Left: State Senator Leonard Connors Jr. in his office in Surf City. Right: LBI's houses reach well into the multi-million-dollar range.   (Photo: Reuben Cox)

Right now, the waves roll in from deep water and break on shallow underwater sandbars. Because the breaks are far from the beach, surfers have space to catch the wave and ride. But, the surfers say, when the beach is extended seaward, the gradual slope of the seafloor will be replaced by a steep drop-off. Waves traveling across the ocean will hit this cliff, jack up, and then crash down flat onto the new beach. You can’t surf them, and one lifeguard at a post-replenishment beach reports a rise in neck and spinal injuries and shoulder dislocations. “Their project is all about protecting the buildings,” says John Weber, the East Coast regional manager of the Surfrider Foundation. “They’re treating the ocean like a hazard. But a beach where the recreation is destroyed is not a beach you want to go to.”

Up the shore in the town of Monmouth, the Surfrider Foundation claims that the Corps work affected 30 breaks before the locals started asking questions. “I’ve tried to get the Army Corps to discuss the impact on recreation, the environment, and the economy,” says William Rosenblatt, the former mayor and a trustee of Loch Arbour Village, in Monmouth. He cites “a total loss of surfing” nearby, and he and his fellow trustees have kept their town out of the program.

The surfers also pitched a modified plan to NJDEP, one that calls for less sand to be pumped, but they can’t approach the state’s formidable research. A seven-year feasibility study explored myriad options, including “hardened structures” like seawalls. Given the island’s negative sediment budget, the Corps arrived at one solution: beach fill, and the more the better. “The longevity of the project is based on the quantity of sand,” says Watson. “If we had our druthers, we’d give the island a 500-foot[-deep] beach.” In beach-replenished places like Fire Island and Rehoboth, homeowners have been dismayed to see their expensive new sand drifting back out to sea within months. But scientists say the residents don’t understand beach dynamics. “People say it’s like throwing dollars into the sea,” says Nordstrom, “but actually you’re creating conditions with a healthy economic system. [Replenishment] is the best solution if people don’t want to pack up and leave. It provides the elements that nature can use to reshape that coastal environment.” The sand may wash away in a storm, in other words, but in doing so, it diffuses the sea’s fury. Then the Army pumps it back to stop the next hurricane. (Sometimes, it comes back by natural action.) The dunes are a sacrificial cushion. No plan, however, can make LBI invulnerable. The Corps stresses words like the “reduction” of storm damage, not “elimination” of it. Without the added sand, the Feds say, homes teetering on the edge of the dunes really will come down sooner rather than later. As for concerns over swimming and surfing, Watson says that any changes to the seafloor smooth out pretty quickly. He says the Corps is committed to building a slope that works for surfers, and he claims that LBI’s surf breaks will return within a year. But he gives no guarantees. “If a large or severe storm event comes,” Watson says, “the beach will change in a day.”

Randy Townsend says he’s in favor of some replenishment, but he waxes philosophic about the standoff. “Who are we to try to tame Mother Nature?” he says. “It’s only a matter of time before the ocean washes this island away.” Some extremist surfers—the “abandonists”—are even more hands-off. Let it go, they say, houses be damned.

In order to start pumping sand, the NJDEP and Army Corps need about 800 oceanfront property holders to sign easements. The documents do two things: First, they grant the government the right, in perpetuity, to rebuild the dunes on private land. “This is not a one-shot deal,” says Dave Rosenblatt, administrator of the NJDEP’s Office of Engineering & Construction. “We’re going to have to come back and redo this.”

Second, because this is a federal project, it must also fulfill the public interest, which boils down to adding more toilets, parking, and public pathways. While the beaches on the island are all public, the pretense of privacy is alive and well. In the ritzy sections of North Beach and Loveladies, the only beach access is down the sandy driveways of homeowners. They have aggressively staked out their territory, pounding dolphin-shaped NO TRESPASSING signs into their lots. The last thing they want is traipsing tourists and stinky toilets. “They’re talking about Port-O-Lets on the beach. The odors will be unavoidable,” fumes Marc Tesler, a retired venture capitalist from Manhattan who owns an oceanfront house. “It’s one more case of highly placed politicians glomming on to federal money because they can.”