MARGATE Several inches of rainwater have collected again in the drainage areas behind a new sand dune, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pumped out water last week after a severe storm July 30, residents and city officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Michael Becker was surveying the beach at 8 a.m. Tuesday and reported 4 to 6 inches of standing water on the bulkhead side of the dune from Mondays 1.35-inch rainfall. His observations came about two hours before U.S. District Court Judge Renee Bumb, the same judge who ruled against Margate and homeowners efforts to stop the project, was scheduled to hear arguments in a conference hearing at 10 a.m. in Camden.

They tried to make the argument that the first storm was some type of once-in-a-hundred-year event, said Dan Gottlieb, executive director of Margate Citizens Questioning the Beach Project.

You know, it can rain here sometimes for three days and we dont believe that was a once-in-a-hundred-year storm, so even if they were right ... look what happened here after a very minor rainfall.

Gottlieb was at the Franklin Avenue beach, where water pooled once again behind the recently constructed dune.

City officials have been meeting with the state Department of Environmental Protection in court-ordered closed sessions since last Friday to hammer out an agreement on how to correct the problem that has developed on Margates beach since a sand dune was built at elevation 12.75.

Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez, who also ruled against the city previously, called the ponding horrendous and said it must be corrected. He ordered the parties to meet every day to work out a solution and report back to him Aug. 11.

We cannot divulge the details of those meetings, Commissioner John Amodeo said before Tuesdays session. Whats hard is that we are under a gag order from the judge until we get to a point where everyone is happy. We are negotiating to find a solution.

The meetings, attended by the city, DEP and Army Corps, lasted 2 hours Friday and 1 hours Monday.

They are not long, but its all work, said Amodeo, who is out of town, but attending the meetings via conference call.

Becker said the DEP and Army Corps attended the meeting Friday, but the Army Corps was absent Monday.

I dont know why they werent in attendance, he said.

The Army Corps on Monday petitioned to have the case heard in federal court, Becker said.

Hopefully, Judge Bumb will see things our way, he said.

Whether Margate gets its wish to stop the project until a drainage system can be designed and implemented remains to be seen.

Friday will be the tell-tale when we get before the judge, Amodeo said. We feel we have a good case proving what we said would happen happened. We live there, we know our island, and we know the solutions.

Mendez ordered an eight-day work stoppage at a hearing last Thursday so the parties could meet daily on a solution. They are to report back to him at a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 11 in his Atlantic City courtroom.

Amodeo said although the project has been halted, Mendez permitted the Army Corps to continue building elevated walkways through the ponding areas from street ends to the dune crossovers, so our beach is fully accessible by the weekend. They will also be permitted to pump out standing water.

Design engineers said any water that collects behind the dune should percolate into the sand within 24 to 36 hours, but that has not happened. Instead, each rainfall left standing water that stagnated and became contaminated, prompting residents to gather atop the dune in protest. They also attended two public hearings held in Margate to express their disgust for the project.{div class=asset-content subscriber-premium}Amodeo said residents who have been quite vocal on social media need to remain calm.

They need to know we are working in their best interest, Amodeo said. I believe we have a rock-solid case against the Army Corps and their design.

Amodeo said the Corps one-size-fits-all dune plan simply will not work in Margate, where the city has a border-to-border bulkhead and where much of its stormwater drains onto the beach.

Meanwhile, in Longport, public officials last week expressed concern that if the project is delayed further in Margate, the hopper dredge would move south and start building the dune in Longport during the height of the summer vacation season.

Mayor Nicholas Russo said he spoke with an Army Corps official Friday who said no decision has been made to move the project along while Margate resolves its drainage problem.

Ventnor or Longport could be receiving sand if things are not resolved in Margate. However, we do not know which one will be first, Russo said.

If the project moves to Longport before the early September timeframe the DEP and Army Corps announced earlier this summer, Russo said, Longport would deal with it.

We got through Memorial Day, then we got through June and July and the first couple of weeks in August. If it comes here, we will be flexible, he said.

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Margate dune ponding returns to beaches - Press of Atlantic City