Sustainability for the Barnegat Bay Watershed

Jackson Township Planning Board Meeting
Monday, March 8, 2021 07:30 PM

Link to Attend the Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81685985803?pwd=dksyVkRNU0xmcmc4MVJzTC9hVkEzZz09
Passcode: 393549

Barnegat Bay is the largest body of water in New Jersey.  Its watershed covers 600 square miles from the Headwaters at Bay Head to Little Egg Inlet, from Seaside Heights to Jackson Township. In other words, a drop of rain that falls at Six Flags eventually ends up in the Bay near Seaside Heights, and could even travel to Little Egg Harbor.

 

Help our watershed neighbors in Jackson Township. Without you, that rain drop will never make it to the Bay with clean water for swimming, gazing, boating, and fishing that we all enjoy.  Help save our forested areas from Warehouse buildings. Why does someone think it is a good match for a nearby hospital for Multiple Sclerosis and other large recreational facilities to be near a trucking facility instead of a serene 73-acre forest with walking trails and natural features.  Bordering two major highways (I-195 and Route 537), it seems healthy to keep the forest to muffle the sound and pollution.

Two big buildings with 9 and 14-acre roofs with banks for 400 trucks daily, adds little to the landscape; its impervious surface leaves no path for water to travel despite being the headwaters of the watershed – generally known as its source. Nature works for free to purify the air and water, protecting our health while providing homes for what’s left of the biodiversity that once made this amongst the richest temperate landscapes and estuaries on the planet.   Forested areas are the lungs and kidneys of the Barnegat Bay Watershed.  

Low impact development and use of ecosystem services to keep the water in situ (where it falls) are two ways to do this. Ecosystem services are nature-based processes that mitigate impervious surfaces and stormwater by using Low Impact Development and Green Infrastructure.  In understanding how unique and significant this is, you can turn to science to help us understand this impact. Tom Schueler of The Center for Watershed Protection, classifies stream quality levels by percent impervious: 1% to 10% are stressed, 11%to 25% are impacted, and 26% to 100% are degraded. In fact, research indicates that watersheds are demonstrably and irreversibly degraded when as little as 10% of their surface area is covered by impervious surfaces.

Say NO to Phase II Warehouses (Area in Red) and Support Open Space Acquisition