Help See The Forest and the Trees

September Series Promotes Long-Term Recovery of 

Coastal Communities and Waterways

Events from Issue Forums and Building Rain Barrels to Planting Forests and Gardens

 

Waves of Action ‘For The Shore’ – September 16-28, 2013

Throughout the month of September, Clean Ocean Action is urging citizens to assist in the long-term recovery of the coast by participating in educational forums, rain barrel and rain garden workshops, and planting native maritime forests through Waves of Action ‘For The Shore.’  Events are being organized by outstanding business and community leaders, and will begin on Monday, September 16 and continue through Saturday, September 28.  Participants can register online at www.ForTheShore.org. 

Seismic Testing Forum

On Monday, September 16, at Monmouth University, Clean Ocean Action will host an educational forum about seismic testing with the national group Oceana, Sandy Hook Sea Life Foundation, and Sierra Club New Jersey. The federal government is considering allowing "seismic surveys" in the Atlantic Ocean - airgun blasts designed to pinpoint offshore oil and gas deposits deep in the seafloor.  From death to deafness, these shockwaves threaten fish and fisheries, whales and dolphins, and the entire marine ecosystem.  To learn more about what you can do to stop this destructive process, attend the forum from 6-8pm in Young Hall at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ.

TEDx Navesink: The Next Wave

The first TEDx event on the Jersey Shore, TEDx Navesink: The Next Wave on Friday, September 20, will feature Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cindy Zipf, presenting “The Clean Ocean Zone — Our Future Ocean.”  Zipf will address the need for a Clean Ocean Zone off New Jersey and New York.  Also speaking is Sean Dixon, Clean Ocean Action Coastal Policy Attorney.  Dixon is providing a talk entitled “Energy Exports: Good, Bad, Ugly, and What you Need to Know.”

Volunteer and Educational Opportunities

On Saturday, September 21, Waves of Action events include:

• A rain barrel workshop, organized by NJDEP and Clean Ocean Action, in Spring Lake, NJ.  Participants will recycle and modify 55-gallon plastic containers for use as rain barrels and learn how stormwater pollution affects Wreck Pond and other waterways in NJ.  
•  The Master Gardeners of Monmouth County will host a rain garden talk at Brookdale Community College for event-goers to learn about the benefits of rain gardens for their homes and communities. 
• Dearborn Market in Holmdel, NJ, is organizing a rain garden workshop for homeowners to learn more about the layout of a rain garden and the many benefits of creating this type of garden in their yard.
• Coastal clean-ups in Red Bank and Union Beach, NJ.

Volunteers are needed on Saturday, September 28, in Bradley Beach, NJ, to help plant native trees, shrubs and grasses in the newly-created, half-acre maritime forest.  The maritime forest is located between the boardwalk and Ocean Avenue, near Fletcher Lake. Originally, the site was hard-packed and used for summer staff parking, winter storage of beach equipment, temporary staging and provided access to the beach for heavy equipment and emergency vehicles.  Now, the maritime forest is expected to reduce community risk from storms and promote resiliency.

Community project spokesperson Captain Alek Modjeski stated, “The creation and future establishment of this maritime forest will provide a well needed ecosystem that promotes community resilience, reduces risk from storms, and hopefully stimulates a local eco-economy.

“By incorporating green infrastructure and living shorelines into our coastal communities, we not only reduce risk to our community and coastal lake ecosystem but improve local water quality, create individual stewardship, and improve biodiversity. This is a small scale project with large scale application,” Captain Modjeski added.

This September series is a part of Waves of Action ‘For the Shore,’ a one-year program created last December to help respond to the impacts of Superstorm Sandy by improving and protecting the marine environment.  Clean Ocean Action has joined townships, businesses, homeowners, and civic organizations with thousands of volunteers along the shore to help communities most affected by the storm. Since December 2012, community leaders have registered 226 service projects, clean ups, workshops, and outings that have sent over 11,800 volunteers to 70 different towns in New York and New Jersey to help out.

The remaining months include Fall Beach Sweeps on October 19, a focus on schools and educational programs throughout November, and on December 7, the final Waves of Action ‘For the Shore’ event will be a conference reviewing the program, highlighting results and recommendations on next steps.

To sign up for a volunteer project, register a volunteer project or for more information about Waves of Action, visit www.ForTheShore.org. For a complete list of September projects and locations, click here.

Join Clean Ocean Action on Saturday, December 7, for the Waves of Action Conference and Awards.  COA will celebrate the achievements of the nearly 12,000 volunteers who have worked to improve and protect the marine environment.  For sponsorship information, click here.

Attention all county and town planners, 

managers, and engineers...

