New Jersey blinks in dune repairs standoff, allows emergency erosion fixes in defiant town

NORTH WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey environmental officials will allow a shore town to carry out emergency repairs to its badly eroded beachfront, even as they continue a years-long fight with city officials over how best to protect the popular Jersey Shore resort's fragile coastline.

On Wednesday, the state Department of Environmental Protection told North Wildwood it could reshape three blocks worth of dunes and repair public access points to a condition that they can be safely used in time for the approaching Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The move marked a turning point in a long-running dispute between the city and the state over how to ensure that the beach is wide enough for recreation and to ensure that dunes are sturdy enough to protect the city from coastal storms.

North Wildwood and its surrounding coastal neighbors have not received the periodic beach replenishment projects that most of the rest of the Jersey Shore has been getting for decades, due in part to the difficulty of getting approval from property owners.

As a result, it has experienced serious erosion over the last decade, and says it needs to take immediate emergency steps including shoring up dunes and building another steel sea wall to complement one it already built.

The state has repeatedly denied permission for such work, saying it could actually worsen erosion due to the scouring effect of waves carrying sand along hard barriers like sea walls. It says the city should continue to rely on trucking in sand from mainland quarries. But the city has spent $21 million doing that over the past decade, and is suing the state to recoup those costs.

In a letter to the city the DEP cited the emergency nature of the work to be done in explaining why it is now giving permission for it.

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