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Health & Fitness

Rebuilding: Boardwalks of the New Jersey Shore - Part 2

Hurricane Sandy destroyed or damaged several boardwalks on the NJ Shore. This second part in a series looks at the Belmar controversy, Ocean Grove and Point Pleasant.

The second part of the Rebuilding: Boardwalks of the New Jersey Shore will focus on the controversy in Belmar, the obstacles faced by Ocean Grove in their efforts to rebuild,the challenged of funding this important endeavor, and the efforts in Point Pleasant to restore a critical economic and tourist area.

Belmar

The Belmar boardwalk sustained heavy damages during the storm, and was also totally destroyed, as reported throughout various media outlets. The rebuilding project here will be very costly.

The borough is replacing 1.3 miles of boardwalk with a synthetic material called Trex ; between the new project and hauling out the old sections for a total at a estimated cost of $20 million (www.app.com ). The goal is for the project to be
completed by Memorial Day.

Of course, the whole project was almost derailed over the original choice of replacement material. The town officials had initially designated a rainforest wood, Ipe, to rebuild the boardwalk (www.app.com ). The environmental groups
protested in front of the government offices there and brought a law suit over
the use of Ipe (www.app.com).

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Through my experience working for an environmental products distributor, I know that Ipe is a very durable wood and would be cheaper than other alternative materials for a project of this type. However, more than 200 acres of rainforest is
destroyed in order to get to a small number of Ipe trees extracted. So environmentally speaking, it is not a very sound choice especially in light of
the deforestation taking place in some areas of the Amazon at this point.

The law suit threatened to stop work on the boardwalk for 6 months.  The delay would end any chance for Belmar to have the boardwalk open in time for the crucial summer season (www.app.com). The Belmar government officials
announced that they would use a different material than Ipe, and in return the environmental groups dropped the law suit they had filed (www.app.com ).

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Funding

In each of these cases, the towns have to front the money for the boardwalk repairs and the haul out of the damaged material (www.app.com 12/10/12). Concurrently, these towns are dealing with tax revenue shortfalls due to the destruction of the businesses in the respective towns coupled with the loss of displaced residents.

The federal government will repay 75% of the cost of the boardwalk reconstruction after the repairs are completed (www.app.com).

Each town, depending on their given situation, is addressing the repairs to the boardwalks through both short and long term borrowing (www.app.com 12/10/12).  In my opinion, this borrowing is going to have potential long term consequences for these beach towns if tourism sags this summer.

Ocean Grove

The next boardwalk on the New Jersey Shore we will feature in this article series is the Ocean Grove boardwalk. Ocean Grove is a small town with a link to other vital shore areas such as Spring Lake, Asbury Park and Belmar.

The stretch of boardwalk in Ocean Grove is not commercial and the town did not qualify for FEMA assistance, they were seeking $1 million in government aid (www.njmonthly.com). The federal government did not give an official reason it just stated that the Ocean Grove rebuilding plan did not meet their qualifications for financial assistance (www.app.com).

At the present time, other towns neighboring Ocean Grove, namely Belmar and Asbury Park, have joined in a formal appeal to FEMA to attempt to get the federal aid money decision reconsidered (www.app.com).

I worked in a position in sales where I had several of these Shore towns in my territory. I know from being in Ocean Grove that the town relies on the boardwalk to link people to businesses, events, services offered in the town, and to get safely into the downtown neighborhoods there. It also relies on the boardwalk as a safe link to get to neighboring towns such as Asbury Park for other services available there. The town is small, and would have a very difficult task rebuilding without federal assistance.

Point Pleasant

The last boardwalk in this article series is Point Pleasant, which sustained some heavy damage but was not completely destroyed by the storm. The estimated cost of the repairs to the boardwalk is between $2 million to $4 million (www.app.com). The main issue here with Point Pleasant is that the boardwalk relies heavily on one tenant, Jenkinsons’.


The owners of Jenkinsons’ operate a night club, an aquarium, restaurants, and recreational and amusement areas on the boardwalk at Point Pleasant. Last summer, the local government passed an ordinance changing the closing time for the nightclub and bars in the town to midnight instead of 2 o’clock AM(www.app.com).

Needless to state, the owners of Jenkinsons’ were rather upset with this ruling and the impact it would have on their nightclub business.  Then, Sandy hit in October, and Jenkinsons’ immediately went to work restoring the boardwalk (www.app.com).

Next, the local government announced that the ownership of Jenkinsons’ had agreed to contribute $1 million to the boardwalk restoration project, in exchange for a repeal on the law passed that changed the nightclub closing time to midnight (www.app.com).

Looking ahead to the summer


The restoration of the boardwalks represents just one piece of a giant rebuilding
and restoration effort taking place on the Jersey Shore, not to mention in other parts of the Garden State.

The boardwalk represents a major step in our economic recovery because New Jersey relies so heavily on tourism dollars to fuel its economy. This rebuilding project in each respective town I featured also represents a safety issue as well. If the boardwalks are left in piles of rubble and disrepair, some towns do not have an alternative beach access point. That is a major safety issue for visitors to
these towns and their respective residential populations.

The boardwalk also represents something else: a history, a culture, and a source of pride for these communities. It will go a long way to bringing the Shore back
because it is a place where children: like my sisters, my wife, and I once
played. The boardwalk is a place where we once dreamed of better days ahead.
The children living there today and children of the next generation deserve that same place to play and dream.


The process of rebuilding our boardwalks will bring a sense of hope to children, adults, and all generations; that after the nightmare of Hurricane Sandy it is possible for us all to dream again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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