Inaugural Blue Star Award Presented to Wall Township

On Wednesday, August 26^th, Clean Ocean Action awarded the Blue Star certification to Wall Township, NJ, to recognize their effort to improve water quality. Clean Ocean Action’s Municipal Blue Star Program was established in 2014 to encourage towns in coastal regions and beyond to prioritize water quality protection measures, while achieving Sustainable Jersey Certification.

Wall Township achieved 90 of the necessary 75 points to attain the Municipal Blue Star certification. Examples of the actions completed include Community Education & Outreach, Education for Sustainability Programs, and Open Space Plans.  In addition to Sustainable Jersey projects, towns are required to choose one of COA’s additional actions. Wall Township completed the Innovative Water Quality Project action through partnering with Monmouth County in a Wreck Pond Sediment Control Project. This project works to improve water quality within the watershed in an effort to help resolve impairments that contribute to the precautionary closings of the Spring Lake beaches. Additionally, Wall Township afforded its residents with a Clean Water and Lawn Conservation Program that educates the community on promoting better conservation green practices. The development of the Program was made possible by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.    

Wall Township joins Long Beach Township as the second of two inaugural Blue Star towns. Congratulation to our Blue Star inductees!  

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.

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. 

Wall Township Environmental Summit 2012

With the exception of the new makeup and legislators for New Jersey's 30th Legislative District, this year's Wall Township Environmental Summit was very similar in content to last year's.  What environmental issue is most concerning to the residents in District 30?  Wreck Pond.

A photo showing a nearby street after Wreck Pond flooded last year in the wake of Hurricane Irene.  Photo courtesy of Shelly Banjo for the Wall Street Journal

Senator Robert Singer, who's district previously spanned more of Ocean County, but is no stranger to representing coastal constituents, and Assemblyman David Rible were on hand to patiently listen to and address their constituents' concerns.  

The evening was kicked off by members of the Wreck Pond Homeowners Alliance, who went into detail about issues concerning the pond, stormwater management, flooding of their homes and associated health concerns, as well as the breakthroughs and shortcomings that they have had in dealing with the county, the state, and the federal government.  Asm. Rible stressed that both he and Asm. Sean Kean (also of District 30) were working closely with the DEP and Congressman Chris Smith's office on the issue.  "This time next year, we are not going to have this problem," offered Senator Singer to a round of applause, adding that he's not one to deem any task "impossible."

Fortunately, the NJDEP Action Plan that COA called for last year continues to be implemented. See here for more information. 

Clean Ocean Action was in attendance and echoed the concerns of the Wreck Pond Homeowners Alliance, but also brought a few additional issues up briefly.  With the looming cuts to federal programs that test water quality at swimming beaches, we asked the District 30 legislators to work with the DEP to ensure that funding for testing programs continues and that additional funding for storm event testing and source tracking is maintained. 

We also took the opportunity to provide information on the Tour for the Shore and the Clean Ocean Zone to Sen. Singer and Asm. Rible, keeping in mind that a number of towns in District 30 including, Point Pleasant, Howell, Manasquan, Lakewood, Bradley, Spring Lake, Belmar, Brielle, and Wall are already supportive.  We urged Senator Singer to co-sponsor a state-wide resolution in the NJ Senate supporting the COZ, while urging Asm. Rible to do the same in the Assembly.

Wall Environmental Summit on Thursday, Sept 13

We hope you join us at the 8th Annual Environmental Summit sponsored by Wall Township Environmental Advisory Committee that will be held on Thursday, Sept. 13 at 7:00 pm. It will be at the Wall Township Municipal Building 2700 Allaire Road, Wall, NJ.

This is a chance to meet and ask questions of District 30 state legislators. Senator Robert Singer and Assemblymen Sean Kean and David Rible will discuss and answer questions on environmental legislation, concerns, and issues. COA encourages you to voice your concerns about the environment - whether its to support more funding to repair old storm and wastewater infrastructure to call for enforcement of litter laws to calling for NJ's support for the Clean Ocean Zone.

District 30 includes parts of Monmouth and Ocean counties and the following towns: Avon-by-the-Sea, Belmar, Bradley Beach,Brielle, Farmingdale, Howell, Lake Como, Lakewood, Manasquan, Point Pleasant, Sea Girt, Spring Lake, Spring Lake Heights, Wall.

