It’s the second day of October as I write this, immediately after the late September nor’easter of 2026. The storm put the kibosh on two days in Lakewood for the Jersey Shore Boat Sale and Expo, it stacked waters in bays and estuaries around the September 26th full moon, and it caused some rather extensive beach erosion along various stretches between Sandy Hook and Cape May.
On the Tuesday after the storm, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill toured the damaged beaches at Brigantine saying she may seek federal disaster assistance from the Trump administration through a potential federal disaster declaration. “We had a foot of water in the house, but that’s life,” said Capt. Adam Grossman from Riptide Bait & Tackle in Brigantine following the governor’s tour, adding “but the shop was fine.”
“As far as the rest of the island, it’s tough to get up to the north end,” Grossman said on October 2, saying he hopes by the time this editorial comes out that a front loader will have already cleared sand from the beach access points to provide access for surfcasters. “We did lose beach over at the Cove, but you just can’t fight Mother Nature,” added Grossman, with one caveat, saying “Groins out here would be great.”
As described by the National Park Service, “groins are shore perpendicular structures, used to maintain updrift beaches or to restrict longshore sediment transport.” By design, groins capture sand transported by longshore currents to help counteract. While sometimes referred to as jetties, in actuality a jetty – like the north and south rocks at nearby Absecon Inlet – are placed adjacent to tidal inlets to control inlet migration and minimize sediment deposition within the inlet itself.
So again, what about groins? Following the September nor’easter, I received a letter from subscriber Lex Saharic of Lebanon, NJ asking that same question. “Going back to when I was 15 years old with a group of youngsters that cleaned the beach in Sea Bright. Armed with a 4-foot-wide wood rake with wooden tines, we started work at 5 o’clock in the morning until finished around 10 in the morning. This everyday summer job was a valuable experience that formed my work ethic from then on.”
Saharic said that job provided him with a daily education about the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. “It led me to observe both the rock jetties and the beach along with the species living there,” Saharic wrote, describing the myriad species found around these groins including grass shrimp, calico crabs, hermit crabs, fiddlers, sandworms, eels, clams, sand crabs, and mussels, just to name a few. “Also observed were many fishermen that fished from the jetties for a variety of fish,” he added, a variety of bigger gamefish attracted by a multitude of smaller bait species.
“This continued evolution of oceanic life, however, is now being threatened by the replenishment process of pumping sand onto the beach due to the need for beach restoration,” noted Saharic, pointing out how sand replenishment on its own smothers those beach species while taking a toll on taxpayers. “That replenishment will cost the New Jersey taxpayers millions of dollars as the natural number of nor’easters continue,” he added.
Saharic – like Grossman and so many other – wonder aloud if groins along the beach might capture sand that is naturally carried along with the tides. That sand is carried from south to north on a continued basis. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could verify this movement and work on a feasibility study to confirm,” noted Saharic, explaining how groins constructed in a slightly southeast direction could collect sand while impeding wave action.
“From a commercial fishing family and a jetty jockey,” Saharic signed off, but not before pointing out how such an effort could create jobs during the construction phase, while saving the beaches and reducing the burden on taxpayers.
