Final report for 2014 on the condition of the municipal oceanfront beaches the Borough of Avalon, Cape May County, New Jersey

The Stockton University Coastal Research Center (CRC) was tasked with a review of the municipal oceanfront shoreline within the Borough of Avalon over the past year. This annual report presents a discussion of the changes to the beach sand volume, shoreline positions, follows the performance of the 2013 US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) maintenance project and 2014 sand backpassing project along the north end engineered beach. During early winter of 2013 the USACE completed an emergency maintenance project on the northern beaches based on erosion suffered during Hurricane Irene and Sandy placing a reported 336,359 cubic yards (CY) of sand on the engineered beach. The project was eligible for Flood Control and Coastal Emergency funds under Public Law 84-99 and in response to P.L. 113-2 Disaster Relief Appropriations Act the project beach was eligible for restoration to design template. Unfortunately, winter storm Saturn and a series of smaller storms impacted the Jersey coast soon after the USACE project was completed and quickly began to erode the project beach berm. By fall 2013 the northern engineered beach had severely eroded and most of the sand placed by the USACE was removed. The reduced beach width and elevation left the dune toe vulnerable to storm wave run-up. In response the Borough implemented a sand back-passing program in early 2014. For this project the borrow zone was restricted to beaches north of the Avalon natural exclusion zone to the 31st Street fishing pier. The project mechanically harvested sand using an excavator from the intertidal zone of the northern borrow zone. Sand was then transported by truck north to the placement zone located along the erosional north end of the engineered beach. The project was expected to move approximately 50,000 CY of sand from the borrow zone to the sand placement zone. Sand placement was from 18th Street north to approximately 10th Street, the sand was used to construct a berm approximately 60 feet in width seaward of the dune toe at approximately elevation 6 feet NAVD88. Quarterly surveys conducted by the CRC along the Borough’s shoreline in 2014 provided data to assess the project performance both within the sand placement zone at the north end and recovery rates of the sand harvested from within the borrow zone. In addition the CRC used established USACE monitoring lines to conduct pre, post and six-week post construction surveys to determine initial sand volume and beach changes within the project area