Planned beach replenishment projects for Avalon, Stone Harbor, and northern Ocean City are currently stalled due to a lack of federal funding, leaving Jersey Shore communities vulnerable after Hurricane Erin exacerbated coastal erosion.
As visitors prepare for the Labor Day weekend, local officials are grappling with significantly narrowed beaches.
Kip Emig, a veteran of the Brigantine City Beach Patrol for over forty years, surveyed the storm’s damage, noting, “This is probably more than we expected. You can see, I’m 6-foot-2 almost, and this is over my head.”
With the hurricane season intensifying, the concern is that the eroded coastline has no defense against future storms.
“We are back to where we were in the beginning of May,” Emig added. “So some of our beaches, we’ve lost all the buildup that we naturally get in the summer.”
The funding crisis prompted a meeting between New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, mayors from coastal towns, and officials from the Army Corps of Engineers to address the urgent need for sand pumping projects.
“We’re seeing more hotspot erosion, and we’re studying on that and did legislation to deal with that specifically,” said Van Drew, asserting his commitment to finding solutions.
He defended his record, claiming, “No beach funding appropriation was ever cut. We have put tens of millions of dollars, and we could total that up and show you where it went.”
“Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, we’re still making the same costly mistakes,” said Taxpayers for Common Sense Research Director Josh Sewell. “Despite spending over $122 billion on flood control since the 1920s, average annual flood damages had tripled even before Katrina hit.”
A Republican-backed appropriations bill proposes slashing the national budget for Army Corps beach replenishment from the typical $200 million to just $60 million for the upcoming fiscal year.
This follows a reported elimination of federal funds for these projects in 2025, the first such occurrence in nearly three decades.
The cuts have sparked a sharp partisan dispute and the political battle over the funding is intensifying.
Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone placed blame on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, singling out Van Drew for criticism.
“This is coming from the Trump administration, it’s coming from the Republicans in Congress, and now you see somebody like Jeff Van Drew saying, ‘Oh, it’s not really a problem,” Pallone said. “Well, of course it’s a problem.”
In response, Van Drew issued a statement saying, “I’ve been working closely with our towns, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the administration to ensure that beach replenishment projects along our coast are fully funded … and we fully expect that to happen.”
Pallone countered that the drastic reduction in federal support would force an impossible financial burden onto small shore towns that rely on cost-sharing for these critical projects.
“House Republicans are pulling the sand out from under us. Their partisan bill abandons coastal communities at a time when climate change is accelerating erosion and increasing the risk of devastating storms,” Pallone said.
“These projects aren’t luxuries, they’re lifelines. Towns in my district depend on beach replenishment to protect homes, businesses, and local economies,” Pallone said. “I will fight these cuts every step of the way. We can’t let a bunch of climate-denying Republican ideologues in Congress gamble with New Jersey’s coastline like it’s a slot machine on the boardwalk. The Jersey Shore needs protection from the next big storm.”
“It’s going to cost you more money,” he argued, explaining that the projects are only approved after a rigorous cost-benefit analysis proves they save money in storm damage prevention. He further suggested the move was politically motivated, stating, “There’s never been this phenomenon where it’s essentially down to zero.”
While communities like Ocean City report that previously replenished beaches are currently stable, the uncertainty surrounding future funding leaves many other towns anxious.
Their hope, like Emig’s in Brigantine, is simply to avoid more storms. “We hope and pray that we don’t get many storms,” he said.