SUSSEX COUNTY, Del.- Beach replenishment efforts in Delaware are officially underway, with Rehoboth Beach receiving the first much-needed relief from beach and dune erosion.
The project, which was announced by state lawmakers in December 2022 and originally set to begin in the winter, has been pushed back multiple times.
Crews began dredging over the weekend, and work to update the beach's dune fencing is slated to begin soon.
Work is being done from north to south, and Olive Ave is the northernmost beach remaining open.
Rehoboth Beach Director of Public Works, Kevin Williams, expects a new and improved shoreline before the end of April.
"We hope to have all of the sand up here before the end of the month, and then they still have some other things like dune fencing and dune crossing sites and those kind of things, but all of the sand should be up here in about 15 days or so," Williams said.
Rehoboth Beach is set to receive approximately 300-thousand cubic yards of new sand by the time work is complete.
Some boardwalk business owners expressed gratitude for the replenishment efforts, as winter storms can be cruel and often inevitable.
"If it weren't for the replenishment, when the nor'easters come like they do almost every year, it leaves the boardwalk and the properties along the beach here very vulnerable, so it has to be done in my opinion," said Frank Cole, owner of Seagreen Bicycle.
Williams agrees that recent storms have severely impacted the shoreline over the last two years.
"We had one Mother's Day a year ago which really did a lot of damage to the dune, and we lost a lot of beach. Then it started working its way back, and we got some of it back over the summer. Then we had a big storm in early October, which was even worse than the Mother's Day storm. It took out more of the dune, and we really lost a lot of beach again."
Replenishment efforts are expected to take at least two weeks for each beach, which means southern beaches such as Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island will likely have to wait until the summer months for their turn.
