Nice Flat Beaches

i remember summer last year when indian river inlet finally died as a surf spot. now irene has almost taken away the dunes so when driving you can see the ocean.

i feel an artificial reef would be the best bet? or grooming the beach on a downward slope? i did love the ocean made cliffs some days

 

Sorry...

There are a lot of concepts out there related to managing barrier islands in concert with natural processes rather than against them.

-"Rolling easements". The idea here is you bought property on a moving landform, so you shouldn't expect permanence. Front row owners have an erosion easement recorded on your title that essentially says within 50 years your land will be in the ocean so it LEGALLY becomes public land. The market price of your property adjusts (downward) since what you own now is just a few decades of oceanfront land, not "forever". You can imagine how popular this concept is.

-strategically stop excavating the sand off barrier island land, roads, where practical. Sand overwash is the process that barrier islands experience to rise vertically to keep pace with sea level rise. By excavating back down to some fixed elevation after every major event we are gradually floodiing ourselves, and building future New Orleans. Needless to say this hasn't been implemented much, although OCMD tried to pass an ordinance that when you tore down a house, you had to fill the lot to a higher elevation before you rebuilt.

-Create local tax districts that pay for a significant chunk of beachfill projects, especially in residentail areas where the "economic tourism engine" argument for federal tax $ doesnt hold water. The closer you are to falling in, the more you pay. Properties extremely close to the ocean pay a LOT, creating incentives for setting new development back far from the ocean. Yeah right...

 

Don't dismiss this concept. Developers, like the ones that created Peir Village and Renissance, should essentially pay for beach replenishment. It's reaching a point here where new single family home construction on the beach is becoming more or less untouchable for most homeowners. Developers are now the ones developing the beachfront. So if you want to create incentives for development OFF the beach, you have to target large scale developers and the municipalities who just want the tax revenues.

 

how bout golf courses and more parks along the beach!!! I support open space. Screw these greedy developers! What happened in Long Branch with the eminent domain abuse is a freaking travesty! All in the name of what?..increased tax revenue? What has this "tax revenue" done? Lined the pockets of the govt workers and their ever expanding pensions. Broadway still sucks..schools still suck and more bennys in town.

 

All interesting concepts, but the reality is, in places like Ocean City Maryland, that ship has sailed. Allowing nature to take over is just not an option, both economically and environmentally.

That being said, beach restoration, if it is to take place, should mimic the natural state of barrier islands, which would include nourishment of a sand bar which would serve the dual purpose of protecting the beach and protecting swimmers from catastrophic neck injuries.

Would it be nice to see the coast return to looking like Assateague? Absolutely.

Is that going to happen? No. There is simply too much money at stake.

Given the fact that the development of places like Ocean City is going to be protected, I believe it should be done in a manner that resembles nature as closely as possible.

 

So if the reality is that no matter what the "best management practices" are that the Army Corps, state, and local governments will continue with beach replenishment to protect their economic interests, then why not at least do something to address the costs? I'm not talking about higher taxes for beachfront or developers which are not a bad idea in their own right. But what if local, county, and state governments pool together their resources to purchase their own dredge that could sit offshore? The Army Corps could then provide oversight of these projects that are completed by local workers. And perhaps the costs would be cheaper because they own the equipment. Would that really be much more expensive than the $25 million just spent a year ago to replenish less than 5 miles of LBI? I'll admit I have no clue about what it costs to run a dredge, and I know that more times than not a job can be completed for less dollars in the private sector than the public, but there surely are means to make these projects less expensive.

 

People shouldn't live where they do. If it wasn't for house's that close to the coast we would never have to worry about pumping sand. It would naturally fix its self over time. People shouldn't live on Barrier islands, or build on the beach front. As soon as that house is there thats as big as that beach will be. So if the water comes up to that house there is no more beach and they have to pump sand again. If that house was never there the water would of done what it was doing for millions of years. The rise in sea levels isn't helping the cause but the ocean will go and take what it wants. Its just a matter of time now. May be in a month or may be in 90 years. You can't stop what was here first.

 

Barrier islands were created to be destroyed. anybody who has taken a basic environmental science course knows that. There is no way to prevent beach erosion (mother nature just redos what you fix). barrier islands, as NJs said, aren't meant to be lived on, now as per the rise in sea levels, that depends on who and what you believe. Its kind of like living in New Orleans, you can build all the levees you want, but until you realize you live below sea level there is no way to save yourself

 

I already heard a Pallone on a NJ101.5 advertisement pushing for replenishment funding from Irene.