Beach Erosion / Beach Access

On an annual basis, sand and sediment are moved at great public expense to accommodate navigation, beach nourishment and construction. From the 1930s through 2003, 65.5 million cubic yards of sand has been placed on New Jersey beaches.

On its own, New Jersey spends $25 million a year to replace sand lost to erosion on shore beaches. Marine debris such as plastics and other waste lost at sea or deposited by stormwater runoff often wash up on beaches. NJDEP’s Clean Shores Program conducts shoreline cleanups year-round. In 2004, the program removed 4.8 million pounds of debris from 131.3 miles of shoreline for an average of 36,558 pounds per mile. [These figures do not include the 90,000 pounds of debris picked up by Clean Ocean Action and other volunteer clean-up programs that same year.] Since 2001, the “pounds per mile figure” has jumped nearly 10,000 pounds per mile.

But the cost of maintaining New Jersey’s beaches is far greater. The Army Corps of Engineers is conducting the world’s largest beach replenishment project to provide 100-foot wide beaches along the entire Jersey shore, which experts believe will cost $9 billion (65 percent of which is funded by federal taxpayers) over a 50-year period. The process of scooping up offshore sand and dumping it on beaches disturbs valuable offshore habitats for shellfish and fish. Most of the sand that has been placed on beaches washes out to sea in as little as a year after “replenishment.”