Collective Effort Cleaned Up Jersey Shore, Says Panel

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By Philip Sean Curran

WEST LONG BRANCH – Cleaning up the Jersey shore in the 1980s involved groups in and out of government working together to fix what was once a national embarrassment, said panelists at a Monmouth University discussion about the state’s coastline on April 5.

Chris Daggett, one of the three panelists, had a front row seat to what the state confronted first in his role as regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency starting in 1984 and then later as the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection in the administration of Gov. Thomas Kean. “To say that it was the Wild West was not far from the truth in a lot of different areas,” said Daggett, who shared the panel with Cindy Zipf, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Clean Ocean Action, and Tony MacDonald, director of the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute. The panelists had been invited to discuss ocean and shore protection at an event moderated by former state Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos, Monmouth University’s 2019 public servant-in-residence.

Previous topics included bridging the partisan divide, jobs and the economy, and pension reform.

Before an estimated 80 to 100 people in Wilson Hall, Daggett recalled how beginning in 1987, debris washing up on the shore and high fecal coliform levels found in water samples forced the closure of beaches. The water was not safe for people to be in nor was it safe for them to be on the beaches. Everything from wood to hypodermic needles was being discovered, he said.

Former state Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos moderated the panel discussion April 5 at Monmouth University, where he is the public servant-in-residence.
Photo by Philip Sean Curran

Investigating where pollution was coming from, Daggett said New York harbors had been “full of debris.” Another source came from trash blowing into the water from uncovered barges headed to the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, New York.

To address those issues, he said barges were covered and New York City did more street sweeping. Over time, other steps were put in place, so that “you could suddenly see your feet in the water at the ocean,” he said.

“So when you added all the things together, we solved the problems,” Daggett said, calling it a “collective effort.”

“It was legislators. It was the executive branch. It was nonprofit organizations. It was environmental groups of one kind or another, all combined and working to deal with this issue,” he said.

Clean Ocean Action’s Zipf said, “We were the ocean dumping capital of the world,” recalling there were eight ocean dumping sites for dredge spoils, wood burning and other material. “There were legal areas that were managed by the government for dumping waste.”

Over time, she said, the ocean had had enough, with medical waste and dead sea life washing up on shore and the state tourism industry suf fering.

“We were a national laughingstock,” she said.

Kyrillos, moderator of the discussion, recalled that when he was elected to the state Assembly in the late 1980s, New Jersey was confronted with a “crisis at the shore,” where pollution and beach closings made headlines.

Lawmakers ended ocean dumping and curbed “inappropriate development along the shore” among other steps, Kyrillos said.

The former lawmaker said tourism at the Jersey Shore creates jobs and revenue. In Monmouth County, an estimated 9 percent of all jobs are tourism-related, with the rates higher in Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May counties. “I don’t think it can be overstated just how critical the beaches are to New Jersey,” he said. “Maybe more significant than money, it’s that the beaches are part of our identity.”

MacDonald said the progress the state has made was “unthinkable” 30 years ago. In his remarks, he pointed to the challenges for the future.

He cited, for instance, how “the chemistry of the ocean is changing.”

Due to ocean warming, he said, fishermen are noting a shift in typical fishing patterns. “The regulatory framework for fish management is not adaptable to these kind of change.”

Kyrillos said much progress had been made but cautioned more work remains to be done. “We still have obstacles to face and challenges to deal with. Climate change is a real issue that can negatively impact all of our communities.”

Zipf spoke of the value of advocacy by the public to spur action.

“It is true that elected leaders and government can, obviously, make things happen, but they need we the people to push them,” she said. “And we need academia to do the research and the critical thinking to come up with some of these solutions and to put these together.”