On Wednesday, June 3, 2003 the Tidelands Resource Council renewed the Marine Conservation Zone at Island Beach State Park for another two years. SBB had written DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell asking for help. See the wonderful MAP made by Jen O’Reilly in the SBB office.
On Wednesday, June 3, 2003 the Tidelands Resource Council renewed the license for the Marine Conservation Zone at Island Beach State Park for another two years. Below is the text of the letter that Save Barnegat Bay had written DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell.
Save Barnegat Bay is grateful to Commissioner Campbell and to the Tidelands Resource Council.
The next constructive step will be for the Governor and the Attorney General to sign the twenty year license so that the issue does not recurr every two years.
906-B Grand Central Avenue
Lavallette, NJ 08735
732-830-3600
www.savebarnegatbay.org
May 6, 2003
Commissioner Bradley Campbell
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
PO Box 402
Trenton, NJ 08625-0402
Re: Urgent request for assistance in expediting renewal of the Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone, which will expire on June 7.
Dear Commissioner Campbell,
We are writing on behalf of Save Barnegat Bay, which is supported by over 1200 families annually, to request that you expedite the renewal of the license for the Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone at Island Beach State Park, whose interim license is due to expire on June 7.
For complicated reasons the license renewal process has become bureaucratically ensnared; your assistance would be most helpful. One of the most important accomplishments of the coastal environmental community is in jeopardy. We need you to cut through the red tape.
The Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone is the first of its kind in the state of New Jersey. It enables those in charge of Island Beach State Park to integrate the management of the terrestrial portions of the park with that of the shallow waters with which they are intimately connected ecologically. At present, regulation of activities is as follows:
Permitted: Boating
Recreational clamming
Recreational crabbing
Fishing
Birding
Hunting
Kayaking & canoeing
Prohibited: Operating a personal watercraft
Commercial use, commercial tours
Group use except tours conducted by park staff
Failure to observe “no wake” areas
Going within 300′ of Osprey or Peregrine nests
Entering bird nesting or bird resting areas
Feeding wildlife
Alcoholic beverages
If the current license is not renewed, the park will lose its jurisdiction to manage this stellar resource in those sensible ways.
As we understand the process, there are basically two mechanisms by which the license for the Marine Conservation Zone could be renewed:
1 – The preferred mechanism would be to approve the twenty-year license, which has already been signed off on by most agencies involved. This would solve the problem through the year 2021.
2 – If obtaining the necessary signatures for the twenty year approval is for some reason not feasible, a more lengthy but constructive possibility would be to renew the current two-year temporary license. It is my understanding that this would require approval by the Tidelands Resource Council and other agencies within DEP.
A Map of the Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone may be observed at http://www.savebarnegatbay.org/sedgemap.shmtl.
Hundreds of persons, both within and without your Department, have worked together to make this important management tool a reality. Please help us sustain it.
Sincerely,
William deCamp, Jr.
President
Jennifer O’Reilly
Associate Executive Director
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See the wonderful MAP made by Jen O’Reilly in the SBB office.
