$23.8M deal awarded for New Jersey beach restoration work

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Federal officials have awarded a $23.8 million contract to an Illinois firm that will handle periodic beach restoration work in southern New Jersey.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Philadelphia District announced the agreement with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company of Oak Brook, Illinois, on Monday. The work is related to the Absecon Island Coastal Storm Risk Management project in Atlantic County.

The contract calls for placing roughly two million cubic yards of sand onto the beach in Atlantic City, Longport, Margate and Ventnor.

The sand will be dredged from two designated borrow areas, one within Absecon Inlet and the other in the Atlantic Ocean offshore of the island. The sand will then be pumped onto the beach, and graded into a dune and berm engineered template, which is designed to reduce damages from coastal storms.