Beach work: The billion-dollar question for New Jersey

Restoring eroded beaches was a billion-dollar problem in New Jersey even before Sandy. Towns have added sand to beaches for generations, yet sand drifts. So if a town manages to keep a beach in place on one block, chances are the beach on another block will erode twice as quickly.

Save beach from renourishment

If we really value our beach and what it means to our economy, we should do more to protect it. With so-called beach renourishment (pumping offshore sand onto beach for protection) and the current Coastal Construction Line (development setback line), we are just toying with protection.

Economy Winner, Environment Loser in Renourishment

“One thing that locks you into renourishment is to continue beach construction and development as usual,” Young says as he stares at the five yellow CAT machines “The long-range or long-term solution is to have greater setbacks and to allow the beach to renourish itself naturally.”

Could We Run Out of Sand for Eroded Beaches?

With king tides, persistent winds and large waves from Tropical Storm Erika and Hurricane Joaquin making erosion particularly bad this year, the demand for sand is high – but is it possible we could run out?

More Than $1B Spent Replenishing N.J. Beaches Over Past 30 Years

More than $1 billion has been spent on beach replenishment efforts in New Jersey over the last three decades. That money has paid for the placement of roughly 120 million cubic yards of sand on the state’s beaches, an amount that could fill a typical dump truck 12 million times.