Why Should Delaware Care?
Years of neglect led the beach north of the Indian River Inlet to be breached by ocean waters last year, making a vital stretch of Route 1 impassable. After an $18 million emergency repair project, state leaders are hoping to make improvements to the area that would reduce the potential of future breaches.
After a year of dune breaches threatened to cut off a major traffic artery to Delaware’s southernmost beaches, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control completed an emergency dredging and beach nourishment project last week that will shore up the issue for now.
The $18 million project that targeted a stretch of the north side of the Indian River Inlet hurriedly built a 16-foot-high and 25-feet-wide dune wall out of sand dredged from the seafloor. The Carney administration used emergency contingency funding from DNREC department savings to fund the project.
Storms and high tides at the eroded stretch of beaches twice breached northbound Route 1 between March and August 2024, pushing piles of sand across the highway and making them impassable. Several more incidents threatened breaches as well.
The depleted dunes line had not been replenished in about 12 years, after Hurricane Sandy knocked a key dredge pump offline. The episodes last year raised questions about why the state had deferred fixing the infrastructure for so long and necessitating such a costly fix now.
Fix will not be permanent
Pumps stopped depositing some 480,000 cubic yards of sand – or nearly five times a typical annual deposit – on the north inlet beach on Tuesday, according to new DNREC Secretary Gregory Patterson.
The state is now turning the replenishment project over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will use $10 million from the federal Water Resources Development Act to deposit an additional 300,000 cubic feet of sand in a third phase.
The latest efforts should last anywhere from six to eight years, according to DNREC’s contractors, Patterson said.
“I am saying this optimistically, but in the new era of superstorms nothing is guaranteed,” he added.
Those efforts were spurred after DNREC and contractors spent two months in September and October 2024 hauling in truckloads of sand to quickly shore up the dunes line, only to see the effort washed away by the ocean amid some fall storms.
“With a truck hauling operation project, there was only so much that could be done,” Patterson said.
Why did dunes breach?
Patterson, a career public servant who last oversaw federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) projects for the Carney administration before being tapped to lead DNREC by Gov. Matt Meyer, said that the inlet beach has not been replenished as it should have been for years.
“There was an emergency replenishment after Sandy, but there has not been one since,” he said. “We want to get this beach on a regular replenishment cycle.”
Another reason why such drastic replenishment was necessary in the last six months is because a more than 60-year-old sand bypass pumping system has been inoperable for years.
When the Indian River Inlet was originally engineered with stone jetties back in 1939, it interrupted the natural flow of sand. The pumping system was later installed to move the built-up natural deposits of sand from the south side of the inlet over to the north beach.
That pump was damaged amid the stormwaters of Superstorm Sandy that struck the East Coast in the summer of 2012 though, and efforts to repair it since have not been successful.
Patterson said that replacing the pump system is a priority for his term. New pumps ordered from Europe are expected to be installed and running by July.
“Some say that if that sand bypass was working all along, we would not have had these breaches. But my watershed folks tell me that the bypass plant can only do 100,000 cubic yards a year if the sand shows up on the south side. Compare that to the 800,000 cubic yards that we are doing now,” Patterson said, noting that the rate of erosion would still require routine replenishment projects.
The back and forth (wave attenuation) across the roadway would have severely damaged the roadbed resulting in permanent infrastructure damage.”
Beach leaders anxious for fix
Seeing some 10,000 cars daily, the Route 1 stretch over the inlet is a major traffic artery connecting Bethany Beach, South Bethany and Fenwick Island to their northern beach neighbors.
Bethany Beach Mayor Ron Calef noted that his residents are “dependent” on the “vital” north-south highway.
“It’s a critical route for evacuation and for emergency response services and hospital access,” he added. “Those sand pumps may be able to keep the gains we have partially in-place.”
“This is a significant operation, and we are grateful to DNREC today. We got too far behind on the beach nourishment from the federal government,” he added.
If cut off, residents of Fenwick Island could see an additional 20 minutes added to a trip to Beebe Hospital by being forced to drive Route 26 around the Indian River Bay.
Meanwhile, the Indian River Inlet is home to commercial and recreational fishing vessels and protection of the north side beaches keeps shipping lanes open.
The north inlet beach, known locally as Cove Beach and set to reopen in mid-March, is also a favorite among area surfers and surfcaster fishermen due to its waves and breaks. Those features are hazardous to the natural dunes line protecting the highway and local residents though.
More permanent solution?
Rep. Ron Gray (R-Selbyville) agreed the temporary dunes solution does not go far enough.
“This is an interim solution to add the sand to the north inlet dunes. State Sen. Gerald Hocker and I said we need a long-term solution to this problem,” he said.
What that solution may be has not been determined yet. An original plan to install sheet pile, or interlocking sheets of steel, along Route 1 in conjunction with the sand dredging never materialized.
Other ideas have included placing additional rocks to help reduce the power of the waves and the amount of sand they push onto shore. Though that plan could impact the surf in the area, which is a favorite for local surfers.
During a budget hearing last week, State Sen. Trey Paradee (D-Dover) floated the idea of building an offshore reef in the area to reduce the wave strength. Such reefs have been created in recent years by intentionally sinking decommissioned ships or even subway cars.
“We did ask the Army Corps during the crisis mode, when the trucking wasn’t working and it appeared that Route 1 might wash away, to come back with a more permanent fix,” Gray said. “We really need to protect Route 1. It’s our primary emergency evacuation route.”
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