NY Times - Gains, and Losses, Along the Shore
By COLEEN DEE BERRY
Published: March 6, 2009
Article Excerpts:
A FEW days after the Army Corps of Engineers finished its beach replenishment project last month along the shore here, Andrew Mencinsky put on his wet suit and went surfing.
Mr. Mencinsky, the executive director of Surfers' Environmental Alliance, was braced for bad news. Beach replenishment projects on the Jersey Shore in the past have destroyed good surfing conditions, in the opinion of many local surfers, because the newly added sand has altered the way the waves hit the beach. But this latest replenishment project, he said, left him "pleasantly surprised."
This time, the Corps of Engineers had consulted with surfers and worked to repair erosion while maintaining a surfer-friendly beach. Though the $9.3 million project ultimately was less than advocates hoped for, Mr. Mencinsky said, "this project definitely represents a first step forward in changing how beach nourishment is done."
"When they first did beach replenishment back in the 1990s, they destroyed every good surfing beach in northern Monmouth County for years," said Rich Lee, a Long Branch resident and member of both the Surfers' Environmental Alliance and the Surfrider Foundation, another surfing and environmental advocacy group. "This project's far from perfect, but we got maybe 60 percent of what we wanted."
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/nyregion/new-jersey/08beachnj.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Beach%20replenishment&st=cse
