In the Press...

POINT PLEASANT BEACH - The dangerous shoal is all but gone. In the end, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dug enough sand out of Manasquan Inlet to fill 13½ Olympic-size swimming pools.

There is still some mop-up work to be done later this month, but the Corps finished the great majority of the job on Aug. 25, roughly 2½ weeks after it started dredging the inlet to rid the shoal which formed on the Point Pleasant Beach side of the inlet. The final tally was approximately 45,000 cubic yards, Army Corps' Philadelphia District spokesman Stephen Rochette told the Asbury Park Press.

An Olympic pool is 50 meters long by 25 meters wide, or roughly 164 feet by 82 feet, and usually three meters deep, or just shy of 10 feet. In terms of the weight in wet sand, that figure equals about 121.5 million pounds.

The Army Corps received several calls at the start of August for help from stakeholders, including U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., after the shoaling in the Manasquan Inlet returned to the Point Pleasant Beach side of the inlet for the second time in three years. The last time was 2022.

Fishing boat captains, who use the inlet daily to enter the Atlantic Ocean, said the shoal was larger this time. Capt. William Egerter Jr. of the Dauntless party fishing boat compared it to a "beach" in the inlet; one that drew body boarders, surfers and beachgoers despite the warnings from public officials to stay off it.

The Corps used the Murden, a 156-foot split hull hopper dredge with a capacity of 500 cubic yards, to vacuum up the sand. The vessel was redeployed to the Shark River on Aug. 26, but will return to the Manasquan Inlet later this month to finish the final small piece.

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The likely cause of the shoal were the persistent south wind and swells this summer, which pushes the sand in, according to the Army Corps. It was the same dynamic that likely caused the shoaling in 2022, the Corps said.

Rochette previously told the Asbury Park Press that in "time periods with persistent southerlies, the sand can move quickly into the inlet."

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Critics of beach replenishment say those projects have resulted in excess sand drifting north. The Corps last completed beach replenishment south of Manasquan Inlet in 2019, according to the Corps. That project ended one mile south of Manasquan Inlet, Rochette previously told the Asbury Park Press. He said the majority of the sand was placed south of what the Corps called the "nodal zone," where the dominant transport of sand shifts.