Agreement with Army Corps means beach re-nourishment will take place between Beach 92nd Street and Beach 103rd Street; goal is to have work completed in time for summer beach season
Mayor de Blasio, Senator Schumer, Comptroller Stringer, Representative Meeks and Borough President Katz announced an agreement between the City and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to use dredged sand to re-nourish and restore Rockaway beach between Beach 92nd Street and Beach 103rd Street. Depending on when dredging work commences and the severity of spring storms, the project should allow for the reopening of this stretch of beach this coming summer.
“Rockaway Beach defines summer in New York City,” said Mayor de Blasio. “Reopening this beach means a lot to this community and families all over the city. We’ve worked months with the Army Corps and our federal partners on a solution to get it done.”
“I cannot be prouder of the team effort to award this vital maintenance dredging contract with our partner, the City of New York,” said Colonel Thomas Asbery, Commander, USACE, New York District. “The safety of the navigation channels and shoreline resiliency is USACE’s top priority in our world class harbor estuary of New York and New Jersey. We have seized the opportunity to beneficially reuse dredge material to provide coastal storm risk reduction measures along the heavily eroded portion of the Rockaway shorefront. This is a tremendous benefit for the community and for the City of New York.”
USACE New York District has awarded a contract for $10.7M to Weeks Marine of Cranford, N.J. to perform needed maintenance dredging of the East Rockaway Inlet Federal Navigation Channel. The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is contributing $2.7M to pump the sand two and a half miles farther west in order to avoid potential environmental impacts. The work will restore and ensure safe passage for both commercial and recreational vessel traffic through the inlet. USACE is expected to remove approximately, 300,000 cubic yards of sand from the inlet and place it between Beach 92nd and Beach 103rd Streets to replace lost sand due to heavy erosion after last March’s back-to-back nor’easters. Maintenance dredging of East Rockaway Inlet is expected to begin in spring 2019.
In 2013, USACE placed 3.5M cubic yards of sand on the beaches following Superstorm Sandy to help strengthen the resiliency of its coastal storm risk reduction project, which was originally built in the 1970s.
In addition, the USACE New York District is in the process of receiving final approval from USACE headquarters for the East Rockaway Inlet to Rockaway Inlet & Jamaica Bay General Revaluation Report, with the goal of beginning the first elements of construction in late 2019. The plan calls for a reinforced dune (composite seawall) with a height of 17 feet. This structure will stretch from Beach 9th Street to Beach 149th Street.
The plan also calls for increased beach berm with 1.6 m cubic yards of sand for initial placement, the extension of 5 groins already in place and the construction of 13 new groins --all designed to help reduce the risk from future coastal storms and provide additional resiliency for the residents of this community.
“Rockaway beach is not just vital to our city as a whole, it’s the bedrock of surrounding Queens communities. I’m glad that the City and the Federal government came to the table, and that my office was able to take swift action to move this project forward for the Rockaway community,” said Comptroller Scott Stringer. “We all know how resilient the Rockaway community is, but we can’t let delays take over this process. We’ll keep the spotlight on to ensure the community is always put first.”
EDITOR'S NOTE:
We left in Comptroller Stringer's comment, because he seems to understand that if Rockaway Beach is allowed to decay further then it would allow the Atlantic Ocean to cover the Broad Channel, Howard Beach, and other parts of Southeast Queens as the rising water level of the ocean increases.
It is mentioned that in 2013 only six years ago this process had to be done after Hurricane Sandy. One only has to wonder how soon this process will have to be repeated again.
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