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US Army Corps of Engineers dredger Murden removes shoal in Manasquan Inlet
A sandbar on the south side of Manasquan Inlet in Point Pleasant Beach is scraped away by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge Murden.
POINT PLEASANT BEACH – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge boat Murden has so far extracted about 18,500 cubic yards of sand from Manasquan Inlet as part of its work to dredge the dangerous shoal that formed this summer.
That equates to about 64 million pounds of wet sand removed from the bay since work began in earnest last weekend. The work is not yet complete, so the final numbers will be higher once the shoal is completely removed.
The Murden, a 156-foot-long split-hull excavator, has a capacity of 460 cubic yards, said Stephen Rochette, spokesman for the Army Corps Philadelphia District, but to make it easier to transport, it will only be filled with 360 cubic yards of sand per cycle.
The sand is deposited just offshore from Manasquan’s Riddle Way Beach, four beaches north of the bay. Rochette said they chose this location because it is relatively close to the bay and can be transported quickly. And second, because the sand will drift north from there, supporting Manasquan’s beaches without reentering the bay. And finally, it is within the “barrier depth,” the zone that will eventually migrate toward the beach.
How we got here: The Army Corps will stay and complete the dredging of the dangerous shoal in Manasquan Inlet
Rochette said if they place the sand outside the “restricted depth,” it basically won’t reach the beach.
The Army Corps received several calls for assistance from stakeholders, including U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., after the shoal in Manasquan Inlet returned to the Point Pleasant Beach side for the second time in three years. The last time was in 2022.
Captains of fishing boats that use the bay daily to exit the Manasquan River and enter the Atlantic Ocean said the shoal is worse than ever.
What takes so long? Ortley Beach and other towns in Ocean County desperately need new beach sand
Captain William Egeter Jr. of the party boat Dauntless described the shoal as a “beach” that extended about a third of the way to the mouth of the bay and posed a navigation hazard for boaters.
The Army Corps and local elected officials are also warning people to stay away from the shoal.
The likely cause of the shoal, according to the Army Corps, was persistent southerly winds and swells this summer that pushed the sand in. It was likely the same dynamic that caused the shoal in 2022, the Army Corps said.
“During periods of sustained southerly winds, sand can quickly enter the bay,” Rochette told the press in an earlier article.
Critics of beach fill say those projects have resulted in too much sand drifting north. Rochette said the Army Corps last completed beach fill in 2019 south of Manasquan Inlet on the Barnegat Peninsula. That project ended a mile south of Manasquan Inlet, Rochette said. He said the majority of the sand was placed south of what the Corps calls the “nodal zone,” where the predominant sand transport occurs.
In the 1920s, the natural inlet became completely silted up after the Point Pleasant Canal was dug, forcing the Corps to stabilize the waterway and build the current inlet.
When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel isn’t covering the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he’s a history professor. Reach him at @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; [email protected].
