amount by tlie Federal Government. The Chief of Engineers gave his approval for the study 

 and the final result was the BEB report referred to above— a thorough investigation of the 

 area, its problem, the causes of the problem, and suggestions as to the best possible manner 

 in which it might be handled.* The wording of PubUc Law 520 did not allow the BEB to 

 allot Federal moneys for anything other than an investigation. At this early stage of its 

 history and for a number of years thereafter, the BEB was, in essence, a board of 

 consultants whose services could be obtained upon request by a State agency which agreed 

 to pay 50 percent of the cost of the survey. 



b. Public Law 409 (1935). As was mentioned earlier, the U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers 

 had for many years been engaged in river and harbor projects. This responsibiUty was given 

 to the Corps as keeper of the Nation's navigable waterways, and derived its constitutionahty 

 from the Commerce Clause, contained in Section 8, Article 1, of the United States 

 Constitution. As a result of this function, the Corps became involved in the construction of 

 jetties at various inlets and river mouths along the Nation's coastline, the chief purpose 

 usually being to maintain and stabihze the navigation channel. In some instances, local 

 interests constructed the initial structures, with assistance from the Corps of Engineers 

 beginning at a later date. Depending on the case in point. Corps involvement may have been 

 due to the fact that some coastal problem eventually became too complex for the local 

 people to handle. On the other hand, the advent of both World War I and World War II had 

 necessitated the Federal Government assuming responsibihty at a number of harbor 

 entrances for purposes related to the military effort.^ ^ 



An ancillary effect of most jetty construction is an accumulation of sand behind the 

 updrift jetty, Eiccompanied by erosion of the beaches downdrift. In the earher days before 

 the boom of seashore recreation, these side effects had not posed too serious a problem. 

 However, rapid development along the coastline cast a new Ught on the situation. The classic 

 example of the problem is the jetties completed in 1911 at Cold Spring Inlet^^ (now called 

 Cape May Harbor), the inlet immediately northeast of Cape May, New Jersey. Sand 

 accumulating behind the northern jetty widened the resort beach at Wildwood, whUe the 

 erosion on the southern side of the south jetty severely diminished the famous Cape May 

 beaches. 



Section 5 of Public Law 409, 74th Congress, approved August 30, 1935, was an attempt 

 to better handle situations of this kind by predicting, in advance, possible problems that 

 might accompany certain proposed construction. Section 5 of this law required that all 

 reports dealing with improvements at a river mouth or inlet contain "information 

 concerning the configuration of the shorehne and the probable effect thereon" that might 



*The estimated cost of the structures recommended by the BEB study was $71,600.''^ This adds substance to a 

 statement made a few years later by a BEB member when he commented that, "The Board has been most 

 handicapped by the lack of understanding of what proper shore protection costs. "'^ It is additionally interesting 

 to compare the $1,000 the county agency had planned to expend for a coastal structure, to the $10,000 a local 

 historical society was spending for a monument at the Fort.'^ 



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