County’s design for new Patten Ave. bridge no longer has fishing area
By Sherry conohan
Staff Writer
MONMOUTH BEACH — It would have been, perhaps, a bridge too wide.
The proposed fishing platform has been eliminated from the design for the Patten Avenue bridge, according to Commis-sioner William C. Barham.
Barham told concerned residents at the Feb. 12 Board of Commissioners meeting that the county still plans to start construction of the new bridge right after Labor Day. The county engineer’s office has estimated it will take nine months to complete and may be open for summer 2003.
"It’s out," Barham said of the platform. "The fishing area is gone."
Questioned after the meeting, he said the borough had asked the county, which is building the new bridge, to take the fishing platform out. He said the borough would defer to the county as to whether people would be allowed to fish off the bridge itself.
Mayor James P. McConville III had objected to a fishing platform from the outset.
The bridge connects Monmouth Beach with North Long Branch.
Barham reported on the elimination of the fishing platform in response to an objection from Carl Grimm of Middletown, a member and past commodore of the Patten Point Yacht Club at the Long Branch end of the bridge.
Grimm urged that the fishing platform be moved from the river side of the bridge, where the boat club is located, to the other side so that people casting lines with sinkers wouldn’t hit people on club boats on the head or wrap them around propeller shafts.
He said there are just as many fish on the other side of the bridge, which prompted Commissioner James F. Cunniff to quip, "Yeah, none."
Grimm said the club also was worried about contractors or fishermen thinking they could move into and use the yacht club’s parking lot.
He further expressed concern about the bridge being higher, which he said would allow larger boats to pass under it and create larger wakes which could disturb boats moored at the club.
The club has 60 some boats anchored at its docks, he said.
The bottom of the new bridge will be 6 feet higher off the water, according to construction plans.
After telling Grimm that the fishing platform had been eliminated, Barham said he should take any other concerns back to Long Branch Business Administrator Howard H. Woolley Jr.
Lee Lasser of Patten Avenue expressed concern about an increase in traffic and possible change in the character of the neighborhood with construction of the new, larger bridge.
Barham said the new bridge probably would handle an 80,000-pound load compared to the present 10-ton limit, but said he didn’t expect any increase in traffic. He said the trucks going through town now to the sewage plant of the Two Rivers Water Reclamation Authority, in connection with the expansion project there, wouldn’t use the new bridge because they would be gone by the time it is built due to the sewage plant’s project being completed.
The sewage plant is looking into barging its sludge out to sea, rather than trucking it through town as it does now, Barham added. But the river is too shallow and it needs a special barge, he added.
Barham also reported the sewerage authority is looking into a sludge digester, which would reduce the amount of sludge that has to be taken away by truck. However, the authority has decided not to even consider a digester until after it completes the present expansion program in 2003.
"I believe the trucks leaving the plant are offensive," Barham said.
Ronald Markey of Lori Road said he was concerned that pilings from the old bridge would not be removed completely, but Barham said it was his understanding they would be taken out.
Barham also said that lighting on the bridge would be from "down lights" so the light wouldn’t shine into any of the homes on either side of the bridge.
Markey asked from which side of the bridge the construction would be staged. Barham said he didn’t know, and it was too premature to say. "It’s still under design," he noted.