VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Virginia Beach Public Works Department have announced the awarding of an $11.9 million contract for resort beach replenishment in Virginia Beach to Weeks Marine of Camden, New Jersey.
The contract is for 1,250,000 cubic yards of sand, dredged from the Thimble Shoals and Atlantic Ocean channels to be placed on the resort beach between 15th Street and 89th Street. Once completed, it will restore the beach to at least 300 feet in width and will meet the full benefits and requirement that were designed into the hurricane protection project.
The Virginia Beach Hurricane Protection Beach Re-nourishment project is managed by the Norfolk District of the USACE. Work will begin in November, and will be completed by April 2013.
Weeks Marine performed the initial restoration of 4 million cubic yards at the resort beaches, and was the replenishment contractor at Sandbridge Beach for three restoration projects.
Mayor William D. Sessoms, Jr. of Virginia Beach, said: “The hurricane protection project has proven invaluable to the resort area: it has prevented an estimated $200 million in flood damages just during Hurricanes Isabel and Irene. We also owe our thanks to Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb and Congressman Scott Rigell for their persistent efforts in helping us move this project along through the bureaucratic bottleneck. Without their help, the timeline that is so crucial in these types of projects would have been seriously jeopardized.”