Egg Harbor to Begin Beach Work Sept. 8

Construction on the Village of Egg Harbor water quality improvement project begins on Tuesday, September 8. The municipal beach will close for the season immediately after the Labor Day weekend. No access to the beach parking lot or restrooms will be possible after Sept. 7.

The Egg Harbor beach lies at the foot of the bluff, meaning that water slides down the steep slope and then directly into the bay. Now there will be a biofilter of natural materials in place to break up that stream of water into smaller rivulets, giving them time to percolate through new layers of sand.

Developed by the Door County Soil and Water Conservation Department and UW-Oshkosh, the goal is to reduce bacteria entering the bay from water runoff, especially after heavy rains. The beach was closed four times this summer because of elevated E. coli readings. The closures typically lasted a day or two.

The village will spend an estimated $60,000 on the project; $25,000 from a Wisconsin Coastal Management Program grant. The construction bid was awarded to Harbor Construction of Baileys Harbor earlier this year.

Next year the J-shaped rock jetty will be gone from the beach, adding another 30 feet to the usable shoreline. The jetty served no purpose, and the rock can be re-purposed by the village for future public works needs. The beach will be re-contoured to direct water runoff into more predictable paths, and then new vegetation planted. Under the finely grained beach sand will be a coarser type of sand added for filtration purposes.

Of 11 municipal beaches in Door County eligible for the Wisconsin Coastal Management grant, only the Village of Egg Harbor and the Town of Liberty Grove (Ellison Bay beach) chose to participate. Each of the two municipalities will receive $25,000. The grant expires at the end of the year.