Time and Money

UPDATE Work has started and continues in Surf City. According to workers at the job site the work will continue until March and the busy hopper dredge will be there until the middle of February. There are no plans for the project to go to Ship Bottom now. After this initial work in Surf City is completed there will be leftover money (which needs to be spent), according to the DEP. Stay tuned!

Initial Plans

At the current moment, our plans are to begin pumping in Surf City and then hopefully into Ship Bottom. As you know, there are 5 individuals who did not sign their easements in Surf City and legal action has been taken.

The Attorney General's Office has also sent letters to the homeowners in Ship Bottom that still haven't signed - urging them to sign the easement and contact us with any questions they may have.

If we do both Surf City and Ship Bottom, it will utilize all the funds for FY07, unless the federal government approves a higher add amount to the President's budget. If Surf City and Ship Bottom falls through, Harvey Cedars is still there as an option, but the dollar amount needed well exceeds what is currently in the budget.
1) our(state DEP) fiscal year begins July 1, 2006
the Corps fiscal year is Oct 1, 2006 (they administer the contract) 2) The Corps had hoped for $15 million

3) Attached is the bid spreadsheet. spreadsheet (change to 100% to read)

The cost estimate for performing beach renourishment in Harvey Cedars in conjunction with the other municipalities (distributing the cost of the mobilization of equipment) is approximately $10 - $11 million dollars. We will have more refined cost estimate once the bids are received for Surf City.

The cost of trucking sand to the Corps profile has not been calculated by our office, nor is it really feasible. Each truck holds on average 15-20 cubic yards of sand, and would take a great amount of time to accomplish. The cost of trucking the sand last year at Cumberland Ave was almost $500,000 and this in no way met the Corps profile.

Can you explain the time and money to me a little?

When does the fiscal year begin/end?
The Federal fiscal year, FY, runs from October 1 through September 30 of each year. We are Now into the 1st quarter of FY07. As you may be aware, the FY07 Federal Budget has not been finalized or signed as of this week.

How much money is now available and how much beach will that cover?
all of Surf City and part of Ship Bottom?
At the moment, Through FY06, Congress has allocated and the Non- Federal Sponsor, (NJDEP), has matched with with enough funds to complete the planned beachfill in Surf City and partially through Ship Bottom. The Proposed FY07 budget has funds specified for the LBI project that would allow us to finish all of Ship Bottom. But until it is signed we are not guaranteed the funding. (The Cost Sharing agreement for this project is 65% federal funds and 35% Non Federal funds.)

How much is needed to complete Surf City? $ 7.522 million (under the current contract).
How much is needed to complete Ship Bottom? $3.7 million (under the current contract)
How much is needed to complete Harvey Cedars? We do not have the funds to complete during FY07.

Is there anyway Harvey Cedars could be done before Ship Bottom?
Sorry to say not this time around.

When will we know about the next funding allocation and how much are we hoping for?
what's the minimum we could expect?
The next funding allocation will be for the FY08 budget. The process of debate will begin after the next congress is seated (this being an election year). We would hope to have an indication by next summer. Optimistically, if we get allocated around 8-9 million, then with the additional Non Federal Matching funds, this would allow us to fill Harvey Cedars. But it is all up in the air and no one knows what the administration will propose or what the next congress (House and Senate) will propose for our projects. I hope you appreciate our position, our funding comes from a bill that is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. (In other words, both the legislative and executive branches have to come to an agreement, despite differences in their initial proposals.)

What's the earliest that Harvey Cedars could be done if funding allocation goes well?
FY08.
,br> What's the latest that Harvey Cedars would be done if funding allocation is stingy?
Let's not think about that prospect because it probably won't be until after a major storm impacts LBI.......

Unfortunately, The Corps does not decide which projects to construct, we are part of the Department of Defense and hence the Executive branch. We stand ready to carry out the decisions of the administration and Congress. What we DO decide is how best to construct those projects. (Of note is that the last two Administrations have had the same policy on Beachfill projects.)