Beach replenishment for the northern Ocean County peninsula is set to start the middle of next month, with Ortley Beach as the first spot to get the sand.
State environmental protection officials said Weeks Marine Inc., the Cranford-based contractor selected to perform the $128 million project, will spend two weeks beginning mid-April pumping sand onto the beach in Ortley, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and has struggled keep sand in place in subsequent storms.
The work eventually will give Ortley Beach a 225-foot wide beach for that section of Toms River that has barely been able to naturally maintain a 100-foot width.
After spending two weeks in Ortley, the project will move to Absecon Island in Atlantic County to start a $63 million project there that, like the one in Ocean County, had been long resisted by local officials. The beach fill work will continue on Absecon Island through early July, when crews will return to the northern Ocean County to resume work there, starting in Mantoloking, which was also badly damaged by Sandy.