Stone Harbor beaches are in dire need of sand from the upcoming federal replenishment effort scheduled for late this year or early next year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District, which has jurisdiction in Cape May County, notes that the nourishment is part of the Coastal Storm Risk Management Project initiated in 2002.
This federal agency charged with the protection of life and property along the New Jersey coast is being limited in how it may proceed to harvest sand for the beach replenishment by another federal agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Fish and Wildlife Service has interpreted a federal statute in ways that deny available sand in the Hereford Inlet to the Army Corps for beach replenishment.
Meanwhile, a respected coastal engineer hired by Stone Harbor reports that the beach and dune system in the borough has lost its equilibrium, with the ratio of dry sand beach to dune structure no longer resembling what that relationship was engineered to be by the same federal government over two decades ago.
As of today, the ban on using federal funds to mine sand in the inlet for the benefit of Stone Harbor or North Wildwood still stands. Stone Harbor missed the federal beach replenishment in 2019, setting up the borough’s shoreline for serious damage during the Mother’s Day storm this year. North Wildwood is spending millions trucking sand from neighboring Wildwood.
A journey down memory lane is instructive. It shows the lack of common sense respecting current federal policy.
On Oct. 18, 1982, the Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) was signed into law. It had high purpose. Its intent was “to minimize the loss of human life, wasteful expenditure of federal revenues, and damage to fish, wildlife and other natural resources.”
In 1994, the federal government issued a legal opinion from the U.S. Department of the Interior that interpreted the CBRA to mean that federal dollars could not be used to mine sand from a CBRA area unit, like the Hereford Inlet, in order to replenish beaches outside the CBRA area, like Stone Harbor or North Wildwood.
This interpretation immediately conflicted with yet another federal mission. Long ago, the federal government involved itself in the process of protecting coastal areas from the devastation produced by storms. New Jersey partnered with the federal government on this effort with the acknowledged goal of protecting “homes, businesses and infrastructure” along the state’s long coastline.
The potential conflict between the CBRA interpretation put forth by Fish and Wildlife and the coastal storm risk management objectives of the Army Corps was initially avoided. Beginning in 1996, Fish and Wildlife routinely granted an exemption to the Army Corps to allow sand recovered from Hereford Inlet to be used for replenishment of the engineered beaches built by the federal government.
For unclear reasons, Fish and Wildlife reversed itself in 2016, setting off a chain of events that has left beaches in crisis and has interfered with necessary seawall repairs along the inlet.
In December 2019, it looked as though the impasse had been resolved. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt issued a letter that reversed the Fish and Wildlife position, allowing federal dollars to be used for inlet sand used in shoreline stabilization projects by the Army Corps.
Once again, confusion reigned when the National Audubon Society sued to block Bernhardt’s decision. The 2020 election then led to a change in leadership in the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife 2016 interpretation was back in force.
It is critical to note that as long as the municipality and the state have the money to mine sand from the inlet, they are free to do so. Nothing prevents the sand from being mined, with whatever impact it allegedly has on the environment, as long as federal dollars are not used. That makes little sense if the objectives here are the welfare of the environment and the satisfaction of federal mission goals.
The clearest view of the problem is that a national law, CBRA, is being interpreted by Fish and Wildlife without any sense of local circumstances. The Audubon suit spoke of fears of what Bernhardt’s relaxation of the CBRA restricts would mean in North Carolina and other locations. There has been no reasoned attempt to look at the local impact of a ban on federally sponsored mining of sand in the Hereford Inlet.
No organization knows the county shoreline and the natural movement of sand along that shoreline better than the Coastal Research Center at Stockton University. The center’s annual report shows that the natural flow of sand put on Stone Harbor beaches during replenishment end up back in the very area Fish and Wildlife says it wants to protect. The center’s director, Dr. Stewart Farrell, was supporting of Bernhardt’s reversal of the Fish and Wildlife position.
The sand is available in abundance in the CBRA area. The sand put on the beaches largely returns to the CBRA area as part of its natural movement. The sand, if used for periodic beach replenishments, helps meet federal government objectives for shoreline protection.
There may be a reason for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s ban in parts of the national CBRA system. We don’t have the knowledge to evaluate that. We do know that no commonsense position has been articulated for why Hereford Inlet sand cannot be used as part of a federally funded nourishment program integral to the Army Corps Coastal Storm Risk Management protocols.
A contest between two federal agencies over this issue is ludicrous. On its face, it demands resolution. We cannot afford to have federally constructed beaches in dire need of acongressionally appropriated federal nourishment project facing loss of that nourishment because a different federal agency refuses an exemption that is so clearly warranted.
Municipal governing bodies impacted by this silliness should demand that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appear in an open public meeting to explain and defend their position. Meanwhile, we need our legislative representatives in Washington to make an all-out effort to have the Interior Department grant an exemption based on local circumstances that clearly justify one.
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From the Bible: “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.” Ephesians 5:11-12
