Living on an island is all about living with the ocean. And living with the ocean is all about mitigation techniques that have been employed on the barrier islands along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to keep the ocean and sounds at bay. In previous blogs, I examined jetties, one of the first mitigation techniques employed, and sea walls. Both techniques are referred to as "hard stabilization." Hard stabilization techniques cut off sand supply. But, barrier islands require a reliable sand supply to survive. Because of what hard stabilization has done to permanently destroy barrier islands and their beaches in New Jersey, newer mitigation or stabilization methods rely more on recognizing that barrier islands need a sand supply to survive.
In this blog, I examine beach renourishment, a stabilization technique in which we enhance or supplement the natural sand supply to a barrier island. Like other mitigation techniques, beach renourishment got its start along the Jersey Shore. Just south of Monmouth Beach is the town of Long Branch, one of the largest communities along the Jersey Shore. From the 1860’s through the First World War, it was also the most glamorous. Long Branch’s early years as a resort town was a virtual “Who’s Who” of society, including such names as Astor, Fisk, & Drexel – and even more notorious names such as Diamond Jim Brady and Lily Langtree. In 1869, President Ulysses Grant made the first of many visits to Long Branch. Grant continued to visit every summer that he was president, and it was here that he raced to write his memoir before he succumbed to throat cancer.
Such was its reputation that six other presidents, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson, were frequent summer visitors. After President Garfield was mortally wounded during his first year in office, he was brought to Long Branch. Hopes of a recovery aided by the sea air were dashed by the incompetence of Garfield’s physicians who were hell bent on constantly probing his wound with unclean hands in an effort to locate and remove the bullet lodged in his abdomen.
The 1920’s witnessed the beginning of Long Branch’s decline as a fashionable summer destination. Laws eliminating gambling stopped many of the rich and famous from visiting, and wicked storms eroded Long Branch’s famed beachfront. Today, what beach remains is a product of some very intensive investment of time, money and manpower. For example, in 2009 the Army Corps of Engineers completed a beach nourishment project in Long Branch for 1,500 linear feet of shore front, roughly a quarter mile. However, this project took 10 years to plan. It required dredging 3 miles offshore, transferring 725,000 cubic yards of sand (roughly 75,000 dump truck loads), onto floating barges, remixing the sand with sea water into slurry and pumping this slurry onto the beach. This $9 million project took two winter months, 24 hours a day, and it is scheduled to be revisited every 5-7 years if not sooner inasmuch as, shortly after completion, much of the sand drifted away, forming a shallow sandbar offshore.
There you have it. Three mitigation techniques: jetties, sea walls and renourishment. None of these techniques have "saved" the beaches and barrier islands along the Jersey Shore. In my next blog, I will explore why that is the case and why that may not be the case for every barrier island and its beaches. That being said, to learn more about life in Emerald Isle, NC, go to my website, www.EIHomesforSale.com and request my free Guide to Living Were You Vacation or text your email address to: 919-308-2292.
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