Beach replenishment work in Mantoloking, N.J., Nov. 27, 2017. (Photo: Daniel Nee)
Brick’s portion of Ocean County’s northern barrier island could receive a crucial beach replenishment project as early as the end of December.
Mayor John Ducey said the dredge boat R.N. Weeks will arrive in “late December” and will start work in January. The R.N. Weeks is a hopper dredge owned by Weeks Marine, the contractor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is funding and overseeing the $128 million project.
Work is ongoing, but nearly complete, in Mantoloking, where crews have been working since late October. Both Brick and Mantoloking’s beaches, in recent years, have been shortened – and rendered dangerous after storms – from waves scouring the outside of a steel sea wall that was completed in 2014. Once the replenishment sand is pumped onto the beach, a vegetated dune will be built over the wall. The wall will be used as a final line of defense instead of the first line of defense against breaches, and the scouring should end, engineers have said.