STONE HARBOR – One year ago Stone Harbor found itself without a permit to make even routine beach maintenance. The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had never officially approved the borough’s public access plan for its beaches. Adding insult to injury, the borough’s existing general permit, which allowed for basic repair work on beaches, expired in September 2022.
At the time the borough had just begun working with a coastal engineer consultant from Mott MacDonald, Douglas Gaffney. Gaffney and borough officials eventually oversaw efforts to get a new version of the public access plan approved and to regain, just before the summer season, a new general permit.
What remained was an effort by the borough to attain what is called an individual permit. This permit is more specific in its intents and broader in scope than the general permit. The concept was to pursue the individual permit through the DEP process while also developing a plan for possible beach maintenance that would have as its aim the retention of sand for longer periods after replenishments.
A feasibility study developed by Gaffney and first presented to Stone Harbor Council at a special meeting in December made proposals that ranged from capture of wind-blown sand to having the borough enter into a multi-municipality purchase of a sand dredge.
Part of the feasibility study was the construction of a data model that made use of sand survey results to predict the probable impact of various beach repair options. One controversial suggestion that arose from the modeling was the need to repair the 127Th Street jetty in order to retain sand for longer periods to the north of the jetty. What made that controversial is the potential impact such a move might have on needed sand for the highly regulated Point.
At its September 19 meeting, borough council heard that the individual permit was making progress but that the 127th Street jetty issues were removed from the application. If approved the permit could allow some of the other proposals to go forward including an attempt at scraping sand for temporary restoration of dry beach areas.
