Brick Township Fifth Graders Tackle Flooding Solutions With Help of Army Corps

The fifth grade STEM class at Emma Havens Young Elementary School has been working all school year with scientists and engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to research and come up with solutions for flooding issues in town and the surrounding area.

The students focused on bayside flooding in mainland Brick Township and how to prevent ocean breaches in the township's barrier island sections and in neighboring Mantoloking, where a major breach carved a new inlet during Superstorm Sandy.

The students donned waders and measured bay depths and water temperatures, dune heights and tidal swings to get to the root causes of flooding and how it can be prevented in their neighborhoods.

The video clip attached to this story shows the students' progress. Meanwhile, the Army Corps is expected to begin a major dune and beach replenishment project after Labor Day this year that will extend the width of beaches from Point Pleasant Beach to Seaside Park to 200 feet and create at least 25 foot-high dunes along the entirety of Ocean County's northern barrier island, several miles of which is within Brick's borders.