Clean Ocean Action proposal gets Brick mayor’s support

Clean Ocean Zone
legislation would guard Cape May to Montauk

BY KARL VILACOBA
Staff Writer

Clean Ocean Action proposal
gets Brick mayor’s support
Clean Ocean Zone
legislation would guard Cape May to Montauk
BY KARL VILACOBA
Staff Writer

BRICK — Mayor Joseph Scarpelli has endorsed Clean Ocean Action’s (COA) calls for federal and bistate legislation permanently protecting the waters off New York and New Jersey from any new activities that could damage the environment.

The Sandy Hook-based COA began campaigning for the new Clean Ocean Zone (COZ) in February, as the environmental group marked its 20th anniversary. The campaign has since been endorsed by the municipalities of Bay Head, Belmar, Long Branch, Margate, Red Bank and Wall, as well as dozens of local service groups and thousands of petition signers.

COA Community Outreach Director Kari Jermansen said the zone would be comparable to the Category One protections assigned to the state’s inland watersheds but would apply to the entire New York/New Jersey Bight. That 19,000-square-mile area runs from Cape May to Montauk Point, Long Island, N.Y., and out to the edge of the continental shelf.

Earlier this year, the group unveiled a Web site (www.CleanOceanZone.org) detailing the 10 points of its proposal. Those include a ban on new ocean dump sites; capping the "mud dump" site with clean material; a ban on new point sources of pollution (industrial discharges, sewage, etc.); a reduction on stormwater runoff pollution; a ban on new mining activities; a ban on oil and gas exploration; development of regulations for renewable energy sources; support for commercial and recreational fishing; support for artificial reefs and underwater research; and support for activities that depend on a clean marine environment, like surfing and boating.

"The health of the Atlantic Ocean is directly tied to the health of the Jersey Shore’s economy," Scarpelli said. "Nothing demonstrated that more clearly than the medical waste disaster back in the late 1980s. But every day in thou­sands of much less dramatic ways, our ocean waters are being degraded by pol­lutants."

Jermansen said her organization was "thrilled" to have Scarpelli’s support and hopes the Township Council will consider joining the mayor.

Council President Stephen Acropolis said he is in favor of legislation such as the COZ, provided it is fully enforced and nonnegotiable for developers with friends in elected offices. Acropolis said he was disappointed that developers in munici­palities like Jackson have apparently found loopholes in the C1 designation Gov. James E. McGreevey proposed for the Metedeconk River.

"Do I think we should support it? Ab­solutely," Acropolis said. "But we can’t have politicians making laws that they won’t enforce. They’ve got to have teeth. We can’t be passing these things just to make ourselves look good."