No Fireworks (or Anything Else) on One New Jersey Beach this Fourth

In the past, New Jersey beaches have been closed by medical waste, human waste and oil spills from passing ships.

This year, one short stretch of beach on Long Beach Island, N.J., is closed for construction.

"Very appreciative" is how Joanne Bergamo-Arena, whose family has owned a second row house in Beach Haven for 44 years described how she feels about the work being done by the NJ DEP to save the homes in front of her.

But there is a "but," and that is that it has taken so long to get the nearly half million dollar project going.

"We lost rentals," Bergamo-Arena explained in expressing disappointment that the new beach won't be finished until after the July 4th weekend.

"One family in particular had a two year old and they just said, 'You know what, we'll come back next year,'" said Bergamo-Arena, who added "Many of us depend on the rentals to keep the house going."

She gets about $2600 a week during the height of summer for either the upstairs or downstairs unit.

The state DEP is putting in geotubes, in effect giant sandbags buried in the surf and covered with sand trucked in from a quarry, and is working 24/7 to protect about six homes in a stretch of beach on either side of where Merivale Avenue meets the shore.

DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said the promised date is July 10th, and they will meet that date.

But some homeowners claimed they were told it would be done by July 3rd, which it clearly will not be.

The round-the-clock work is another issue for people who are renting now.

One of them is Joel Jennings of Sparta, N.J.

"It's an annoyance," Jennings said of the nighttime work. "For the renters and folks down here this week it's not very fun."

Then again, Jennings did admit that he called the owner of the beachfront unit he was renting "and they did cut it (the rent) in half for the inconvenience."

Jennings was enjoying a gin and tonic next to the construction equipment as he told us that.

Follow Brian Thompson on Twitter @brian4NY

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