The replenishment of Avalon’s beaches is complete, and the beaches in Stone Harbor are next. This is part of a cycle of nourishment of New Jersey’s 127-mile shoreline that occurs on a three- to five-year cycle.
These projects are frequently accomplished with some grumbling from congressional representatives and senators from landlocked states that question why taxpayers in their districts should be supporting millions of dollars in budgets for beach repairs in coastal communities.
It is admittedly a Sisyphean task. The Army Corps places hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand on beaches with the full knowledge that the sea will once again remove it. The sand is sacrificed as a temporary solution to a long-term problem. It is done within the context of a 50-year agreement to keep pumping the sand as long as Congress appropriates the money.
The effort is known as soft stabilization as opposed to hard stabilization strategies like groins, jetties, and breakwaters, which are intended to slow the natural movement of the sand away from where it was placed. The battle being fought is to hold the shoreline in the face of the natural tendency of the islands to retreat in the face of the advancing sea.
We try to hold the shoreline for good reason. Billions of dollars in real estate and development now prevent the islands from landward movement. A lucrative tourist economy depends on access to those replenished beaches, as well. In Cape May County, an estimated $1.5 million a day is sent north to Trenton just in tax dollars rooted in visitor spending.
The Army Corps says it is in the business of shore protection. It builds beaches for that purpose – the protection of lives and property – not to facilitate recreational use of the beaches. The state allocates $25 million a year in real estate transfer revenue to a Shore Protection Fund to cover the state’s portion of these beach replenishment projects. Typically, the federal government pays 75% of the total cost of a replenishment project, leaving the remainder to a cost-share agreement between the state and the municipality.
The Army Corps articulates its mission in terms of damage prevention. A phrase often used is that the Corps is in the damage-reduction business. As the shore has changed from a place where people lived year-round in modest homes to one in which the majority of real estate is dominated by larger and more elaborate structures used as second homes and investment properties, the value of the property that the beaches and dunes protect has skyrocketed.
The latest official numbers put the assessed value of real estate in this small county at over $52 billion and the calculated true value at $77 billion. Most of the value sits on the barrier islands. The shore’s economy is as much about real estate and construction as it is about tourism.
What is conveniently not said is that the replenishment of the beaches is, in truth, about more than shore protection. It is about enjoyment of the oceanfront. Cape May County’s beaches are a vital recreational resource, as well as a buffer between the ocean and landward development.
The statistics tell us that there are 10 million visits a year to the county. The population of the county is upwards of 800,000 on a typical summer weekend. When we call the beaches a “vital” recreational resource, the adjective is not misused. Those millions of visits each year deserve their place in the calculation of why beach replenishment must continue.
We are told that rising seas are likely to accelerate beach erosion and make replenishment more costly. Some have argued that we should embrace a strategy of what is called managed retreat in the face of climate change. That is a practical non-starter.
The answer until definitively proven otherwise is resiliency, not retreat.
Part of that resiliency is ongoing, and admittedly more expensive, beach replenishment and dune maintenance. The reality is that retreat will not happen unless the worst predictions of sea level rise materialize decades from now. Pursuing such a strategy now would be enormously costly in political, as well as economic, terms.
For the foreseeable future, the commitment to beach replenishment, even in the face of rising costs, is the only workable path forward.
It is time the State of New Jersey recognizes the need to double the Shore Protection Fund and stop the pretense that the state contribution to this vital activity can continue to limp along at $25 million a year.
Yes, beach replenishment is a means of protecting lives and property, a way of reducing the potential damage from storms. It is also a way of addressing the less tangible but still very real uses of the beaches by millions for whom visits to the beach are part of a life experience with deep roots in family traditions and personal rejuvenation.
Let’s stop the debate. For now, this is the only strategy that works.
