USACE Uses Dredged Sand to Replenish Beaches

By Katie McFadden

If you’ve seen pipes on the beach in Far Rockaway this winter, it isn’t a new gas pipeline. Instead, it’s just the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) at work on a dredging and sand replenishment project.

Since the fall, USACE has been doing routine dredging of the Federal Navigation Channel of the East Rockaway Inlet, between Atlantic Beach and Far Rockaway. Every few years, USACE performs regular maintenance by dredging this area. This time around, they’re removing approximately 550,000 cubic yards of sand material from the East Rockaway Inlet to provide safe navigation through the Inlet. Not letting anything go to waste, the sand being dredged from the Inlet is being used to replenish the beaches in Far Rockaway between Beach 25th to Beach 49th Streets; and from Beach 60th Street, heading westward.

This Inlet was last maintained in January 2023 when approximately 180,000 cubic yards (CY) of dredged sand was removed from the navigation channel and replenished around Beach 27th Street and heading westward. Prior to that, the channel was maintenance dredged by USACE in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, which contributed $2.7 million to the project, in order for the 346,000 cubic yards of dredged sand removed from the inlet, and pumped further west, to be used along Rockaway Beach (between Beach 92nd to Beach 107th Streets), to replace sand lost due to heavy erosion after back-to-back nor’easters in March 2018. Prior to that, the channel was maintenance dredged by USACE in FY2017, when approximately 249,000 CY of sand was removed from the inlet channel, and beneficially used along the down drift Rockaway Beach shoreline (between Beach 27th to Beach 38th Streets).

This $14 million project is overseen by USACE, New York District Project Manager Alexander F. Gregory. A Great Lakes Illinois Cutter-head Dredge is being used for the recent work.

Photos by USACE.