Surfers delighted, business owners cringed and emergency responders were kept very busy over the Labor Day weekend, as the former Hurricane Ernesto brought damaging winds, heavy rain and 8-foot surf to Delaware’s beach communities.
Coastal Point • Susan Lyons:
The erosion on the beach in Bethany Beach was evident on Monday, Sept. 11.
Trees and holiday plans were some of the most frequent casualties of the storm, along with surfboards, but the most notable damage was done to area beaches — particularly the unreplenished shores in Bethany Beach and South Bethany — was erosion.
So it was that U.S. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) returned to Bethany Beach on Friday afternoon, in the company of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Secretary John Hughes, DNREC beach guru Tony Pratt and Bethany Beach Mayor Jack Walsh., to examine the post-storm state of the beach in person.
They observed the same thing many holiday visitors to the town, as well as its residents, had seen happen: a beach not only dangerously narrow but astonishingly flat.
So much sand had been taken back out to sea by Ernesto that what was, prior to Labor Day weekend, a gentle rise to the boardwalk area had become instead a nearly level expanse dotted with the groins or jetties that were once commonplace mechanisms in the fight against erosion.
Instead of barely peeking from the sand, the groins these days rise up to 3 feet above the beach, thanks to Ernesto.
It all had Walsh worried, as the resort town heads into the fall and winter seasons, when the nor’easters that historically damage Delaware beaches more drastically than hurricanes become more likely.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it going into the winter,” Walsh said, clearly concerned about the potential damage to the beach, boardwalk and even properties if a severe off-season storm hits before reconstruction of the beach can move forward.
The possibilities of that happening this fall or winter are slim. Only an estimated $3 million in additional funds is thought to be coming to the Bethany-South Bethany reconstruction project in this year’s federal budget, according to Castle. That would be added to just over $3 million from the federal 2006 fiscal-year budget, bringing in a total of just more than $6 million for a project that would require an estimated $14 million federal share to be completed.
That leaves town and state officials in a holding pattern, as they wait for the final passage of appropriations bills that contain the federal funding. Pratt said state and municipal officials would “huddle” with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representatives once the final figure was known and from there determine the path ahead.
The estimated funding leaves open several options: (1) to retain this year’s allotment, as happened last year, for future funding of the entire project, and plan to ride out the winter with fingers crossed; (2) to spend the granted funding on a smaller-scale project that could mean less replenishment funding down the road; or (3) to ask for state funding for a temporary replenishment that might help get the town beaches through the perilous winter, hoping that also wouldn’t mean reduced federal funding in the future.
Hughes confirmed Friday that, worst-case scenario, Option 3 would come about, with the state ready to bring in accumulated funds from the accommodations tax to temporarily replenish the municipal beaches, in hopes of a full 50-year reconstruction next fall. Castle and Pratt signed on behind the pledge.
The promises relieved the deepest concerns of Walsh and many of his constituents, but they will be keeping an eagle eye toward the shore this winter, hoping that Mother Nature will be kind to the beach and its inhabitants.
On a side issue, Hughes emphasized that neighboring Sea Colony is not being given “free sand” for the replenishment project the development’s recreation association has asked the state to “piggyback” on the hoped-for Bethany-South Bethany project.
Hughes said the estimated $1 million cost to initially bring in a dredging barge for the entire area would be a savings to Sea Colony if that project were “piggybacked” to run concurrently with federally- and state-funded efforts. But property owners in the private community (with its private beach) will be paying privately the same estimated $6.85-per-cubic-yard cost for their project as the municipalities will pay through their state and federal funding, he said.
In a separate, but associated, issue, some in the area have criticized the Sea Colony request to have sand from the state’s underwater territory, extending some 3 miles out, saying the depletion of quality sands for private projects could eventually have an impact on the quality of sand available for future replenishment to state and municipal beaches.
In either case, focus has been put on the private nature of the Sea Colony beach, which — like other private communities — excludes non-property owners and those who are not their guests from using the beach at a time when municipal beaches are receiving more complaints of increased crowding.
As such, “private” beaches cannot prohibit public access to their shores if they take federal or state funding for maintenance and other related needs. But Sea Colony and other private beaches in the area have walked the line on the issue, taking advantage of the resources brought into the area — such as dredges — to reduce the cost of private projects without direct cost to the state or federal taxpayers.
The most recent Sea Colony request to have access to state-controlled sands for their replenishment project — albeit at their own expense — has generated more than the usual debate, through a hearing Aug. 23 and beyond. State officials have yet to respond to the request, which is expected to be mirrored by Middlesex Beach and communities in North Bethany.
But, to the background of Hughes’ comments on the cost to be paid by Sea Colony for its project, Pratt said Friday that he feels such private projects benefit the state and municipalities over time.
“We’re working to develop a region-wide plan,” Pratt said of erosion issues at large, noting the already planned and funded reconstruction in the towns’ southern neighbor of Ocean City, Md. “Eventually, the Ocean City sands will migrate into Fenwick Island,” he said. “And some of South Bethany’s sand will go into Middlesex. Sea Colony’s sand will move into Bethany. And Bethany’s sand will continue on to North Bethany.”
Notably, the groins that are so obviously jutting out of the deteriorated beach in Bethany these days were once thought to help reduce the impact of tides and storms on the beaches and were constructed to help preserve them.
Scientists now say they have turned out instead to starve up-coastal beaches of replenishing flows, as has been shown the case between Ocean City and Assateague Island with the construction of the Ocean City Inlet.
Pratt instead champions the model that favors regional solutions, incorporating Ocean City, Fenwick Island, South Bethany, Bethany Beach, Dewey Beach, Rehoboth Beach and Lewes municipal beaches into a plan that he said would be supported by regional sand flow up and down the coast, including the private and state-controlled beaches.
The models he touts won’t be seen in action until — and only if — funding comes to support full reconstruction of the diminished shorelines of the two remaining municipal beaches.
Meanwhile, Castle, Hughes and Pratt were also headed Friday to visit Rehoboth Beach, which despite its completed reconstruction also sustained significant damage from Ernesto. Some of that erosion has been blamed on a sub-par quality of sand that ended up on the beach and has been cited as a factor in increased injuries this summer season.
Pratt said he’d secured a better site for sand dredging in the planned South Bethany and Bethany Beach projects, and that may have proven its worth with lesser — if still significant — erosion to the reconstructed Fenwick Island beach from Ernesto. But the ability of reconstructed beaches to weather severe storms over the long haul may be a factor considered in federal funding decisions, sounding some subtle alarm bells for those seeking reconstruction.
Regardless, Pratt emphasized that he believes much of the sand loss to all the area’s beaches from Ernesto was temporary, estimating that most of it would be washed back onshore in the coming two to three weeks, as part of natural processes.
That prediction, and the fate of the area’s two remaining unreplenished beaches, will be tested this fall and winter, with high hopes and ongoing efforts by local officials to finally get the ball moving toward their dreamed-of shorelines.