After federal funding snag, Ocean City will get a bigger beach

A bigger, wider beach is coming soon to Ocean City.

For the first time in five years, federal engineers plan to add new sand to Ocean City’s waterfront — a $27 million project that involves dredging hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand from the Atlantic floor to line around 8 miles of the tourist town’s eroding coastline with new dunes and a sloping berm.

Ocean City spokeswoman Lauren Davis said beachgoers during the off-season should expect small disruptions, with three-block stretches closing for three days at a time as work moves along the coastline.

The project, which is jointly funded by Maryland, local governments and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, comes after a brief delay. Ocean City had planned to bring in new sand in the fall and winter of 2025, but Congress hadn’t authorized funding at the time.

Since the early 1990s, the Army Corps has sought to replenish Ocean City’s beaches — a process known as “beach nourishment” — every four years. The work is designed to compensate for the natural erosion while guarding the vacation community’s valuable waterfront development against flooding and storm surges.

The Army Corps, which will cover just over half of project costs, is seeking contractors and plans to close its bidding process at the end of the month.

The Maryland Board of Public Works this week approved $12.7 million for the job, a mix of state Department of Natural Resources funds and contributions from Ocean City and Worcester County.

Ocean City’s beach was last replenished in the winter of 2021 to 2022. According to a Board of Public Works project summary, portions of the waterfront no longer meet the Army Corp’s storm protection standards.

Davis thanked Maryland Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, along with Rep. Andy Harris of the Eastern Shore for their efforts to secure this year’s federal support.

Cynthia Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Baltimore District of the Army Corps, said the agency expects work to begin in October and conclude before Memorial Day 2027.

The Army Corps will take a mix of sand and water from the seafloor at a shoal miles off the Ocean City coast, Mitchell said. A pipeline will carry that slurry and blast it onto shore, where bulldozers will shape it into a long, sloping beach.

The Army Corps estimates it needs approximately 800,000 cubic yards of sand to restore the beach to federal standards.

Ocean City saw a major expansion of its beachfront in the late 1980s, when Maryland and local governments financed work to add more than 2 million cubic yards of sand along 8 miles of shoreline, according to Army Corps records.

Since then, the agency has periodically filled in sand, reconstructed a miles-long system of dunes and replenished erosion “hot spots,” with a goal of guarding Ocean City against a 100-year Atlantic Ocean storm surge.

The Army Corps estimates that since 1991 protections afforded by these replenishment projects have prevented $927 million in Ocean City property damage, Mitchell said.