(15/P21) TRENTON – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia District and the Department of Environmental Protection jointly announced today that construction of a $128 million beach and dune project to protect Long Beach Island has been rescheduled to start at an earlier date, with equipment mobilizing in late March and dredging beginning in mid-April.

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) contracted in December to construct of the storm damage reduction project, was able to advance the originally projected August 2015 start date, due in part to the availability of dredge equipment.

“We are thrilled that this important project to protect LBI with engineered beaches and dunes is getting started,” DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said. “The Christie Administration remains committed to providing critical protection to all of our shore communities as we continue to build a full, statewide coastal protection system.”

The project, which encompasses 12.7 miles of beachfront in Long Beach Township, Ship Bottom, Beach Haven and a small section of Surf City, will ultimately see eight million cubic yards of sand pumped from an approved area approximately three miles offshore of Long Beach Island.

The sand is then built into a dune and berm system designed to reduce potential damages to infrastructure, businesses, and homes that can occur from coastal storm events.  In addition, the contract includes the construction of dune crossovers, placement of sand fencing, and dune grass plantings.

Two dredges are expected to begin operations near 106th Street in Long Beach Township and work south toward the end of the project in Holgate. People on the island should begin to see mobilization to the project area in late March, with beachfill work beginning about two weeks later.

A third dredge is scheduled to mobilize to the project in August and begin operations at the northern end of the project, within the Loveladies section of Long Beach Township, and work south.

The Long Beach Island project is one of seven major previously authorized but never constructed coastal and flood projects statewide, conducted by USACE in coordination with DEP, at a total cost of more than $1 billion. Two of those projects–at Oakwood Beach along the Delaware River in Salem County and the Raritan Bay beach in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown—were completed last year.

A contract also has been awarded for beach construction projects from Sea Bright to Manasquan in Monmouth County. Also scheduled to begin this year is the recently awarded contract for the Great Egg Harbor Inlet to Townsends Inlet project in Cape  May County. Other beach construction projects expected to begin in 2015 include work from Brigantine Inlet to Great Egg Harbor Inlet (Margate and Longport) and the Northern Ocean County peninsula from Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet (Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking, Brick, Toms River, Lavallette, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park and Berkeley).

In 2014, USACE completed eight other beach projects, returning roughly 45 miles of previously engineered and constructed beaches along the New Jersey coast to their original protective construction design—not just to pre-Sandy condition—at a cost of $345 million.

The Long Beach Island Coastal Storm Damage Reduction project was only partially completed when Superstorm Sandy hit the New Jersey shore in October, 2012. The current contract will complete the initial construction of the dune and berm system on Long Beach Island.  USACE completed the initial construction of the project at Surf City (3rd-22nd street) in 2006; Harvey Cedars in 2010; and Brant Beach (31st and 57th Streets) in Long Beach Township in 2012. USACE repaired previously constructed beaches in Surf City and Harvey Cedars in 2011, and fully restored the previously constructed beaches within the three communities after Superstorm Sandy.