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.
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