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Long Beach Township rushing to protect two more homes from encroaching ocean
THE PRESS of ATLANTIC CITY ~ DONNA WEAVER ~ March 8, 2010
LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP - In what is becoming a common result of beach erosion on Long Beach Island, two more homes on the north end of the island are being saved from the encroaching Atlantic Ocean.
"We have 75 loads of sand that are being trucked in on Monday morning to try and stabilize the homes until the natural sand comes back," Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini said. "We need a good southerly wind to bring some sand back.
The two sprawling oceanfront homes on Tract 1087, or Flamingo Avenue, in the North Beach section of Long Beach Township are in danger of being undermined by the ocean, officials said. The beach, or what's left of it, - only about 10 feet during high tide - is inching closer and closer to the bulkheads of two towering white homes.
"It's really a shame," Mancini said Sunday afternoon. "This just shows how much people need to sign their easements."
About a half-mile and one town over, Harvey Cedars is in the final stages of a $25 million beach-replenishment project that has been interrupted repeatedly since its start in November. Harvey Cedars beaches were in the same condition last year at this time as the beaches in North Beach.
Tract 1087 is one of the township's 52 beaches that is supposed to be staffed with lifeguards beginning June 21. Right now, there is room for a lifeguard chair and beachgoers.
It's no day at the beach on Flamingo Avenue. Instead of the usually easy trek to the beach from these homes, at the entrance to the beach is a 20-foot drop. Fresh bulldozer tracks could be seen Sunday afternoon from the township's attempts to push sand up against the homes on Friday.
A wooden beach-access stairway to the south of the homes hangs about 4 feet in air. It was once rooted in the beach. The deck and walkway to the beach in front of one of the homes has been ripped up, and the bulkhead is completely exposed. During high tide, the water laps at the base of what was once a dune, but is now almost a 20-foot cliff of sand.
Township officials have said that since the Veterans Day storm in November, the township has spent more than $400,000 on sand. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said last week that it will reimburse only 75 percent of the costs, Mancini said.
"The 25 percent will be paid for by the state and local municipality," Mancini said. "FEMA will not fund all of it because we are not an engineered beach."
Collectively, the Veterans Day storm brought with it about $31 million worth of damage to the township's 12-mile long coastline. Long Beach Township beaches have lost 2.4 million cubic yards of sand, and 26 beaches have been closed since the storm.
Following the same storm in November, another home on the south end of LBI in Beach Haven was undermined by the ocean. Daryl and Mary Todd own an oceanfront home on Merivale Avenue, which was ravaged by the storm. Police cordoned off the home and the ocean broke through to the street. The borough also paid for 70 dump trucks to bring in loads of sand to repair the severely eroded stretch of beach.
Beach Haven is now in the process of beginning a geotube project along a 400-foot section of beach, from Nelson to Merivale avenues. The borough opted for the project after being at a standstill, collecting easements from oceanfront homeowners for a beach-replenishment project.
In Long Beach Township, about 200 of the township's 489 oceanfront property owners have signed their easements to make way for a beach replenishment project, Mancini said. He said one of the homeowners on Tract 1087 has signed an easement granting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Protection access to complete a beachfill project.
Contact Donna Weaver:DWeaver@pressofac.com
Escape from Long Beach Island: 1 bridge, 250,000 people
By DONNA WEAVER Staff Writer | Posted: Saturday, February 27, 2010
Long Beach Island’s sole access road includes the The Dorian J. Henderson Bridge, which is getting a $4 million repair job to extend its life.
Bruce Clark, of Philadelphia, owns a home in Beach Haven and has been coming to Long Beach Island since he was a boy in the 1960s. Clark said he remembers the rickety wooden bridge that he and his family would ride to cross Barnegat Bay and reach the island.
For almost 125 years, there has been only one way for those without a boat to travel to Long Beach Island. The causeway is an access point that has been transformed several times — from a railroad bridge to a drawbridge and toll bridge and then to a steel-girder bridge, now 52 years old. The span has been deemed structurally deficient and is undergoing a $4 million redecking to extend its life. But one thing that has never changed, and likely never will, is that there’s only one way on and off this 18-mile-long island.
