Units such as this, which are adapted HESCO barriers, will be used to create reef segments near the Forked River Beach Living Shoreline Project
Images show shore erosion at the site of the Forked River Beach Living Shoreline Project

Bayside Beach Club and
Forked River Beach
​Living Shoreline Project

​Historically, Barnegat Bay had over 12,000 acres of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) beds. Yet today, nearly the entire natural oyster population is gone. With their elimination, Barnegat Bay not only lost the oysters themselves, but the ecosystem services they provided such as water filtration, wave energy mitigation, and nursery habitat.

Project Location

This project will create seven oyster reefs in Barnegat Bay. The reefs will be located approximately 100-200 feet offshore and run from near the mouth of Forked River in the north, to a lagoon located at the southern end of Beach Boulevard.

This section of Forked River, known as Forked River Beach, has lost over a hundred feet of shoreline since 1995. Further, the erosion rate is accelerating: abut 20 feet of shoreline were lost in 2017 alone.

Project Description

Each reef will be approximately 200 feet long and consist of a double row of 24 reef segments (12 in each row) arranged in a sawtooth-like pattern.

The reef segments will consist of HESCO units. HESCO units are protective barriers often used by the US military, that have been adapted for reef and living shoreline work. Imagine a steel wire crate, four feet tall and three feet wide, that can be filled.

For this project, each HESCO unit/reef segment will consist of 3 connected galvanized steel baskets surrounded by 8 outer pockets (aka shell faces). The interior baskets will be filled with rock, while the outer shell faces will be filled with a mix of recycled shell. For half of the reefs, the recycled shell mix will be seeded with up to 70 million oyster larvae.

Project Goals

• Improve Water Quality—individual oysters can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. During this process, they remove excess nutrients and sediment from the water column creating cleaner water.
• Reduce Erosion—the oyster reefs will buffer waves before they reach the shore, reducing their energy and impact, and helping to keep sand on the beach.
• Create Habitat—Oyster reefs create habitat for animals such as crabs and snails, and serve as important spawning, nursing, and foraging grounds for finfish.
Project Partners