Who We Are HAQLA Our Watershed Current Projects Insiders Guide
Eight environmentally sensitive areas in the Bayshore region
The BRWC has identified below eight environmentally sensitive areas in the Bayshore region that are most endangered of being lost or severely degraded due to development activities in the next few years. The sites listed are in no particular order.

January 2, 2005

 

 

The Bayshore Regional Watershed Council (BRWC), an all-volunteer group made up of local citizens in the Bayshore region, stretching from South Amboy eastward to the Highlands with a goal of preserving Raritan & Sandy Hook bays, is in the process of alerting local residents, business owners, and government officials that they need to act now to protect what few natural open areas exist before they are gone forever due to over-development and poor planning.

 

The BRWC has identified below eight environmentally sensitive areas in the Bayshore region that are most endangered of being lost or severely degraded due to development activities in the next few years. The sites listed are in no particular order.

 

·         Luppatacong Creek in Keyport: At the corner of Beers St, and West Front Street. Provides much needed waterfront access to launch small boats, such as kayaks. Also provides wildlife habitat for NJ threatened species, such as Black-crowned Night Herons.  

 

·         Freneau Woods in Aberdeen, located to the south of Lake Lefferts: The area is located between the intersections of Routes 516 and 79, and Route 34. The more than 100 acre undeveloped Freneau Woods is in danger of loss to new compact housing. The landscape consists of wetland and upland forests with a variety of wildlife habitats that include vernal pools, steep slopes, rare plants, and scenic vistas of Lake Lefferts. The site has what may be the most vast, contiguous stands of ground-pine club moss Lycopodium in the Bayshore region. The area also has potential historic value as a Revolutionary War era African American graveyard.

·         The Atlantic Highlands Coastline between Many Mind to Wagner Creeks: This area of largely un-built waterfront is threatened with dense townhouses, new commercial development, and expanded parking lots that would be located right next to Sandy Hook Bay. Looming development would degrade the coastline and block important public access to the bay and to both creeks. The site is an important fish spawning area and a feeding spot for two NJ State endangered species - the Least tern and the Black skimmer. The site also contains saltwater wetlands, coastal dunes, and a wide sandy beach.

 

·         The Stone Road Meadows in Hazlet Township along Highway 36: This 26-acre abandoned agriculture field on Stone Road in Hazlet Township borders Highway 36 and is part of the Flat Creek watershed area. The meadows are threatened with new commercial development on an already over-crowded and congested highway. The area is one of the last large-scale open space areas on Highway 36 between the Garden State Parkway and Sandy Hook. The site provides ideal nesting habitat for field birds and would provide wonderful public recreation in an existing highly developed landscape.

 

·         The Mouth of Marquis Creek in Old Bridge Township: This site has been degraded by decades of illegal dumping activities of fill and solid waste by residents and businesses. In 1994, NJ Audubon Society identified this site as being heavily used by feeding herons, ducks, and shorebirds. It is also an important spawning area for horseshoe crabs and a feeding area for spring migratory birds, such as the NJ State endangered Red knot. The site has the potential for much needed public recreation including fishing, crabbing, birding, and walking.

 

·         The Ladyslipper tract in Holmdel Township: This approx. 12 acre site next to Allocco Park (near the corner of Middle Road and Palmer Avenue) along flood prone Waackaack Creek is threatened with dense new housing. In order for the development to fit on-site, a new access road off Middle Road would have to be constructed and a large detention basin in a present forested/wetland area along the creek would be needed. The uncommon Pink ladyslipper orchid can be found here within the site’s sandy Pine Barren-like soils.

 

·         The Mahoras Tract in Holmdel Township: This 13.9 acre tract adjoins Mahoras Brook (a tributary of Waackaack Creek) and is located north of Allocco Park and Middle Road, and south of Leocadia Court in Hazlet Township. The site is in danger of being developed into condominiums if it does not become public open space soon. The site contains upland pine and oak woods with sensitive freshwater wetlands; and approximately 250 species of plants and animals have been observed along the stream corridor such as marbled salamanders and long-eared owls. The preservation of this site provides many benefits including safeguarding vital wetlands in an overly developed watershed, providing much needed natural areas for passive recreation within walking distance to over 1,000 homes, and affording a potential greenway link along Waackaack Creek to the Henry Hudson Trail.

 

·         The Waackaack Creek Meadowlands in Hazlet Township: This 11.5 acre pine and oak woodland, and tidal wetland site is located along the west side of Waackaack Creek; north of Middle Road and south of Highway 36, in-between Laurel and Palmer avenues. The site is threatened with new development of single-family homes and the degradation of its saltwater wetlands. Hazlet Township controls over 103 acres of land north, east, and south to this tract making the surrounding area the second largest tract of open space in Hazlet after Natco Park. The site contains habitat for migratory waterbirds, and important habitat for endangered and threatened Black-Crowned and Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons. The benefits for preserving this tract include the protection from flooding and habitat for fishing and public recreation, much needed open space in an overly developed part of the Raritan Bay watershed region, and the potential for linking a greenway between the Ladeyslipper tract, Allocco Park, the Mahoras tract in Holmdel Township with this tract in Hazlet that will ultimately hook up with the Henry Hudson Trail.

 

The BRWC realizes that development will persist as long as landowners are responsible under the state’s inequitable tax system to pay for a majority of local school and civic services. Nevertheless, the BRWC believes strongly that we should not lose sight of the need to protect our environment. Where will the Bayshore region be in twenty years if we keep building and forget about water quality, open space, and clean air?

 

Preferably, the BRWC would like to see open space protected in its natural state.

To protect these areas, greater public funds need to be committed by the State of New Jersey to protect natural resources in the Bayshore region.

 

Elected and appointed government leaders in the Bayshore region need to urgently inventory and analyze all remaining natural areas and actively devise acquisition and protection plans, and utilize Green Acres financial support as much as possible. Towns also need to work together to establish or strengthen regional planning that is watershed based, and to seriously rethink zoning and planning regulations that cover natural areas, and to create new ordinances that preserve water quality and open space. 

 

Citizens can help preserve natural areas in their municipalities by urging their elected officials that growth should occur where infrastructure already exists, and by monitoring their town’s enforcement of ordinances designed to protect the environment.

 

It is essential to get this work done before developers arrive with applications and blueprints that would create still further dense buildings and sprawl.

 

The BRWC encourages Bayshore municipal officials and residents to contact the council if they require assistance or are interested in information about land preservation.