Recent coastal storm cost Toms River $800,000

Toms River officials say the coastal storm earlier this month cost the municipality in the upper six figures.

Township Administrator Paul Shives says the municipality spent $800,000.

That includes employee overtime and payment for about 300 truckloads of sand that were placed on the beach to hold back the surging tides. 

According to the Riverside Signal, the township tapped a $1 million line of credit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to pay for the sand.

Council members and residents have called on the state and the Army Corps of Engineers to move quickly toward obtaining easements necessary for a beach replenishment project.

Township officials previously said the cost and effort could have been avoided had the easements from beachfront property owners been in place, according to the Riverside Signal report. 

As of earlier this month, 17 easements remained unsigned in Toms River. 

Councilwoman Maria Maruca says it will be “nerve-racking” to live through winter with no dunes.

While battered repeatedly by swells reaching heights of over 10 feet, the berm along the beach, which is all but gone due to the continuing strong onshore flow, mostly held its ground and protected Ortley Beach, which was severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

A few miles to the south in South Seaside Park’s Midway Beach, the privately managed dunes grew taller and wider during the storm. 

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.