Officials on Long Beach Island estimate about 250,000 people are on the barrier island on any given day in the height of the summer hurricane season — and some public safety officials are nervous about the prospect of using a single bridge to evacuate the island. If a hurricane struck in the height of summer, it could take as long as 22 hours for everybody to reach the mainland, they say.
“You’ll have quarter of a million people here trying to get off this island. I’m concerned people would suddenly decide to go when conditions are bad— in the night, in the wind and in the rain. Then you’ll have a high volume of traffic wanting to go over the bridge,” said Long Beach Township Deputy Police Chief Leslie Houston, who is also the emergency management coordinator for the township.
Clark, 56, said most people never thought about the fact that the island’s lifeline to the mainland was just one bridge that sat only 5 feet above the bay. It was just an accepted reality that went along with living or summering on Long Beach Island.
“They will never build another bridge off of here. No way, nobody wants it. You could poll people on this island and everyone would tell you they don’t want it,” said Deborah Whitcraft, former Beach Haven mayor, longtime resident and business owner on Long Beach Island who has lived through many storms.
Barrier-island dwellers have come to accept the possibility of a storm strike and mandatory evacuation.
In Cape May County, officials there have typically pointed out that their county holds the distinction of being ranked sixth in a list of 10 worst-case evacuation scenarios. The county is a peninsula bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay, and more than 1 million people could be there on a summer weekend.
Other problem areas include southern Florida, including Key West, a chain of islands with one highway connecting to the mainland. Officials estimate it could take anywhere from 12 to 24 hours to evacuate that region.
Unlikely to change
On Long Beach Island, adding another bridge is unlikely.
“Given the narrowness of LBI, one bridge is all we can have. We could have an eight-lane highway, but we would have to move all the houses off the island,” said Charles B. McKenna, director of the state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.
Ocean City, Cape May County, has a year-round population of 14,757, which can swell 10-fold in the busy summer months.
Ocean City has four bridges: The Corsons Inlet Bridge, the 34th Street Bridge, the 9th Street Bridge and the Ocean City-Longport Bridge.
Two of the bridges-34th Street and Ninth Street-are designated coastal-evacuation routes, said Frank Donato, Ocean City’s Emergency Management Coordinator. The other two bridges lead to other coastal communities.
Neither the 34th Street nor the Ninth Street bridge has a reverse lane strategy — which would dedicate all lanes of travel to a single direction: off the island.
“The thought is you would still need emergency vehicles that would have to access into the town during that event,” Donato said.
However, a reverse-lane strategy could be considered once the state Department of Transportation finishes a $400 million Route 52 causeway project, which includes replacing two drawbridges with elevated fixed spans, Donato said.
On Long Beach Island, to speed up an evacuation, state emergency management officials would reverse the lanes to make all lanes on the bridge and the causeway outbound. The plan is estimated to shave nearly eight hours off the worst-case evacuation scenario, which would be a Category 4 hurricane striking on a major holiday weekend. But as Houston points out, the plan has never been tested on anything more than paper.
“In the worst-case scenario all lanes will be going off the island. You’re not going to let anyone on. But you’re going to have cars break down. If you’re sitting there for six, seven hours you’re going to run out of gas,” she said.
Motorists would also encounter gridlock on Route 72 west during an evacuation, especially once they get past Southern Ocean County Hospital on mainland Stafford Township, where the road goes down to one lane on each side, according to Houston.
“There are only a limited number of highways to take you west. You’re going to go to two lanes on Route 72 just past the hospital, so now what are you going to do?” she said.
Officials stand by plan
But state officials don’t share the locals’ concerns. McKenna said the reverse-lane strategy is constantly being updated. Most recently, the state improved its evacuation plans through a statewide task force appointed to learn the lessons from when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Lt. Col. Jerome Hatfield of the State Police said since Hurricane Katrina, the emergency management community has increased the number of certified emergency response teams throughout the state and that Ocean County is one of the counties in which emergency management procedures are practiced the most.
“We have not completely stopped traffic, but the number of scientific studies that show our ability to displace seasonal and permanent population, I think we’re pretty comfortable with the plan in place,” Hatfield said.
Longtime residents are comfortable, too, with the idea of having to pack up quickly and leave.
