By Jack Kaskey, The Press of Atlantic City, Sunday, February 14, 1999

Wildwood Mayor Fred Wager likes to joke that if other shore communities would color–code their beaches, they’d be able to trace their eroded sands to his town’s ever–growing shore.

He may be right.

While most other beach towns battle erosion, Wildwood’s beaches have grown more than a third of a mile since 1908, according to a study by former city Engineer Ralph Petrella. Many island residents recall when the ocean lapped under the Wildwoods Boardwalk. Today, the beaches are so wide, the state plans to build a $70 million convention center atop the sands, east of the Boardwalk.

While a big beach has its advantages – plenty of space to spread your towel, play ball or stage a car–crushing monster truck show – it’s not all fun and sun.

After all, a growing beach requires everything from fishing piers to drainage pipes and walks to the water’s edge to grow accordingly.

Just ask William Smith, secretary of the Wildwood Crest Fishing Club.

Earlier this decade, the growing beach left the club’s Heather Road fishing pier nearly land locked. So the members spent $83,000 for a 100–foot extension. Now, with $30,000 still owed on the last addition, they need another 100 feet, Smith said.

“If we had enough money, it should be extended about every five years,” Smith said. “I hope the beach stops growing.”

The club’s goal is to avoid the fate of the North Wildwood fishing pier, which was converted into Seaport Village shopping pier after it failed to keep pace with the growing beach.

In Wildwood, storm water pipes that drain the city’s streets are buried under sand and are 300 to 500 feet short of the ocean. The Department of Environmental Protection says water in the sand-clogged pipes is high in fecal coliform bacteria, a pollutant, and the city agreed six years ago to fix the problem.

So far, the fix has mainly consisted of digging trenches each day from the pipe-ends to the water. Water collects at low lying areas of Wildwood’s beaches, forming waist–deep ponds – complete with visiting birds – that the city must also drain.

But soon after a pipe is cleared or a pond is drained, a new tide or storm annihilates the work, said Kell Anderson, Public Works foreman.

“I got a man down there working every day,” Anderson said. “It’s a losing battle.”

In the summer, toddlers are sometimes tempted to play in the pools that form at the mouth of the pipe, creating a headache for lifeguards stationed with their backs to the pools.

Two summers ago, a small child who was pulled from one of the pools required an overnight hospital stay. Since then, the city has increased its effort to fence off the pipes.

City officials are warily eyeing a long–term solution to the drainage problem: extending each of the 11 outfall pipes about 800 feet. But the estimated cost of $2.8 million – 20 percent of the municipal budget –is giving them pause.

The city’s ability to raise money for such projects is hampered by its steadfast refusal – along with North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest – to charge for admission to its beaches.

And while grants are routinely awarded to replenish eroded beaches in neighboring towns, state and federal officials don’t think a too–big beach is a problem, said William Mitchell, commissioner of Public Works.

“Our problem is the reverse of all the other towns,” Mitchell said. “Our problem is unique.”

Some say the Wildwoods’ beach is growing because sand that would normally drift south to Cape May is blocked by massive jetties at the Cape May Canal. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the jetties between 1906 and 1912 to form the canal.

Before then, Wildwood’s beaches grew 1 to 4 feet a year, according to a city map of beach growth since 1842. Since then, beaches have grown roughly 10 to 30 feet a year, depending on the beach.

The Army Corps takes responsibility for Cape May’s erosion problems, spending $10 million to rebuild beaches, with another $40 million to come.

Mitchell said the Corps is not willing to help Wildwood.

“Whoever said life isn’t fair was right,” said Joyce Gould, commissioner of Public Works in neighboring Wildwood Crest.

© 1999 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Reproduced with permission.