AVALON – The borough will once again be moving sand from mid-borough beaches to its eroded north end, a process that has frequently supplemented beach fill work by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Avalon has a 50-year agreement with the Army Corps for hydraulic fills on its beaches, usually on three-year cycles. The borough also frequently engages in back-passing projects, moving sand from one section of the beach to another. These projects truck sand from an approved borrow area between 32nd and 38th streets to the most frequently eroded areas of the north end during the intervening years.
The back-passing work adds to the town’s resiliency while also increasing the dry beach area for residents and visitors.
This year the focus will be on moving roughly 55,000 cubic yards of sand to beach areas from 9th to 16th streets. The project is estimated to cost around $350,000. The work used to be done by the borough’s Public Works Department but is now contracted out because of post-pandemic difficulties in renting the necessary equipment for short-duration projects.
The contractor, Yannuzzi Group Inc. of Kinnelon, hopes to complete the work by June 1. The project will break from Thursday through Monday of Memorial Day weekend.
Avalon sets money aside each year in the municipal budget for necessary beach repair work and/or bayside dredging.
The borough’s state-approved borrow area is a location at which sand that has eroded in the north of town reenters the beach from sand bars just offshore, near the midpoint of the municipality. Borough Administrator Scott Wahl has said that the accumulation of sand just off the dry beach area has meant that recent back-passing efforts have not needed to remove sand from the dry beach.
That will be the case this year as well. Removing the sand from the areas off the beach requires that the work be coordinated with the tides.
Information about the project will be available via the municipal website and social media outlets.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
