Sandy Bauers, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 3:01 AM

The sand trucks are running. The bulldozers are spreading.

A nearly $1 million effort is under way to restore Delaware Bay beaches that are - or were, before Hurricane Sandy ravaged them - crucial turf for spawning horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds that depend on crab eggs for refueling.

On beaches where there was once ample sand for the crabs to dig into and deposit their eggs, biologists surveying the area after the storm found rugged tufts of sod, which had underlain the sand - part of $50 million in damage to bird habitats affected by Sandy.

"We saw somewhere between a 50 and 70 percent loss of breeding beaches for horseshoe crabs in just one storm," said Larry Niles, a New Jersey biologist who has been studying the red knot and horseshoe crab connection for decades.

Months ago, he was worried that when the birds and crabs arrived in May, as they do every year, "we'd have a real problem." The crabs would have no place to spawn, and the birds would have no food.

In a race against time, he and others set out to try to find enough money to restore the beaches.

While some homeowners on the Atlantic shore still wait for insurance money to come through for their properties, private foundations came to the rescue of the wildlife habitat.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers expedited the permitting process.

The work will restore a 2.5-mile stretch of beach between Moores Beach and Pierces Point, both in Cape May County.

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Restoring Delaware Bay beaches in time for return of horseshoe crabs and shorebirds