The beach pathway at 42nd Street is restored.
Sea Isle City is cleaning up and restoring many of its beach pathways so that beachgoers won’t get bogged down in deep sand.
Storms and windy conditions typical of the shore have pushed too much sand on some of the pathways. That, in turn, has covered up the hard-pack gravel surface that is supposed to make it easier for beachgoers to walk over the pathways.
Underscoring the urgency of getting the pathways done before the peak summer season arrives, City Council authorized a $140,800 emergency contract Tuesday with the company Walters Marine Construction to do some of the repairs.
Walters Marine has already completed the repairs under the emergency contract. They include the pathways at 30th and 31st streets, 33rd to 39th streets, 42nd, 43rd and 45th streets and 46th through 56th streets, City Business Administrator George Savastano said.
However, other beach pathways will be restored by the city’s Public Works Department.
They include the pathways from 57th to 88th streets and north of 30th Street, Savastano said.
According to plans, all of those pathways will be finished by June 21, Savastano told the council members.
“Council knows this has been a significant undertaking over the years,” he said of the challenge of keeping the pathways in good shape each summer.
Excess sand must be cleared from the pathway at 87th Street.In addition to removing excess sand, some pathways may be redesigned to eliminate the steep slopes that can be challenging for beachgoers, Councilwoman Mary Tighe said.
There are also plans to extend some of the ever-popular mobility mats Sea Isle uses every summer to make it easier for beachgoers to cross over the deep sand, Tighe said.
The plastic mats lie on top of the sand, providing an easier transition from the gravel pathways over the dunes to the beaches. They are sometimes referred to as “mobi-mats.”
Seniors, small children, people with disabilities and families lugging strollers to the beach are helped by the mats. Every summer, local residents and visitors urge the city to install more mats to make their treks across the sand even smoother.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, has just completed a major replenishment project that restored sections of Sea Isle’s eroded beaches and dunes with fresh sand.
The beachfill project added a total of 932,000 cubic yards of new sand in two areas: in the midsection of the island between 29th and 53rd streets and in the south end between 73rd and 94th streets up to Townsends Inlet.
Savastano explained that the replenishment project did not include restoring most of the beach pathways. The pathways are the city’s responsibility, so Sea Isle hired Walter Marine on an emergency basis and also is using its Public Works crews to perform the repairs and remove the excess sand.
“I will add that they look very nice,” Councilman Jack Gibson said of the pathways that have already been restored.
The pathway at 57th Street is a work in progress.
