Beach Replenishment Getting Underway in Island’s Brick Portion

Crews ready a beach replenishment project in Brick, N.J., April 10, 2018. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

After more than a decade of waiting, a pipe that will be used to carry sand from the ocean floor to Brick’s shoreline has been placed just north of Brick Beach III, with crews on land setting up the equipment necessary to build the beaches and a protective dune town-wide.

The pipeline consists of a network of metal pipes that run from an anchor point in the ocean to a designated spot on shore – in Brick’s case, the Bel Air Beach neighborhood. A dredge boat that has collected sand from the bottom of the ocean will navigate to the pipeline’s opening, connect, and use its engines to send the sand to shore, where it will then be distributed across the beaches by heavy equipment.

Crews ready a beach replenishment project in Brick, N.J., April 10, 2018. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

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That equipment is now on hand, with a security guard posted at Beach III to keep onlookers from getting in the way of moving bulldozers and front-loaders getting ready for the project.

Sand will begin to be pumped imminently, likely within days, as the project in Mantoloking comes to a conclusion.

“We’re going to have a giant beach, and it’s going to be great,” an elated Mayor John Ducey said at a council meeting Tuesday night.

The replenishment project will last through May and June, and potentially into July, depending on weather. But beaches will not be closed the entire time.

“They close off 1,000 feet of sand for about three days, and then they move to the next thousand feet,” said Ducey. “It’s not as if beaches will be closed, but there will be some minor inconveniences in May and June. Hopefully it will be done by July, if there are no more storms.”

Crews ready a beach replenishment project in Brick, N.J., April 10, 2018. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Crews ready a beach replenishment project in Brick, N.J., April 10, 2018. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

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The project, once completed, will leave Brick with at least a 200 foot-long beach and 22 foot-high vegetated dune that will be built over top of the sea wall that has been exposed in recent years during storms. The dune will stop the wall from becoming visible, and will be the town’s first line of protection from storms breaching the barrier island, the designers of the project have said.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia District, which is in charge of the project, the hopper dredges R.N. Weeks and B.E. Lindholm will work in tandem on the project. The plan, according to the Corps, is to make the pipe landing near Bel Air Road and first pump south first then flip and pump north from Bel Air Road.