FENWICK ISLAND – A beach replenishment project will return to Fenwick Island, though later than originally anticipated, the town’s mayor has announced.
In a Fenwick Island Town Council meeting last month, Mayor Natalie Magdeburger announced a slight change in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to complete a beach replenishment project in Fenwick. While officials had initially planned for a project to commence in the fall, Magdeburger said the project would most likely begin this winter.
“They are in the process of getting all of their engineering specifications together, at which point they will be sending them out for bids,” she said. “Their goal is to start beach renourishment in the winter of 2022 and through the spring of 2023.”
The state, in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), typically performs beach nourishment projects in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany and Fenwick Island, funded through a cost shared between the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and USACE.
The federal agency has developed a design that includes periodic nourishment at an interval between three and six years.
Those projects, however, are dependent on the availability of funding at both the federal and state level.
According to USACE, Philadelphia District, a scheduled replenishment project along Fenwick’s beaches was set to commence last year. But last February, town officials announced the Army Corps would not return in 2021.
In an update last week, Magdeburger said this year’s beach replenishment project would continue as planned, though likely later than expected.
“They are going to do it through private contractors as opposed to the Corps themselves doing it,” she said. “A lot of it will depend on how many people give bids. We are part of a big group project which includes Rehoboth and Bethany and all the way down to little Fenwick.”
Magdeburger added that the goal was to complete the renourishment project before the start of the 2023 season.
“They said the goal was to have it completed before the summer season, but I can remember in years past they have said that and then it was the Fourth of July before it came to Fenwick and it messed up our beaches,” she said. “Understand we are not doing that. This is something that is completely outside of our control.”
She continued, “We hope they will stick to the schedule, but we see they are already sliding into a different time frame.”
