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New state council would tackle ways to preserve ocean, coastal resources
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/17/07
BY TODD B. BATES
ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER

Ways to preserve and restore coastal and ocean resources would be considered by a new state council under legislation approved today by a state Senate committee.

"I think it's fantastic that the Senate Environment Committee is bringing new attention to protecting the Jersey Shore, and the bill itself is a great step toward protecting the coastal and ocean ecosystem that we love in New Jersey,'' said Benson Chiles of Environmental Defense and the Coastal Ocean Coalition of 10 national, state and local groups.

The Senate panel approved the bill (S-2645), which would create a New Jersey Coastal and Ocean Protection Council, at a meeting at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.

The measure -- identical to legislation approved by a state Assembly committee in June -- now goes to the full Senate for consideration, according to proponents.

The bill follows reports by two national ocean commissions that said the oceans are threatened by pollution and other problems. Both the 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report and the 2004 U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy report recommended managing resources as ecosystems.

The state Senate bill would create a nine-member state council with six public members, and the panel could "consider any matter relating to the protection, maintenance and restoration of coastal and ocean resources.''

The measure would also appropriate $75,000 to the state Department of Environmental Protection for the council, which would be within the agency.

"The main goal is to get more stakeholders to the table,'' said state Sen. Ellen Karcher, D-Monmouth, prime sponsor of the Senate bill, in a telephone interview.

"Everybody's been operating in silos, and this is really an opportunity for people to come together'' to consider how to protect the ocean, Karcher said.

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