Potential use of dredged material on N.J. beaches spurs debate | - NJ.com
After a series of winter storms devastated the 27 miles of beaches along the Raritan and Sandy Hook bays, local officials say they need the federal government’s help — now — to shore up the dunes.
Some areas of beach have lost up to 15 feet of sand, barriers that once separated homes and businesses from the Raritan Bay. Near Keansburg and Middletown, breaches in the dunes have resulted in heavy flooding, officials said.
Plans to restore the beaches are about two years off, but Monmouth County Freeholder Director Lillian Burry said help could come quicker if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was permitted to dump dredging material from a project planned in the Sandy Hook and Raritan bays on top of Bayshore’s battered dunes.
"They have to put it somewhere," Burry said of the silt the Army Corps regularly dredges from navigational channels. "We’re proposing a solution to their problem, which in the end will be a solution to our problem."
