayette Street and use Texas and Pittsburgh avenues to Delaware Avenue to reach the Coast Guard Base. Trucks will run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. MacLeod said it is likely trucks will stop entering the city at an earlier hour since the sand pit closes at 6 p.m.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. said he was hopeful there would be some adjustments on the project.
“We are contending that we want and need replenishment on our main stretch of beaches,” he said.
MacLeod said Tropical Storm Hanna, which swept by west of the city Sept. 6, produced 40-feet of beach erosion near Ocean Street and 60 to 70-feet of erosion at Broad and Grant streets which much of that sand deposited on the west side of the Third Avenue Jetty.