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Inside This Week’s Edition
THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
Vol. 4 - No. 17
Business Directory...................19 Classifieds................................18 Community News.................8-11 Dear Joel..................................16 Dr. Izzy’s Sound News...............14 Fun Page..................................20 Inside The Law .........................17 Letters to the Editor.....................6 Wolfgang.................................23 WWW.MICROMEDIAPUBS.COM
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Breaching Southern Ocean Marshland: Refuge Proposes Resiliency Projects
and will eventually be open water with‑ in the next hundred years, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser vice models, and the agency’s Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge officials have presented options such as dike breaching, a new culvert and sediment enrichment that they say should slow the process. In its 500‑plus page environmental assess‑ ment and plan that encompasses parcels in Brick, Berkeley, Forked River and Barnegat, Refuge ecologists and officials are focusing on 500 acres across the Ocean County area’s 32,000 acres of salt marsh that make up the refuge. “This is about what to do to increase resil‑ i e n c e ,” s a i d Virginia Rettig, Refuge Manag‑ er for Forsythe. “When consid‑ ering sea lev‑ el rise, are the marshes keeping up? We’ve iden‑
Barnegat Changes Recycling Pick-Up, Meeting Schedules
By Chris Lundy BARNEGAT – A new garbage contract will return Barnegat Township to weekly recycling pick-up, officials said. The new contract with Meadowbrook Industries will last five years. One of the sticking points for residents was the desire to go back to weekly recycling pick‑up. Due to the township being able to afford it, weekly recycling is back in the contract. The recycling portion will cost people $7.94 per household every year. “We think we negotiated a good deal there,” Committeeman Albert Bille said. A request to the township clerk for details on the full contract was not returned by press time.
–Photos by Sean D’Antoni The marshlands of Barnegat, near an observation boardwalk off East Bay Avenue, are among the project areas for flooding and resiliency issues. (Bottom) The area is prone to flooding, such as after a nor’easter this time last year. By Catherine Galioto OCEAN COUNTY – Flooding issues and marshland resiliency around East Bay Avenue in Barnegat, Stout’s Creek in Lacey and other open marshland in Ocean County could receive some help under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan. The plan, now in a public comment period through October 22, would remove dikes in the marsh to help tidal water flow, refresh the marsh and counter sea level rise, said officials from Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Each of the project areas are in the Refuge. The environmental assessment of the proj‑ ect warns these marshlands are filling in,
October 15, 2016
(Schedules - See Page 12)
tified specific areas in the Refuge for these projects. They are waterlogged areas that could eventually become open water with the current rate of sea level rise.” Removing impoundments such as dikes would help water flow between tides, better refresh the marsh and prevent flooding, said Charles R. Harman, principal ecol‑ ogist at Amec Foster Wheeler, the fi rm behind the project. “Basically you have an old dike that was built, and water comes up behind it and a tide comes in and is retained. But what they are looking at doing though is breaching these barriers so that you can get increased tidal flushing into these old impoundments,” Harman said. Several of the Southern Ocean areas of the plan – Stout’s Creek, Forked River, Barnegat and Manahawkin – would likely use Ocean County Mosquito Commission help in maintaining the sites and completing work such as dike breaching and sediment enrichment. That’s because the project is expected to decrease the amount of standing (Marshland - See Page 7)
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Lacey Seeks Shift In Impervious Coverage Building Rules
By Chris Lundy LACEY – Another town is spending mon‑ ey to get state approval to allow construc‑ tion to take place on a larger percentage of each buildable lot. The impervious coverage rules permit 30 percent of a lot to be covered by construc‑ tion. Lacey, and towns such as Manchester, would like that to increase to 70 percent. The Lacey Township Committee award‑ ed a $51,000 consulting contract to an engineering fi rm to help get its plan endorsed by the state. At the most recent meeting, the committee (Building - See Page 5)