Jim De Francesco, 66, of Ship Bottom, can recall an ordered evacuation of the island in August 1975 when a Category 3 hurricane was approaching.
“For safety’s sake they suggested an evacuation. They had fire trucks going up and down the street announcing the evacuation,” De Francesco said.
Today, evacuations orders are passed down through the media and through reverse-911 systems and other emergency broadcast alerts.
“Back then, I had heard tell it was 5-plus hours to evacuate from the north end of Beach Haven and not counting Holgate. But this was before the plans to switch all four lanes to outgoing on the bridge,” he added.
Since he moved to Ship Bottom in 1975, there have been three suggested evacuations. De Franceso said there are always people who will not leave the island.
“Some hold deck parties replete with cocktails at their oceanfront properties. Others prance on the beach, watching the raging ocean and awaiting the coming storm,” he said.
He said the first time he and his wife, Ellie, rode out a hurricane in Ship Bottom, he had his car key in his hand and they slept with their clothes on. This hurricane, De Francesco said happened in the late 1970s and sustained winds reached 80 to 85 miles per hour.
“I realized at that point even having the ignition key in my hand, it was too late because the area between Cedar Bonnet Bridge all the way to bottom of big bridge there would be sufficient water going across the bridge and even a four-wheel drive vehicle would have a hard time getting across,” he said.
Old bridge proposals
A few years ago, Clark stumbled upon a rare map from a 1930s promotional brochure that diagrams three proposed bridge projects.
The first bridge was a a “straight to LBI” extension of what is now Route 72 from Cedar Bridge to the island, which was completed.
But the other two projects, drawn as dotted lines, showed two “proposed bridges”, one at each end of Long Beach Island.
At the north end, the bridge would be an easy link to Seaside Heights. At the south end, there is a connection to a bridge coming from Tuckerton, and then it heads over to Little Beach and then to Brigantine.
Those bridges were never built, despite the support of the Long Beach Island Chamber of Commerce, which said at the time that a bridge to Seaside Heights would “assure a building boom to this community,” according to a National Parks Service history of New Jersey’s roads and roadside attractions.
Today, residents may ruefully wish that extra bridge had been built, but not because of evacuation concerns as much as convenience.
“Now, sitting in traffic, who hasn’t dreamed of an alternate to a single causeway?” Clark said.
An average of 23,751 cars pass over the causeway on and off the island every day, according to New Jersey Department of Transportation data from 2005, the most recent sampling.
Houston, meanwhile, has to count on the common sense of visitors and her own island’s readiness to deal with a major storm.
“It’s only a problem if disaster hits. But emergency management is all about planning for the worst and hoping for the best. It’s a matter of people needing to heed the warnings and if they do that, then that is half the problem,” said Houston.
Contact Donna Weaver:
609-226-9198
DWeaver@pressofac.com
The island’s causeways
The first was a railroad bridge and provided freight and passenger rail service to the island in 1886.
In 1914, the first automobile bridge is built across the Manahawkin Bay to Long Beach Island.
Train service to the island was stopped in 1935 when a northeaster destroyed more than a mile of trestle.
The current bridge was built in 1958.
Source: Six Miles at Sea and Eighteen Miles of History on Long Beach Island, by John Bailey Lloyd
Posted in OCEAN on Saturday, February 27, 2010 7:13 pm Updated: 7:31 am.
Lobbyist Helps LBI Replenish Beaches
Asbury Park Press – Feb.28,2010...Staff writer Jessica Infante
As they have every year since 2004, LBI towns are shelling out money to magnify their collective voice in Washington, DC, to push for more federal funds to continue the beach replenishment project.
The six municipalities – Barnegat Light, Harvey Cedars, Surf City, Ship Bottom, Long Beach Township (including Loveladies) and Beach Haven – have paid Winning Strategies, a Washington based lobbying firm to drum up support for the project. According to Long Beach Township Clerk, Bonnie M. Leonetti, Winning Strategies does a great many things but this is their forte, and they are very successful with it.
