Brick Beaches Expected To Be Ready By Memorial Day: Mayor

BRICK, NJ — Brick Township's beaches will be open this summer and should be ready for use by Memorial Day, Mayor John G. Ducey said Tuesday night.

While the township must wait until December for the Army Corps of Engineers' beach replenishment and dune project to address its issues, the delay means the summer season won't be disrupted by partial beach closures, Ducey said at the Township Council meeting.

The Army Corps announced the construction schedule for the project last week. Work is expected to begin next month in Ortley Beach, which was hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. The Ortley Beach work is a preliminary fill. The more extensive work will begin in Mantoloking in July, with Seaside Heights in September and Seaside Park and the remainder of the Ortley Beach work from October to December. The Normandy Beach section of Toms River and Lavallette will be addressed after Brick's section is completed, according to the schedule released by the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"We are fourth, not last," Ducey said.

To get through this summer, he said, sand will be brought in to fill out the beach. Ducey said the township is hopeful the state will pay for the sand as it did last year, when the sand was trucked in and the township's public works crews moved it into place and created walkovers for access.

If the project had started in Brick earlier, it would have meant closing sections of the beach, working out temporary beach badge acceptances and a host of complications, Ducey said.

But the delay until December means "we have to get through another hurricane season," he said.

Part of the reason for the delay, Ducey and Council President Art Halloran said, is because Brick isn't close to the ocean sites that are the sources for the sand being used for the dune project.

There are four sites approved for Weeks Construction, the contractor performing the work, to draw sand. Because Brick's beaches are farther from those sites, a hopper dredge, which helps get the sand to the beach, is needed. That dredge isn't immediately available, Halloran said.

The project includes creating dunes that are 22 feet high and 300 feet of beach in front of them. The engineered beaches will be designed to lessen the effect of storm-driven waves such as the nor'easters that have routinely exposed the steel revetment wall constructed by the DEP in Mantoloking and Brick to protect Route 35.

In Brick, that work will require 1.6 million cubic yards of sand. When underway, the contractor will complete approximately 100 to 200 linear feet a day. A buffer of 1,000 feet to the north and south will be closed to the public while the project is being done.

Ducey noted the delay also will give that sand, which will be dark and dirty looking because it is coming from the ocean floor, time to dry out and bleach before the 2018 summer season. As part of the contract, crossovers will be constructed within two weeks of the placement of sand.

"This will be the fifth summer and the fifth hurricane season our residents will have endured without a fully replenished beach. It is comforting to know it will be their last," Ducey said in a statement released at the time the construction schedule was announced.

Brick public works crews move sand into place last summer. Photo by Karen Wall