A makeshift sand berm protects the south end during a nor'easter after Superstorm Sandy in November 2012.
After years of lobbying to rebuild eroding beaches, south end property owners in Ocean City will see 50 years of continuing replenishment projects.
City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution that authorizes Mayor Jay Gillian to sign an agreement with state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Army Corps of Engineers to pump new sand onto beaches between 34th and 59th streets in Ocean City.
"This is the long-awaited agreement that gets the south-end into the federal program," Business Administrator Mike Dattilo told City Council.
The federal government will pay 100 percent of the estimated $85 million initial project to restore beaches at the south end of Ocean City and in Strathmere and Sea Isle City.
The south end of Ocean City will then be part of a continuing three-year renourishment cycle that will continue for 50 years (contingent on the availability of federal funds). The federal government estimates it will spend $309.4 million on the project area over the life of the agreement.
The initial project is expected to begin in late November and will end a long waiting game for property owners in southern Ocean City, where the ocean met the bay during Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 and flattened protective dunes. But even before Sandy hit in 2012, beaches on that part of the island disappeared during some high tides.
The cost share for the renourishment projects in the new agreement leaves more responsibility with the state and local governments, Dattilo said.
The share will be 50 percent federal government and 50 percent state government (with Ocean City responsible for 25 percent of the state’s cost).
The agreement the city signed for the north end beaches calls for the federal government to pay 65 percent and the state 35 percent (with Ocean City paying 25 percent of the state’s cost).
The net effect for Ocean City is that it will pay 8.75 percent of north end projects and 12.5 percent of south end projects (after the federal government pays 100 percent of this year's initial project).
Ocean City has been part of a federal Army Corps agreement on the north end since the 1990s, and Dattilo said the federal government has made good on its promise to come back "just about every three years" with a few cycles that were four or five years apart.
In a separate vote on Thursday, City Council agreed to provide easements to the state and federal government on beach parcels for which the city holds riparian grants. The permission allows the beach replenishment project for the south end to proceed.
The federal Army Corps of Engineers has opened bids on the project (Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., the same contractor that completed the beachfill project at the north end of the island in 2013, is the low bidder at $58 million), and the Corps is expected to award the contract before the end of the month.
At the same time, the city has obtained all the required easements (permission from beachfront property owners who have rights to land in the project area). Of about 588 beachfront properties in the area between 34th and 59th streets, only five may be subject to condemnation litigation.
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