The municipalities split the firm’s $60,000 fee according to percentage of beachfront. The township contains 53 percent of the islands shoreline, so it pays 53 percent of the cost; Barnegat Light 9 percent, Harvey Cedars and Beach Haven each at 11 percent, Surf City and Ship Bottom each at 8 percent. Each town must pass a resolution to pay their share, but not all have done so yet.
While Harvey Cedars is reaping the benefit of the federally funded project right now, Mayor John Oldham feels it’s important to continue supporting the other communities. Barnegat Light’s wide sloping beaches have never needed extra sand, but the borough has always participated. “We are extra appreciative of their (Barnegat Light’s) support because they have never needed this project” Township Clerk Leonetti said. “For them to just unify with us is very special.”
However, Barnegat Light Mayor Kirk Larson said he doesn’t know if his town can afford the $5,400 this year. The Borough Council tabled a resolution to join the interlocal agreement during their Feb. 17 meeting. According to Larson, the Council is trying to get their budget together and would like to support the effort but the money may not be there.
"We're trying to get our budget together. I'd like to support it, but if the money's not there, the council doesn't want to steal it from somewhere else. larson said."
Legislature awaits DEP position on whether beach-access plan extends to private clubs
By JULIET FLETCHER, Statehouse Bureau | Posted: Tuesday, March 2, 2010 The Press of Atlantic City
Proposed legislation could improve public access to beaches that benefit from taxpayer-funded beach restoration projects, including private beaches.
The bill would require that beaches where replenishment projects take place provide public access to the beach or be exempted from doing so by the state Department of Environmental Protection. Some private sites could be forced to comply by allowing public access. Under the bill, the DEP would rule on whether private beach clubs and other restricted beach facilities could close public access to the waterfront.
But in cases where the private site's restriction stands, owners would have to pay into a newly created account to fund better access at nearby beach or waterfront stretches instead.
In January, the Attorney General's Office settled six cases with private beach clubs in Monmouth County, and an additional case with the borough of Sea Bright, which were accused of limiting access to state-owned land. Beach access advocates say they hope the law may be applied to parts of Long Beach Island, whose many beach pathways from street to shore are often marked "Private" or "No Trespassing."
The Monmouth County cases have tested the state's Public Trust Doctrine, which allows the public the right to reach the water's edge. The DEP issued its own public-access standards in 2007.
The proposed law would exclude any site that may be considered a homeland security target or otherwise incompatible with public access from having to provide entry.
But one clause states that any municipality or other entity that received money for beach replenishment from the Shore Protection Fund would have to provide on-site access, unless the DEP decided against it.
State Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, Somerset, who sponsored the bill with Sen. Andrew R. Ciesla, R-Ocean, Monmouth, said the law was designed "to put structure on beach access."
"Right now, the rule is anything goes. And we think that's unreasonable," he said. "So this is to rein in the DEP on this issue."
The bill was to be considered Monday by the Senate Environmental and Energy Committee, but Smith said his committee held the bill because members wanted to hear from acting DEP commissioner Bob Martin, who Smith said was "fully immersed" in the issue and had said he would take a position soon.
Jeanne Herb, director of policy and planning for the DEP, said the agency works with developers of sites around tidal waterways to "maximize opportunities" for public access to waterfront.
Currently, she said, owners of restricted sites - such as private ports or chemical plants - provide funds to municipalities on a case-by-case basis to help pay for waterfront access elsewhere nearby, funding walkways, parking and street lights.
To formalize that arrangement, she said, "The bill would statutorially create that fund."
State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, who previously sponsored legislation defining beach access, said he was strongly in favor of opening up beach entry to all and would accept private clubs being charged if they could not provide access.
But he disagreed with the idea that homeowners along the shore had to allow walkways along the sides of their properties, if, as he put it, "that means unfettered public access, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
He also disagreed with companies running private plants along waterways having to pay into the new fund.
"That's going to an extreme, and I oppose that," he said. "It's one more way we're making it difficult for businesses to run here."
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club chapter, said he supported the bill as a compromise between the current broad rules and other, more limited proposals.
"At least this lets some access," he said, adding that he feared fiercer laws would completely water down the DEP's public access regulations, which he said, "have been under attack."
