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The initial construction for the Lower Cape May Meadows-Cape May Point ecosystem restoration project was completed in 2007 and has been nourished/repaired in subsequent years. The project is a joint effort of the Army Corps’ Philadelphia District, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Borough of Cape May Point, City of Cape May, Lower Township, the Nature Conservancy, and Cape May Point State Park. Work is designed to reduce damages from coastal storm events and to protect the valuable fish and wildlife habitat that exists on the beach and in the wetlands behind the dune.
Fiscal Year 2024 funds will be used along with existing funds to initiate and complete the next nourishment cycle. Construction will begin in December 2024 via a land-based back passing operation.
The contract calls for ‘backpassing’, which means sand will be excavated from areas along the beach instead of dredging the sand from offshore borrow areas or inlets. The base contract work will involve excavating sand from beach areas that have accumulated excess sand. This sand will then be placed at the Cove Beach area in the City of Cape May. USACE has also awarded contract options for additional sand excavation, which will be used to create three sand islands for bird habitat in the beach area that fronts the South Cape May Meadows area. Redistributing sand will return the area to the design elevation and will also benefit beach nesting birds such as the piping plover and least terns. Eleven pairs of piping plovers nested in the project area after it was originally built; however piping plovers have not recently nested in the area, in part due to the lack of suitable nesting habitat.
In 2007, an ecological restoration project was completed at the area colloquially known as the Lower Cape May Meadows (this encompasses The Nature Conservancy property and the Cape May Point State Park). The project sought to provide both shore protection and ecosystem restoration to benefit wildlife that utilizes the area. Piping Plovers were one focal species that the restoration sought to improve conditions for. The beach fill provided open, sparsely vegetated beach habitat, suitable for nesting birds. “Plover ponds” were created behind the dune to provide opportunities for foraging habitat and “plover crossovers” were created on the dunes to allow easier access to the ponds (the crossovers were not planted with beach grass and were contoured with a gentler grade to allow easier passage by small, mobile plover chicks). The project was a success, and by 2008, 11 pairs (compared with 5-6 pairs in the years immediately prior to restoration) of Piping Plovers and hundreds of Least Terns nested at the site.
Over the years since the ecological restoration was complete, a significant amount of sand has migrated from Cape May City beach fills to this area and raised the elevation of the beach dramatically. This has reduced the suitability for nesting birds for a few reasons. First, the higher elevation precludes overwash, which can act a check to vegetation growth. Second, the vegetation is now denser than what the birds prefer. Dense vegetation reduces their field of vision as they sit on their nests and makes it harder for them to see predators coming. Conversely, the vegetation helps mammalian predators sneak up on nesting birds. Third, the additional elevation has created a slope between the intertidal and berm that is not desirable by the birds. Among other factors, these habitat changes led to a decline in use by beach-nesting birds, most notably Piping Plovers. Their pair numbers at Cape May Meadows dropped from 11 in 2009 to 1 in 2014, and zero pairs from 2015-20.
Although portions of the Cape May Meadows site has accumulated vast quantities of sand, other sections continue to erode and require beach fills to maintain their status and protect the properties behind them. The US Army Corps of Engineers, NJDEP, the Nature Conservancy, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife have partnered together to address the problem of too much sand on the upper beach at Cape May Meadows, and too little sand elsewhere in the project. Removing sand from the upper beach Cape May Meadows and placing it on the more vulnerable portions of the project is considered a win-win solution by the partnering agencies.
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