Budget cuts take bite from beach-fill projects

In a potentially major blow to New Jersey's eroding beaches, the Army Corps of Engineers' beach-fill budget is taking a hit from the White House.

While the Office of Management and Budget approved $4.6 billion for all corps projects under the economic-stimulus package, it deleted funding for sand-pumping operations in fiscal 2010, which will begin Oct. 1.

"It's very disappointing," said Rep. Frank Pallone (D., N.J.), but he added he still hoped that some beach-fill money could be added to the final budget, which is expected in May.

The beach program has long been a point of contention between environmentalists and beach interests.

Environmentalists have argued that it benefits wealthy property owners, that erosion is never a problem until a building is placed on the sand, and that beach-fill is Sisyphean, given rising sea levels.

Coastal government and tourism officials and lobbyists counter that beaches are essential to the nation's vacation business and that sand-pumping creates jobs, the aim of the stimulus bill.

The corps, which released a list of its approved stimulus projects Tuesday, had requested an estimated $85 million for beach replenishment. Howard Marlowe, the country's most prominent beach lobbyist, said he was encouraged that OMB at least had approved $2.5 million for beach-project studies, a sign that the federal government isn't abandoning the program.

The replenishment projects were on the original corps stimulus-package list, but OMB balked, citing a long-standing federal policy.

Generally, the federal government pays 65 percent of the costs, with the rest coming from state and local governments. Beach projects typically are designed to continue for 50 years, with replenishments in two- to six-year intervals to bulk up the original fill.

As a matter of official policy, the federal government does not contribute to the replenishments, but traditionally Congress has earmarked appropriations to keep the pumps running.

OMB, however, has the final say on how the stimulus money is spent.

Pallone said he would fight to change the federal policy on replenishment, and John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said the government was looking into doing just that.

New Jersey is the national leader in federally subsidized beach projects, with about $450 million spent since 1985. Beach-fill projects are in the works all along the New Jersey and Delaware coasts.

"These cuts affect our economic engine, which is the beaches and tourism," said Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi, who met in Washington last week with Obama administration officials to discuss beach-fill money.

"Virtually every job in Cape May County and elsewhere at the Shore is connected to our beaches and tourism."