USA: Great News for Plumb Beach

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, will be completing the second and final Phase of coastal storm risk reduction work at Plumb Beach in Brooklyn along the Belt Parkway through most of the rest of the calendar year and the bike lane, which had been closed during construction activities earlier this year, is now back open for public use.

As previously announced, the beach and parking lot will remain closed to the public for the duration of the work, which is expected to be completed before the end of December.

Crews completed certain aspects of the Phase II contract earlier this year. As part of the Phase II contract, crews have already planted beach grass along the sand dunes and trees and shrubs in the back dune area between the base of the dune and the bike path to help strengthen and naturalize them and retain sand. Crews have also installed sand fencing to trap sand blowing landward onto the Belt Parkway.

Phase II work set to begin soon involves the construction of two permanent stone groins at each end of the beach to help mitigate erosion in the long run. It also involves the construction of a permanent stone breakwater in the water off the severely eroded area parallel to the beach to mitigate future sand loss.

The groin and breakwater work is expected to begin this month, as it was not started earlier this year in order to comply with environmental restrictions.

The Phase II work is being carried out by Village Dock, Inc., of Port Jefferson, N.Y., as part of a $2 million contract.

Even if there appears to be a gap in work between the work on vegetation planting and sand fencing construction and the work on the groin and breakwater construction – the beach and parking lot will remain closed so the contractor can continue to stay mobilized and store equipment and stones and so that the vegetation will have time to settle in the dune and back dune areas undisturbed.

Phase I was completed in late 2012 and involved placing approximately 127,000 cubic yards of sand in the severely eroded Plumb Beach area along the Belt Parkway, a busy highway and a critical piece of the city’s infrastructure. The sand was placed just prior to Hurricane Sandy’s arrival and helped prevent serious damage to the Belt Parkway. Phase I also involved the installation of a temporary geotube groin structure to help mitigate the loss of Phase I sand until the completion of Phase II. This temporary geotube will be removed in Phase II when the permanent stone groin is constructed in its place.

While Phase I provides immediate coastal storm risk reduction benefits to both the Belt Parkway and the frequently used bike path along it, Phase II is designed to keep the coastal storm risk reduction benefits in place longer by managing the movement of sand and greatly reducing the need for future renourishments at the project site.

The local cost-sharing sponsor for both phases of the project is the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation with 65 percent of funding being federal and 35 percent being local. Phase I was completed through a $3.5 million contract with Great Lakes Dredge and Dock based out of Oak Brook, Ill., and beneficially reused sand dredged from Ambrose Channel as part of ongoing efforts to deepen the navigation channels associated with the Port of New York and New Jersey.

The project includes work on National Park Service land. The Corps and New York City officials worked closely with the National Park Service during the planning of the project and the sand placement phase and will continue to do so during Phase II.

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Press Release, August 12, 2013