Contact Juliet Fletcher:
609-292-4935
JFletcher@pressofac.com
Stafford Township to eliminate police K-9 Unit
THE PRESS of ATLANTIC CITY ~ DONNA WEAVER ~ February 24, 2010
STAFFORD TOWNSHIP - The Police Department's K-9 Unit will be disbanded and five officers may be laid off as cost-cutting measures, Business Administrator James Moran said Tuesday.
Moran said it costs $26,000 for two officers to attend 24 days of training each year for the unit, plus veterinary care and other expenses for the dogs
"How do you justify a program like this when you're thinking of laying people off?" Moran said.
"We've also made cuts with cell phones and air cards, and that will yield us $40,000. Now that's someone's salary or two people's benefits," Moran said. "You get rid of things before you start to touch people."
"We're staring down the barrel of an $800,000 increase in the budget with health benefits and 3 percent salary increases for 2010. That's $1.5 million in new expenses we didn't have in 2009. Where are we going to get that money?"
Police Chief Thomas Conroy said the township cannot afford to gamble with the community's public safety by dissolving the K-9 unit. Two of the department's dogs were used over the weekend in a drug raid through the county that netted 10 people, Conroy said.
"I don't know how we're going to function without dogs," he said. "What am I supposed to tell my detectives? 'Sorry, guys, but I don't have a dog for you.'"
Conroy said in the 20 years since he started the township's K-9 program, he has purchased four dogs with his own money. Other officers purchase their dogs as well, he said.
Moran said the decision is partly aimed at saving money but also comes after what he said was Conroy's lack of cooperation in providing the township with proof of the unit's operating costs and alternative services the township could use. Conroy said he did provide all of the documents Moran has requested since last summer.
Contact Donna Weaver: DWeaver@pressofac.com
Pinto Brothers Disposal is the new Trash/Recycling contractor for Long Beach Township.
If someone has a trash pick up problem, please call Pinto Brothers Customer Service @ 1-877-561-8231. For general questions about trash/recycling, please call the Long Beach Township hotline @ 609-361-6676. Thank you.
***New Information from Long Beach Township
ATTENTION RESIDENTS & RENTERS: WE ARE NOW ON THE WINTER SCHEDULE STARTING THIS ENTIRE WEEK.
TRASH WILL BE PICKED UP ONCE A WEEK - MON. TUES, OR WED. DEPENDING ON YOUR
SECTION OF THE TOWNSHIP.
CO-MINGLED RECYCLING AND OCCASIONAL BRUSH WILL BE PICKED UP ON THURSDAYS
PAPER AND OCCASIONAL BRUSH WILL BE PICKED UP ON FRIDAYS
CALL OUR HOTLINE 361-6676 WITH ANY QUESTIONS
WATCH THE TOWNSHIP PUBLIC MEETINGS LIVE ON COMCAST CHANNEL 22
See the calendar at the bottom of this page for our meeting schedule.
*Re-broadcasts will be the 2nd Saturday following the live meeting at 7 P.M.
(8 days following the live meeting)
Long Beach Township
6805 Long Beach Boulevard
Brant Beach, NJ 08008
Ph:(609)361-1000
Fax:(609)494-5421
Hours: 9AM to 4PM
Monday - Friday
CONTACT: Email Address: Tel. Ext
Mayor Joseph H. Mancini mancini@longbeachtownship.com 6671
Comm. William Knarre knarre@longbeachtownship.com 6630
Comm. Ralph H. Bayard rbayard@longbeachtownship.com 6668
Municipal Clerk tsgro@longbeachtownship.com 6635
Registrar sbongiovani@longbeachownship.com 6631
Finance Office ljones@longbeachtownship.com 6640
Tax Assessor hafner@longbeachtownship.com 6660
Tax Collector hample@longbeachtownship.com 6647
Asst. Dir. DPW barana@longbeachtownship.com 6672
Public Works Admin rhirsekorn@longbeachtownship.com 6667
Construction Office building@longbeachtownship.com 6679
Zoning Dept. tallon@longbeachtownship.com 6651
Water & Sewer appell@longbeachtownship.com 6638
Water/Sewer Supt. ward@longbeachtownship.com 6670
Land Use Board krueger@longbeachtownship.com 6636
LBI Health Dept. lbihd@lbihealth.com 492-1212