With several beaches still severely eroded and damaged by fall storms, Rep. Jeff Van Drew wants a state of emergency and disaster declaration from Gov. Phil Murphy and Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill to allow federal money to help pay for replenishment.

Storms this autumn left behind sand cliffs in Ocean City, dune and infrastructure damage in Bay Head and hardly any sand left at all in parts of Monmouth Beach.

“The Army Corps needs to admit what they were doing is wrong,” said Ross Kushner, the coordinator for New Jersey Coastal Alliance.

The outspoken Kushner leads the grassroots organization made up of hundreds of concerned Jersey Shore locals critical of the Army Corps of Engineers' ways of replenishing the beaches.

“Originally, in the contracts, they were looking at six years. Ok? But they’ve reduced some of them to three years. Some don’t even last a year,” he said.

Van Drew’s letter to Murphy and Sherrill states that because of hurricanes Erin, Imelda, and Humberto, and a series of nor’easters, the Jersey Shore experienced severe dune loss, beach profile collapse and damage to infrastructure.

Kushner says the Army Corps should do more nearshore renourishment, placing sand just outside the surf zone, creating a wave buffer.

“The answer they’ve come up to for that is to replace the beach faster and to push it out even further into water that is deeper and that’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing,” said Kushner.

Van Drew says requesting the declaration is a matter of public safety before further damage occurs.

“If their intent is to just repeat what they did in the past quicker, it’s a huge mistake and I don’t think the federal government should give them a dime,” said Kushner.