The Borough of Avalon will conduct a backpassing sand transfer project in advance of the summer tourism season.  Borough officials will be holding a pre-construction meeting on Friday, February 28th.  The actual backpassing project will begin during the week of March 3rd, 2014.Dozers moving sand into piles on Avalon beachfront

Avalon received nine bids for the project.  Earthworks Inc. of Farmingdale, New Jersey was awarded the contract with a bid of $306,000 during the February 26th, 2014 meeting of the Avalon Borough Council.  The execution of a formal contract is expected to occur on March 3rd, and work will proceed shortly thereafter.  50,000 cubic yards of sand will be transferred–or backpassed–from beaches between 32nd Street and 38th Street and placed on the beachfront between 9th Street and 17th Street where some natural erosion has taken place.  Permits provided to the Borough of Avalon are in place and there will be constant monitoring of the project which will take about 45 days to complete.  This backpassing project relocates north end sand that washed to south end beaches back to its original location to provide the vulnerable north end of the community with extra protection in advance of hurricane season.  South end beaches will have more than adequate sand for recreation and protection for the upcoming summer season.

Work will be conducted during weekdays only; weekends may be added if for any reason the project runs behind schedule with an anticipated completion date of April 17th.  This backpassing project does not involve a dredge or pipe on the beach; sand will be scraped and trucked to the north end of Avalon along the beachfront.  The contractor will be scraping sand initially at the 38th Street beach and move northward towards 32nd Street for the duration of the project.