Why not retriple. LOL

Build the 25-ft. dunes, replenish the beaches, and let the selfish oceanfront owners who want their precious views raise the homes to see over the dunes.

The governor will use eminent domain to get easements if necessary. No one's view is more important than my life and my house. I'm on the mainland and was flooded because the ocean filled the bay during Sandy. Ten thousand others suffer because of each elite oceanfront viewmonger.

So.......no more rebuilding the beach without easements? Very comforting TR. Thats really putting your "cash cow" at risk. When did you ever care about the island except to pull in the cash during the summer? If you are going to put ALL the residents here at peril, if the private beaches don't sign the waivers, then you should consider giving up the barrier island and let us become our own town. Maybe then you can redouble your efforts somewhere else. Retriple your efforts.........90 days until Memorial Day!

Someone needs to wake up the surf club and all these other clueless and selfish waterfront property owners before they get buried in lawsuits courtesy of the thousands who are at risk because of their inaction.

At this point, you're really arguing about whether there might be a replenishment project started in 2015 or later.

Our small community had no breach, the front homes on slab took a bit of damage. Our dune along with the storm fences we install every year worked, stopping this 200 year storm in its tracks. If your preparedness wasn't up to the challenge of sandy, that's not my fault. We were protected, we rebuilt the dunes and fences, we remain protected. I do not live on the beach, my small home, purchased for $4000 in the 40's is no mansion. What I know is a dune the bloody width of the beach will leave no place for me to sit. Replenishment is fantasy, it never works. In a few years we will have a dune and the ocean. Dunes need to be built along the coast, but what type and what else can be done to protect us all?

"Had the project been completed before Sandy, "very little, if any damage" would have been sustained on the barrier island or inland, according to the township" ....NEED WE SAY MORE??? OB was destroyed by TR incompetence and should be held accountable. Why were the dunes not built? Not enough tax money from us? SET US FREE and you won't have to talk about people with views anymore; which, by the way, is a total non-issue, just plain ignorance!

That's why the gov. needs to threaten the use of eminent domain sooner rather than later. Even incompetent FEMA admits that dunes will lessen their house-elevation requirements and ridiculously high annual insurance costs.

The Corps of Engineers is ready to build 25 ft. dunes. The oceanfront obstructionists can raise their homes to keep their damned views. Without dunes, tens of thousands of people and their properties are in danger. Do it now!

"do so at their own peril,"

What about the rest of us in peril because of their refusal? This is BS. Toms River better flex their mussels better because they don't give a rats behind about us on the mainland getting washed away....Isn't that obvious TR??????

SUE, EMINENT DOMAIN, SEIZE, just do whatever is best for us innocent victims of these jerks!!!

Another example of Toms River not giving all the facts and leading people on with only half truths as to why they could not successfully garner easements early on. And of course, no mention of theirabject failure to maintain Ortley public beach, especially Harding Ave. Typical.

Perhaps if Toms River had actually presented the easement agreement to the private associations the way they are now presenting this to the public, this would have been over and done with. They NOW finally answered major questions that they wouldn't discuss months ago when the associations asked them to clarify what the agreement entailed! Blame Toms River for the holdup- they would never publicly reveal the initial proposal because everyone would see how unreasonable their demands were. Someone who blogged about this not long ago asked the town to make the easement proposal public. What they are now expounding is far from what
was being required in their original proposal. Also, the town had not presented the easement issue to our association in the years pre-Sandy. Once again trying to
deflect blame away from themselves. Transparency is not a forte of Toms River.

They do not own the beach. They also do not own the view. Build the dunes whether they like it or not. Whats next. They think they own the ocean and large boats cant pass by and obstruct the view?

And people that were flooded because of these idiots should file a class action against anyone that fights dunes that block views

use EMINENT DOMAIN,

When I bought my home back in the late '70s the realtor didn't tell me I would be insuring all the mainland homes in TR in the event of a hurricane.Nor was I told that the taxes I would be paying would amount to re-buying my house every four years.
I wonder with eveybody talking about lawsuits,if I can go back and sue my realtor

The mainland should build bigger bulkheads. That will solve all your problems. Stop blaming us for your issues, or looking to us to solve them. The island should become independent, than we can have a government that cares about us. The only real issue is schools, but we can pay tr per student, saving massive money. Even with massive neglect, I don't believe we can get out from tr, the town would be so incredibly screwed without our tax money. My community has already built our dunes on our own, we govern ourselves on our own, tr collects our trash and our money, that's about it.

The non-barrier island is the problem, because without adequate dunes it's not a barrier to anything. Why should everyone else build bigger bulkheads when the Corps of Engineers' 25 ft. dunes will solve the problem at the spurce? Elevate your oceanfront houses and you can still have your precious views.

Meanwhile, dunes will lower everyone's required elevations and lower everyone's annual insurance costs. Building dunes is cheaper and more effective than raising 150,000 houses along the coast.

Face it, eminent domain is coming if you don't sign the easements to allow dune-building. End of story!

The non-barrier island is the problem, because without adequate dunes it's not a barrier to anything. Why should everyone else build bigger bulkheads when the Corps of Engineers' 25 ft. dunes will solve the problem at the source? Elevate your oceanfront houses and you can still have your precious views.

