sand toys, size XXXXX-large

The beach replenishment project has reached my block. I spent a good part of the afternoon today watching a bunch of guys and gals from NJ, Louisiana and Oklahoma playing with awesomely huge sand toys.  And I took pictures, of course. 

The way it works is, a boat (maybe ship, bigger than a boat?) with dredging arms goes way out into the ocean (probably not WAY out, or it wouldn't be able to reach the sand), digs up a load of sand, stores it in the boat, then comes and pumps it out onto the beach here.  The equipment on the beach - earth movers and shovels and such - receive the sand and spread it around.  There's a big pipe that runs from a buoy to the shore, the boat attaches to that, and at the shore end of the pipe there's a filter basket contrivance, to catch the bombs and artillery shells that come up with the sand.  Those are taken into custody by a bomb disposal crew, who lug them off to Fort Dix to blow them up.  There's ordnance in the sand because they are taking it from off the Fort Hancock area, and that was a proving ground of some sort back in WWI & II.  Which means the army shot a whole lot of ordnance into the ocean around here, and most of it is still there.

The boat takes about two hours to go out, dredge up material, and come back to disperse it.  I was talking to the site supervisor for a while, gleaning all this info (my Mom never taught me not to talk to strangers, probably because she does the same thing).  He was here for the last replenishment, in 1995, and also was here for the rebuilding of the sea wall in the early 90s.  I'm glad he's back.  The beach will be twice as wide when they're done as it is right now.  He did say they are not building dunes this time, so I'm not sure how that's going to work.  Tho usually dunes kind of grow by themselves, from what I've seen.

Seems like the state is paying for this, obviously with FEMA money.  The state project will run up to the north end of Sea Bright, because beyond that is federal territory, and as the supervisor told me, the feds do not move sand.

Here's the dredger.

The equipment on the beach.  The red structure with the blue umbrella in front of it is a spare filter.

 

 

Here you can see the pipe spewing sand, which is quite wet, and the two earth movers shaping the new edge of the beach.  They have to be careful not to go too far, so the equipment doesn't sink or get overrun with ocean.

Closer shot of one of the earth movers, with the dredger in the background.

The cage as they were shutting down the pipe so the ship could go get more sand.

Looks like he's coming to get me!

Of course, people are complaining because the replenishment makes sections of the beach not available for use while the work is going on.  But the guy I was talking to said they have to get it done now, the situation is such that the work can't wait, so people just have to grin and bare it.  Which is what people tend to do at the beach anyhow.