NOAA and Monmouth County Cool Cities Partnership are hosting:

Climate Adaptation Training for

Coastal Communities

Monmouth University April 23-25, 2013

400 Cedar Ave. W. Long Branch, NJ 07764

McGill Hall – Rooms 107-109

9:00 am – 4:30 pm

To register: Email your name, town, position in that town and your phone number and email address to: mjsavoia@comcast.net   

This interactive three-day training course provides individuals with a climate adaptation toolkit to identify and address planning priorities in the contest of community priorities. Course modules are taught by NOAA’S Coastal Services Center training staff and local partners. CEU credits available.

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

ü  Recognize the changes and variability in climate and climate’s influence on coastal communities,

ü  Understand key elements to consider for a vulnerability assessment,

ü  Evaluate the strengths and weakness of adaptation strategies through various methods, and

ü  Identify opportunities to leverage a range of governance mechanisms to integrate adaptation strategies into their existing efforts.

For more information please contact:

Maria Savoia

mjsavoia@comcast.net

Monmouth County Cool Cities Partnership

Gwen Shaughnessy

NOAA coastal Services Center

Gwen.shaughnessy@noaa.gov

www.csc.noaa.gov

Additional useful tools:  http://njfloodmapper.org/  to map and visusalize sea level change, FEMA zones, and Sandy storm surge in NJ. 

http://www.prepareyourcommunitynj.org/ This online assessment process is a tool to assist communities to reduce vulnerability and increase preparedness by linking planning, mitigation, and adaption.  This tool identifies how through preparedness your community can gain valuable points through FEMA's Community Rating System and Sustainable Jersey. 

The State of Coastal Lakes in NJ

In mid-February, COA staff attended the Coastal Lakes Summit: Moving to a Healthier and More Resilient Future at Monmouth University.  The Summit was organized by the Urban Coast Institute (UCI).  UCI held its first Coastal Lakes Summit in 2008.

About the Summit

The purpose of the 2013 Summit was to bring together natural resource managers and engineers, municipal officials, representatives of civic groups, community organizations, federal and state agency representatives, and local coastal and watershed management groups to indentify post-Sandy recovery and restoration priorities for the coastal lakes of NJ and to implement lake restoration plans.   

About Coastal Lakes

Deal Lake Photo Credit: Etsy

New Jersey has over 20 coastal lakes!  The coastal lakes, throughout Monmouth and Ocean County, provide local freshwater resources, offer important recreational and aesthetic amenities, and most historically were estuaries.  Many of these lakes used to have a connection to the ocean, before intense man-made development altered the landscape.

Deal Lake is the largest coastal lake in New Jersey; other well-known lakes include Lake Takanesse, Spring Lake, Wreck Pond, Stockon Lake, Little Silver Lake and Twilight Lake.

Sadly over time, these lakes have become merely regional stormwater basins, collecting untreated and unmanaged stormwater runoff generated by the surrounding communities.  What were historically estuaries have become impoundments for excessive algae growth and nutrient loading.

Impact of Superstorm Sandy

While nutrient loading has been an issue within the NJ coastal lakes for quite some time, Superstorm Sandy has presented new issues:

·         Physical Impacts

o   Filling

o   Erosion

o   Shoreline failure

·         Structural Impacts

o   Failed or damaged weir/flume/dam

o   Storm sewer lines filled with sand and debris

·         Environmental Impacts

o   Water quality: contaminants, bacteria, nutrients, sediment

o   Debris: upland wreckage, boats, trees, other submerged material

Fish and Wildlife Issues

Since the coastal lakes were historically estuaries, many of the species needed a delicate balance of fresh and salt water and open exchange with the ocean to survive.  Anadromous fish, like New Jersey’s River Herring, are born in fresh water, spend most of their life in the ocean and then return to fresh water to spawn.  On the other hand, catadromous fish, like the American Eel, live in fresh water and enters salt water to spawn.  Both types of fish need an open exchange between the salt water ocean and the fresh water lake to migrate and spawn properly. 

Over time, human population booms and over-development have closed these lakes off to the ocean, to prevent flooding (among other issues), but also causing declines in fish populations.  The River Herring is now a candidate species under the Endangered Species Act to be upgraded from a “Species of Concern” to Threatened or Endangered. 

Solutions

To help with stormwater runoff and to return the coastal lakes from impoundments back to estuaries, Summit attendees thought to plant native species around the lakes, create maritime forests (ocean coastal wooded habitats found on higher ground than dune areas), restore riparian corridors, preserve habitat for migratory birds, scrutinize the source of sand for beach replenishment projects, re-establish dunes, and preserve open space.  Creating soft shorelines, is also a good solution for two reasons.  One is so that nesting shorebirds have invertebrates to eat, and to improve water quality.  Soft shorelines filter pollutants out from stormwater runoff.

It is perhaps most important to have a project as a model that can be used to educate the public and local elected officials about the responsibility that comes living near a coastal lake.  The maritime forest project in Ocean Grove/Bradley Beach at Fletcher Lake can serve as a model for citizens to visualize the benefits of preserving the coastal lakes and restoring them to estuaries for generations to come.