Meanwhile, dunes will lower everyone's required elevations and lower everyone's annual insurance costs. Building dunes is cheaper and more effective than raising 150,000 houses along the coast.

Face it, eminent domain is coming if you don't sign the easements to allow dune-building. End of story!

We have only had a dune for 5 years, before that we had nothing, where were the complaints than? By the way, I do not have a beachfront home and could care less about views. Most beachfront homes are on state leased land, if they want no dune, break the lease. I do care about a beach, and I want a beach, not a dune than and ocean. My home was flooded by the bay, the bay is the issue, not the ocean, figure out the bay. I hate the bay, haven't been able to use it since the sea nettle invasion. Almost all of us on the island and the mainland had our damage caused by the bay. Ortley is in bad shape, but was there really much of a breach in ortley? Mantaloking had a breach, a lot of people say it should never have been filled in. So many ideas, and we all want someone else to take care of it, isn't that convienent

A 25 ft. high dune will leave lots of room for a beach.
The bay flooded with ocean water that breached the non-barrier island.
The Mantoloking breaches flooded my mainland home...
because Mantoloking had to have its precious views.

There were no complaints for 5 years before Sandy because there were no big storms. There were complaints -- and flooding -- in the 1962 storm, when there were no dunes. Eminent domain is needed to get the selfish few elite oceanfront hold-outs to allow dunes. Then they can afford to raise their homes higher than the dunes so they'll have their damn views again.

Your half right Sue.....Ortley had inadequate dunes, but TR had no ongoing dune program. TR maintains nothing except their wallets.

Can't have a patchwork solution.

Look on the TR website at the engineering drawing for the new dune. It's about page 45 of then 50 plus pages mailed to the ocean front owner. It's not just a dune, it includes a much bigger and more gently sloping beach...200 feet more land than current.

That will be GREAT for everyone who lives in Ortley. Face it, the beach was getting worse each year. Last summer it was nearly unusable.

And there is NO WAY local or county govt could have to build something like that without doing all up and down the island and massive tax levies.

Sign the easements.

Not only will you be doing the right thing for tens of thousands of us to the west of your property, your own values will double or more with a proper sized beautiful beach even with the encumbrance of the easement. And you will avoiding litigation...i for one am thinking of organizing a class action civil suit against anyone who hasnt signed by Memorial Day.

Not signing is both foolish and highly immoral.

The dune system is the foundation as to when and if people will build and rebuild. Why would you throw good money away if they just pile up some sand for a dune, that's what has been going on for the last 3 years and the only people that benefit were the quarry people and truck drivers because the PRODUCT is gone again.
In the newspapers it appears that all of Ortley Beach needs to be signing the easements which is not true it should be made public as to who and or whom is not going along with the easements.

John,
Suing TR...No... i don't see how TR could have possibly built adequate dunes. An adequate dune, according to the Army Corp, would stick out 200 feet more east. How could they build a beach that juts out that far past the privately owned beaches. and while private owners might be able to stack sand up, they can't possibly afford to dredge the sea.

PS I am no big fan of TR. And I strongly support the idea of Ortley succession from TR. But to make it viable we'd need to join with another municipality, ideally Lavalette. NJ is not allowing splits, they are actually forcing consolidations (to save on costs of administrating government!)

However, realistically I don't think Lavalette would take us on until the easements are done and the new beach assured. Otherwise they'd be inheriting a huge liability and risk.

Like it or not, we have to leverageTR. As long as the sunlight is shining on TR's activities, their basic interest is actually aligned with most of Ortley's owners. TR wants their tax base back. We want our homes and beach and lives back that we've worked hard all our lives to build. So the key thing is to pressure TR to start the Eminent Domain proceeding immediately (using the "threat to health and welfare" clause for rapid processing).

Facing that, the holdouts will sign in a jiffy, since they stand to win much more in the long run with a great big glorious beach in their back yard 200' larger than the one on their purchase survey.

When talkng about beach replenishment, I ask everyone to read up on the ongoing replenishment in cape may. They keep adding but it never stays. The also have more and more trouble getting fema to live up to the 50 year promise that congress agreed to. Other states keep trying to pull funding for this agreed project. So fema may add the dunes, they may add sand, but in the end, the sand will go away, and we will have to fight every year for more to be added, otherwise we will be sitting on the dune.

Local4Life,

Not a good comparison. First, I've seen that new beach in Cape may by the lighthouse and it's still pretty big. Second Cape May is a TOTALLY different hydrodynamic environment, much more active than Ortley, with huge rips around the point of Delaware bay. I know, I swam there every year as a kid.

Ortley's only challenges are actually very simple:
- private land extends more east than surrounding parts of the island (narrower dune...height is not the issue, it's the width that = storm protection)
- no Groins or piers like Lavallette and Seaside
- some faster subsidance of the land ("sinkholing") vs. rest of the island probably due to settling from the fill-in of Cranberry inlet by Michael Ortley 100 years ago...so we sit just a bit lower in places like Harding Ave.

The Coastal science report said a replenished beach in our area has a very good chance of lasting a long time. That squares with common sense - consider how really small our beach has been the past 10 years vs. our neighbors...and yet still made it hung in there with only a slow inch by inch depletion up until a 500 year storm. A 200 foot bigger beach would likely give us MANY YEARS of protection, and will withstand the next Sandy (like Seaside Park's did).

Get out of denial and sign those easements folks.