Project working south from Morningside Road
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Beach replenishment was under way this week after the dredge Ohio arrived July 2.
Work began near Morningside Road with the beach blocked off from the north and south. The dredge was parked offshore in the Great Egg Harbor Inlet, piping sand to shore, where it was erupting in a geyser and being moved around by large bulldozers at the jetty at the northern end of the North Street beach.
The beach was filled with pipes and other equipment and was barricaded off with workmen guarding the entrances to keep people away.
According to city officials, the replenishment will move south as about a thousand feet of beach is addressed at a time. Beaches will be closed in order down to 13th Street over the next several weeks. After that is finished, the work will head north from Morningside to the jetty at Seaview Road.
The Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. has the contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the project. The project covers about 2.1 miles of city beaches.
The project is going to bring about 1.6 million cubic yards of sand to some of the narrowest beaches in the far north end of Ocean City and some of the busiest beaches downtown north and south of the Ocean City Music Pier at Moorlyn Terrace.
On Monday morning on the southern portion of the North Street beach, the strand was so narrow about two hours after high tide that beach-goers were backed up onto the edge of the dunes.
Mayor Jay Gillian has said that doing the beach replenishment during July and August isn’t ideal, but with the federal and state government picking up most of the cost, they will work under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ schedule. The project had been scheduled for earlier in the year, but the dredge was pulled in for repairs. Delaying the project to avoid the summer season also could put the beaches at further risk when the city gets into the storm season late in the summer and into the fall.
Previous nor’easters and hurricanes have devastated beaches across the island. The north end gets a beach replenishment every three years under an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“I understand that this will be an inconvenience during the height of the summer, but these beaches desperately need the sand,” Gillian said in his message to the public July 2, “and we will always be grateful for our partnership with the federal Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Protection in protecting our coastal properties.”
He said daily project updates are available at on the city’s web site at www.ocnj.us/projectupdate.
During the project, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. will stockpile sand to allow the city to rebuild an “uninterrupted” line of dunes throughout the work area.
Wind farm testing off 34th Street
The mayor also noted that the city is getting inquires about other work taking place offshore.
That, he said, is being done by the energy company Ørsted, which has a vessel in the 34th Street area taking soil samples. That vessel is expected to be at work offshore for the next two weeks.
It is testing for a potential location to place an underground cable.
Ørsted is planning a $1.6 billion wind farm 15 miles off of the south Jersey coast that would power half a million homes. GE Wind Energy will produce the Haliade-X 12 MW wind turbines for the project. The turbines are 853 feet tall, with rotor blades 351 feet long and 722 feet in diameter. The power would be brought to shore via underground cables.
One proposal is to have cables that will come onto shore at Ocean City for connection at the retired B.L. England generating station in Upper Township. The company has not decided the route for the cables and is still considering B.L. England, Oyster Creek and the Higbee substation in Atlantic City.