Here's the link to the flier if you want to share and post. COA hopes to see you there!

Wreck Pond Rain Barrel Workshop and “Pointless” Pollution Seminar

Are you a resident of Spring Lake, Spring Lake Heights, Wall Township, or Sea Girt interested in improving the health of the Wreck Pond Watershed? Would you like learn what you can do to reduce stormwater and related pollution?  You can start by attending the Build-A-Barrel Workshop & Stormwater Pollution workshop! The workshop is to be held in the Community Room at the Wall Township Municipal Building on Wednesday, June 13^th from 6PM to 8PM. The program is free to attend, but suggests a $20 donation to build and take home a rain barrel.

Rain barrels are designed to be connected to the downspout of your home’s gutter in order to decrease the volume of rainwater coming off of your property and into the Wreck Pond Watershed. You may also use the precipitation collected in your rain barrel to water plants in your home and garden, saving both water and money!

Experts from Rutgers, Clean Ocean Action, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will be presenting on problems and solutions in the Wreck Pond watershed, and will review things that you can do to help. The new fertilizer law and yard care will be discussed, as part of COA’s Pointless Pollution Seminar Series for Wreck Pond Watershed. We look forward to seeing you there!  

Register here. 

Also, check out NJDEP’s new Wreck Pond website.

Wall Township Environmental Summit

This past Monday night, the Wall Township Environmental Advisory Committee hosted their 7^th Annual(!) Environmental Summit giving the public the opportunity to engage their elected officials on any and all pressing environmental issues.  Legislators from New Jersey’s 11^th Legislative District, Senator Sean Kean and Assemblyman David Rible were on hand to address the concerns of many local residents who came out to have their voices heard.  Clean Ocean Action was pleased to be among those concerned voices.

Sen. Kean raised the issue the recent legislative redistricting that has just taken place in New Jersey.  The new Legislative map puts both Sen. Kean and Assm. Rible in what will be the new 30^th District. Both Kean and Rible will be running for the General Assembly seats while the 30^th’s existing Senator Robert Singer will be running for the Senate seat.  To find out what district your town will now fall into click here.

One of the first issues raised by the public concerned the flooding of Wreck Pond.  Residents wanted to make it clear that the flooding occurs after every big rainfall and not just after the “100 Year Storm.”  Residents were well aware that Wall’s watershed drains into Wreck Pond and the burden of the pond’s clean up should not fall on just Spring Lake, but multiple municipalities as well as the State.  A representative from the Environmental Commission of Spring Lake suggested that Natural Resource Damage funding be looked into as both Kean and Rible cited funding as the major hurdle for Wreck Pond’s rehabilitation.  Hurricane Irene has created a sense of urgency with the legislators and their constituents many of whom are still cleaning up their basements and homes in the wake of the hurricane’s flooding.  Sen. Kean assured the group that every possible funding opportunity for Wreck Pond will be looked at.  Additionally, Assm. Rible cited his collaboration with Congressman Chris Smith, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Mayor’s office to continue working on this “action item.”

The need for dredging of Shark River was another central theme of the night.  Lifelong residents who have seen Shark River’s best days stood up to warn the elected officials and the public that if action isn’t taken soon, the river could become a “lifeless polluted mud flat”.  Members of the public expressed their frustration with State money going to less important projects than the dredging of the river.  Senator Kean said that the issue had been taken to the highest levels of the administration and the DEP, but did mention a lack of outcry from the public on the issue.  Assm. Rible said that while dredging plans have looked great on paper in the past, the problem lies in finding usable dredging sites.

With the rehabilitation of Wreck Pond and Shark River dredging taking up much of the discussion, there was still room for residents to stress the importance of wind and solar energy, their concerns about pesticides and herbicides being used in public places, and their opposition to offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.

Clean Ocean Action had the chance to thank Sen. Kean and Assm. Rible for their leadership and support of recent critical legislation that takes steps to keep our waterways clean as well as ask for 3 point plan on what they are doing to protect the ocean.  Kean not only mentioned that he had preceded the Governor in his opposition to Liquefied Natural Gas, but declared that he would always be an ally of COA in preventing ocean pollution. 

All in all the night was a success allowing the public to engage their elected officials on issues that matter to them – which is what democracy is all about!