DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997              TAG: 9704100376

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   77 lines

SAND THAT NATURE TAKES, CITY PUTS BACK

The ocean threw its best punch Wednesday morning as sand-laden dump trucks began arriving to rebuild a seriously eroded beach at the city's North End.

High tide and chill wind sent waves crashing against a beach no more than 10 yards wide.

``This is a great day to show why we need to build this wall,'' Stephen S. Ballard, head of the company installing a seawall and expanding the beach at the North End, said as the trucks dumped their loads on the beach. ``The ocean's now where we need to put it.''

After months of controversy over the city's decision to begin Phase 2 of the $103 million hurricane protection project in April and extend it through the summer, the trucks arrived at 45th Street and began rebuilding the beach with 5,000 cubic yards of sand.

The second phase includes installing stormwater pipes, building a new steel-and-concrete seawall and expanding the beach from 43rd to 58th streets. The cost of the 10-month project is $9.7 million, 65 percent paid for by the federal government.

Much of the North Enders' objections stem from the disruption the construction will mean for the summer beach season.

But Ballard said that disruption won't impact many of those 15 blocks for more than three weeks of the season, because construction will move rapidly from south to north.

Starting at 43rd Street on Monday, he said, workers will begin installing the pipes, some as wide as 72 inches, moving about one week per block. So, the following week, the pipe-laying would begin at 44th Street - and so on up the beach.

On May 15, cranes will begin hoisting 37-foot steel sheets and vibrating them into the sand parallel to the pipes, also moving from south to north, progressing about one week per block. Then, beginning June 5, the concrete seawall, jutting 4 1/2 feet above the sand, will be anchored to the steel. Again, the work will advance about one block each week.

Street closings will follow the construction as it moves north, but the city has agreed to leave five streets - 47th, 50th, 51st, 55th and 58th - open as much as possible.

Beginning in early November, the project calls for hauling in about 150,000 cubic yards of sand, raising the beach from the present six feet above sea level to nine, and widening it considerably.

Much of the North End already enjoys wide beaches, thanks, experts say, to the sand that has drifted northward from the resort strip.

But the beach near 45th Street has been almost gone at high tide recently. That's why sand is being dumped on a three-block area there this week while most of the beach rebuilding will take place in the fall.

``Mother Nature's already taken so much of the beach, we can't install the pipes,'' Ballard said.

``It amazes me that anyone thinks they don't need the seawall.''

North End residents have been divided over the project for years, but many now say they understand the need for storm protection. What bothers them now is the timing.

At a meeting Tuesday night, members of the North Virginia Beach Civic League took issue with early reports that the go-ahead decision was made to avoid losing federal funds that were appropriated last fall.

Jack D. Usher, the city's project engineer, said those funds - about $3 million - wouldn't be lost if the project was delayed, but future funding from Congress would have been in jeopardy if the funds were not spent during the current fiscal year.

There was a scattering of applause when one resident derided the project as ``a waste of money.''

Said league Vice President Burton Schepper, ``I do think there's a great deal of skepticism here because of the awesome power of Mother Nature.'' ILLUSTRATION: DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Workers showed up early Wednesday morning with their heavy equipment

to dump and spread sand as a part of the seawall project at Virginia

Beach's North End oceanfront. The work, to extend through the

summer, is to rebuild the beach with 5,000 cubic yards of sand.

Workers John Crimmins, facing the camera, and Bill McRae are

installing a fence to prevent unauthorized people from entering the

beachfront area where the seawall work is being done.

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