Avalon Shore Restored As Dredge Delivers
Sand
The sand slush is being used to replace eight blocks of beaches - about 350,000 cubic yards of sand - lost through erosion in northern Avalon.
Avalon - Fifteen submerged jet streams churned Townsends Inlet's sea floor into a cloud of suspended sand.
Inside the aptly named "Beachbuilder" dredge, a two story engine room rattled from the work (ear plugs and hard hats required).
The dredge acts like a gigantic vacuum cleaner, said Ely Mahon, project manager for Weeks Marine.
The "vacuum cleaner," which can use 10,000 of fuel per day, sucks the slurry and pumps it through 1½ miles of pipeline to Avalon's 15th Street beach, which last week wasn't there.
The sand slush is being used to replace eight blocks of beaches — about 350,000 cubic yards of sand — in northern Avalon lost through erosion.
Engineer Tom Thornton said the project will widen those beaches about 300 feet.
The Weeks Marine dredge can move about 5,000 cubic yards of sand per hour as it bobs near Townsends Inlet, Mahon said.
A 10,000-horsepower pump hurls the slurry onto the shore, as earth movers push the piles into a beach.
A series of small northeastern storms have exacerbated beach erosion, said Steven Hafner, a coastal geologist for the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
“None were large and intense individually, but the storms occurred frequently and they caused a nibbling effect where they eroded the beach on a continuous basis, giving the shore very little time to rebuild naturally,” he said.
Avalon Borough Council paid $2.8 million for the dredging
project, which started earlier this month and could finish this
weekend.
Avalon's last beach fill was in 2003, when it entered a 50-year
partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Under that
agreement, the federal government pays more than half of the costs.
But this year, Avalon went it alone, concerned about severely eroded beaches and aware that a federal government project might be almost three years away.
Public Works Director Harry deButts said Avalon couldn't afford to wait.
Avalon has also been exploring other options for beach replenishment. Avalon officials will travel to the Indian River Inlet in Delaware to look at a sand transferring process there. The idea involves burying a pipeline that would run across the beach. In effect, it would recycle sand that migrates to the southern end of the borough and pump it back to the northern end.
It could potentially double or triple the lifespan of a beach replenishment, Hafner said.
DeButts said Avalon asked the federal government to fund a $75,000 study to look at the viability and the cost benefit of such a system. DeButts said they are waiting for an answer.
To e-mail Brian Ianieri at The Press: BIanieri@pressofac.com
