Residents say dredged material is mud; township says it was mostly sand
By BILL BARLOW/Special to the Sentinel
STRATHMERE — Some neighbors have questioned the placement of material dredged for a dock-replacement project at The Deauville Inn on the beach at Williams Avenue.
The material was removed from the back bay as part of a project this winter to update the docks behind the waterfront restaurant. Some residents say rather than sand, the project added mud to the beach.
“For the past year, we have been working closely with state and local agencies and officials to ensure the project adhered to all laws, regulations and codes,” the owners of the restaurant posted to its Facebook page Feb. 24.
A statement from the restaurant cited the permits approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Upper Township. It said the work will “provide a safer environment for boaters and wildlife alike.”
The project is ahead of schedule, and the new dock is expected to be ready by the beginning of April.
According to Upper Township engineer Paul Dietrich, the material was tested before the start of the project and found to be more than 90 percent sand.
But once the material was on the beach, some residents expressed their displeasure.
“The beach is covered in mud from the dredge spoils from the Deauville,” Strathmere resident Ted Kingston wrote alongside a photo of balls of dark mud on the beach.
Contacted by phone, Kingston said he raised concerns with township officials before the start of the project. He felt confident that there would be marsh mud underneath the sand.
“When I was a kid, when I walked along there it was all mud,” he said.
He said the testing listed the material as “fine sand,” but now believes that just meant mud.
“We felt deceived by that. It doesn’t seem to add up,” he said.
It did not look good on the beach, Dietrich agreed. He said some residents also found small pieces of rope or other debris in the material.
“But it’s also that everybody’s looking at it at the very beginning. The contractor hadn’t gotten a bulldozer up there and graded it out and worked it like you would a dredge project,” Dietrich said.
In most beach replenishment projects, the area being rebuilt is closed while the beach is graded.
Kingston is concerned that the mud is now just covered with sand and will be revealed as the beach erodes.
“The question remains, what is going to be there on Memorial Day? Is it going to be ugly on Memorial Day?” Kingston said.
The dredging is part of an upgrade to the docks at the Deauville, part of an extensive renovation at the venerable waterfront restaurant, which was purchased by Tim Fox and Robyn Kjar in 2019.
According to several sources, the project is smaller than what was originally proposed. It will include deeper slips for boaters and bring the existing docks up to code, according to information posted by the business.
“As erosion on the Strathmere beach is an annual concern often resulting in substantial taxpayer burden, we have provided 1,843 cubic yards of displaced sand to help refuel our beach,” the statement from The Deauville continued.
Strathmere beaches remain in relatively good shape after the most recent replenishment project in 2019, according to the annual report prepared for the township by the Coastal Research Center at Stockton University that has been recently posted to the township website.
The report showed some erosion at the north end of Strathmere, indicating the sand has moved to the mid-island section. In 2018, the erosion was serious between Williams Avenue and Corson’s Inlet State Park, the report states. A federal beach project added hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand from the inlet to the beaches.
The Deauville project added a fraction of that.
“We were happy to have sand. And sand we didn’t have to pay for,” Dietrich said.
Because studies showed the material was predominantly sand and did not have any contaminants, the township was glad to have it.
“A little discoloration was worth getting sand on the beach,” he added.
Dietrich said another property owner presented a similar proposal but the material did not meet the criteria for beach sand.
“We said ‘no, that is not acceptable,’” he said. “It is something that we looked at to make sure that it’s acceptable.”
By all accounts, the material was no longer visible on the beach as of Monday, March 1.