Beach repair to begin in mid-November
After a series of delays, repair and renourishment of Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach is set to start in mid-November.
Three projects are being combined into a single project: beach repair from the 2009 nor’easter storm, regular five-year beach renourishment and repair from August’s Hurricane Irene.
The $35 million project breaks down like this:
• Bethany Beach and South Bethany – $16.43 million for 1,596,000 cubic yards of sand
• Rehoboth and Dewey – $16.39 million for 1,033,000 cubic yards
• Fenwick Island – $2.5 million for 332,000 cubic yards.
Sarah Rivette, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said sand will also be placed at Middlesex Beach but not at Sea Colony or Indian Beach – the stretch of sand between Dewey and Delaware Seashore State Park – as those are private beaches.
Rivette said sand pumping at South Bethany was delayed because of sea conditions. She said work in Dewey and Rehoboth will start in mid-November and continue through the end of the year. Rivette said Great Lakes has until mid-May 2012 to complete the project. She said the corps allows flexibility to keep bids as low and competitive as possible.
Great Lakes has conducted pre-dredge surveys on Dewey Beach in anticipation of starting work.
“They are due to start pumping there soon, and we need that survey data to prepare the templates for exactly where the sand will be placed. It's standard procedure for all our beach projects,” Rivette said.
Tony Pratt, administrator of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Division of Shoreline and Waterway Management, said extra sand will have to be pumped on the dunes in Rehoboth to restore them to the proper height. Some of the sand fencing on the south end of Rehoboth was moved in order to put more sand on the dunes.
The project is using finer sand from off the coast of Fenwick Island, not the gravelly sand that was used in the 2005 replenishment, Pratt said.
Although visitors frequently see stones on the beach at low tide, Pratt said he has not seen a return of the stones to Rehoboth and Dewey. He has long said the rocks would move to the north. Pratt said he has seen the stones around Cape Henlopen State Park and near Herring Point.
Ryan Mavity covers Milton and the court system. He is married to Rachel Swick Mavity and has two kids, Alex and Jane. Ryan started with the Cape Gazette all the way back in February 2007, previously covering the City of Rehoboth Beach. A native of Easton, Md. and graduate of Towson University, Ryan enjoys watching the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Capitals and Baltimore Orioles in his spare time.
