By Kenny Walter
Staff Writer
OCEAN TOWNSHIP–The Whalepond Brook Watershed Association will be focusing on educating the public on watersheds in the coming months.
Faith Teitelbaum, a trustee with the watershed association, said a $4,700 grant from the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association to fund seminars on watersheds, starting in April in Ocean Township.
“The first one is going to be April 17 at the Ocean Township Public Library and that’s open to the public and students and that is going to be how a watershed works,” Teitelbaum said.
Teitelbaum also said the association is working with the Ocean Township School District in presenting a seminar.
“We also are going to be teaching that to the sixth graders at the Intermediate School,” she said. “We are working with [Ocean Township superintendent] Dr. [Jim] Stefankiewicz and we are also working with [Township Manager] Andrew Brannen.”
Teitelbaum also said the seminars will culminate in a rain garden built at the Ocean Township Swim Club, across the street from the intermediate school.
“The superintendent is helping us set up the classes and the town is helping us build the rain garden,” Teitelbaum said.
In recent years. members of the Whalepond Brook Watershed Association have partnered with the governing bodies of all five municipalities within the watershed on mitigation plans for issues related to the brook, including flooding and pollution.
The Whalepond Brook Watershed is the land area where surface water runoff empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It encompasses Ocean Township, Long Branch, West Long Branch, Eatontown and Tinton Falls.