Keansburg Named Best Restored Beach On Jersey Shore

KEANSBURG, NJ — Anyone who lives in the area knows the devastation the Keansburg waterfront suffered in Sandy. And now this week, the town of Keansburg received a national award for their beach restoration efforts.

The award was given by the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, which named five best restored beaches in America for 2020. They are:

• Cardiff State Beach, California
• South Benson Marina/Jennings Beach, Connecticut
• Keansburg, New Jersey
• Norriego Point, Florida
• Tybee Island, Georgia

In Keansburg, 2.5 miles of shoreline was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in late October 2012 and the town started the rebuilding process two years later, in 2014. They did it by importing 1.1 million cubic yards of sand and rebuilding 10,000 square feet of Keansburg's beautiful "Baywalk" along the Raritan Bay, pictured above. Much of the Baywalk in Keansburg is brand new.

It was a multi-million dollar project and much of the work was done by T&M Associates, an engineering firm that secures municipal contracts for work up and down the Jersey Shore.

Because of the efforts, Keansburg not only looks better; the town also has much-improved flood mitigation.

"The Keansburg Beachfront Restoration project fortified the borough’s storm resiliency in addition to creating a more robust, damage-resistant Baywalk," according to the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association.

However, the New Jersey Sierra Club called the restoration efforts a mere "Band Aid" and said Keansburg could be damaged by future storms if the Eastern seaboard does not do more to combat rising sea levels and the erosion of dunes and salt marshes.

“It was very nice that Keansburg was given an award for this beach restoration. However, these beach projects are like an ostrich burying their head in the sand. Pumping millions of cubic yards of sand is a temporary Band-Aid that will not work," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "This will not deal with sea-level rise and will not make the coast more resilient. Instead, it wastes money, hurts the environment, and creates a false hope that these beaches be replenished."

"The Army Corp spent $36 million to pile sand on the beach in Keansburg. This may help in the short-term but isn’t a long-term approach to deal with climate change,” he continued. “These Army Corps projects are just perpetual work projects. They keep washing out, but the Army Corps keeps on pumping sand. This destroys sea life, turning the ocean floor into a desert. It also changes the angle of flooding, causing beaches to erode faster. We have seen the replenished beach projects by the Army Corps already fail. Unless we build dunes appropriately and restore marshes and tidal wetlands, they cannot protect our coast against beach erosion or protect property from storm surge."

Not to be deterred, once the stay-at-home orders are lifted, Keansburg is looking forward to hosting Friday night beach concerts, movies on the beach, the food truck festival and other special events on the beachfront, according to Keansburg Mayor James Cocuzza.

“Keansburg Beach is a hidden gem of the Bayshore. After being destroyed by Superstorm Sandy we have come back tenfold," said Mayor Cocuzza.

“The borough is honored to receive this award and thanks the ASBPA for the recognition. I would also like to give a special thanks to Monmouth County; Michele Hoff, Borough Recreation Supervisor and Special Events Coordinator; Ed Striedl, Borough Construction Officer; the NJDEP; the US Army Corp of Engineers; contractors, Great Lakes Dock and Dredge and Murray Construction; and T&M Associates, the borough’s engineers,” he said.