Lots of sand about to land on North Wildwood beachfront
NORTH WILDWOOD — This beach town is going to get what it arguably needs most right now, besides tourists — a slurry of wet, ocean bottom sand pumped onto its badly eroded shoreline.
New Jersey has approved an emergency project to set a dredge to work here, something that North Wildwood has not had for more than a decade. Gov. Phil Murphy and Mayor Patrick Rosenello disclosed the project in a joint statement on Friday.
“We believe that there should be sand pumped on the beach within the next few weeks,” Rosenello said. “We’re hoping to get this project underway within the next few weeks and, hopefully, wrapping it up by July 4th weekend. They’re doing this as an emergency project, so that speeds up a lot of the timelines.”
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The state Department of Transportation is doing the project design. The goal is “to protect the infrastructure, quality of life, and economy in North Wildwood" until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection can complete a long-term project, according to the statement.
The statement did not address the project's cost.
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Rosenello said the news came as a pleasant surprise, although the city has been talking for a long time on this issue with state officials. State Sen. Michael Testa, R-1, “played a huge role” in particular, he said.
“I think it was just the Governor’s Office and Senator Testa working together over a significant amount of time,” Rosenello said about the timing. “And like I said, former Senate President Steve Sweeney, Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, and our two assemblymen, Antwan McClellan and Erik Simonsen. There’s been a lot of bipartisan collaboration for the better part of a year.”
City crafting rules to get best use out of beach space
North Wildwood over the past month has been working on new beach use rules, in the belief it was going to go through summer 2024 without any beach replenishment. An ordinance is shaping up for adoption in mid-May to put some restrictions on the size of accessories like tents and cabanas.
Rosenello said the ordinance, as projected, will be flexible enough for the city to back off restrictions once the replenishment work is done. That assumes the project works out the way the city hopes, he said.
“We don’t want to place unnecessary restrictions on people, right?” Rosenello said. “We want people to be able to enjoy our free beach, however they want to enjoy it while not negatively impacting their neighbors. If we don’t have to have restrictions on cabanas, we’re not going to have them.”
Most North Wildwood beachfront faces the Atlantic Ocean, but there are about 10 “blocks” of beach on its inlet. A North Wildwood block is about 275 feet long, the mayor said.
Rosenello said the ocean-facing beach is about 26 blocks long.
Dredged sand features make for better beach
Absent a state or federal dredging project, North Wildwood has resorted to trucking in sand to keep the beach alive. It was unable to do that this year.
Dredged sand is a much more effective option in any case, the mayor said earlier this month.
“When that sand comes in from offshore, it’s actually a slurry of 70 percent water, 30 percent sand,” Rosenello said. “So, when it hits the beach, the water runs off. The sand compacts very tightly, and then it also forms like a nice, natural slope into the ocean. When you dump dry sand on the beach, none of that happens. It’s dry, fluffy sand.”
Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.
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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: North Wildwood pumped over news state sand dredging project coming
