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The Case of the Missing Sand
By Eric Avedissian Ocean City Sentinel
The late economist Milton Friedman once noted, tongue firmly in cheek, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
Yet it’s the federal government Ocean City now calls upon to bestow a bounty of sand for the city’s ailing beaches.
Ocean City is currently undertaking a $16 million joint beach renourishment project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
The federal government will fund 65 percent of the project, with the state and local funding at 35 percent. An agreement allows Ocean City to pay 9.75 percent of the cost.
The project will pump 1.8 million cubic yards of sand from Seaspray Beach to 14th Street.
Another 800,000 cubic yards of sand was added following Hurricane Sandy at a cost of $6 million.
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