A feeder pipeline now sits at North Street Beach, and work on a north-end beach rebuilding project in Ocean City is expected to begin Nov. 2.
Work will begin when the dredge Illinois completes a project in Sea Isle City currently in its final stages.
The Ocean City project will cover about 2.3 miles — from Seaspray Road to 14th Street— where the beaches and dunes are most vulnerable. A northeast gale in early October carved into already eroded beaches along that stretch.
The project will represent the seventh time the Army Corps of Engineers has returned for a “renourishment” project since the beach there was first rebuilt in 1992.
The original contract in that project area did not call for the Army Corps to maintain dunes, but Ocean City Business Administrator Jim Mallon reported to City Council last week that the city has requested dune work be added to this cycle.
Final estimates are not yet in, but a similar project in 2013 cost about $11 million, of which the federal government was responsible for 65 percent, the state Department of Environmental Protection 26.25 percent and the city 8.75 percent.
Supplemental Sandy disaster assistance funds added about $7 million to the contract to buy sand lost to the storm at 100 percent federal cost. About 1.8 million cubic yards of sand was pumped onto Ocean City beaches.
