Christie: Shark River Dredging Delayed By County and Municipalities

Beck: Federal and State Agencies Haven’t Approved Drying Sites

Governor Chris Christie told his Town Hall gathering in Belmar yesterday afternoon that the dredging of Shark River is being held up because the municipalities along the river and Monmouth County can not agree on a destination for the dredge spoils to be dumped.

The issue has gathered increased public attention in recent months due to a massive fish kill in the river last May.  310 tons of dead fish were removed from the shoreline of the estuary that feeds into the Atlantic through the inlet between Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea and extents 11 miles through Neptune and Wall Townships.

In answering a question from a man who identified himself as Bob from Wall, Christie said that he supports the dredging, fought for money from FEMA to pay for the dredging and would impose a solution on the county and municipalities if he had the authority to do so.  He said he had been briefed on the issue three weeks ago.

Maybe the Governor remembered a briefing from a different dredging project when answering Bob’s question.

Both the Monmouth County and Neptune landfills are willing to take the dredge spoils, according to Senator Jennifer Beck.  The river hasn’t been dredged, Beck said in a phone interview last night, because over the last two decades various federal and state agencies have rejected every proposed location for the dredged materials to dry before being moved to their final disposal site.

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The Arnone Report: Update on Shark River Fish Kill

By Freeholder Tom Arnone

Freeholder Tom Arone

On May 12, 2014, a massive fish kill began in the Shark River.  Over the next 10 days, 310 tons of fish would die and wash ashore.  According to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, the cause of the fish kill was due to a large number of bait fish entering the river to seek refuge from bluefish and bass.  The concentration of fish, coupled with warm and shallow waters, depleted the dissolved oxygen levels, resulting in the die-off.  Despite that this event appeared to be a naturally occurring phenomenon, the die-off was a wake-up call that we should not take the health of the River for granted.  While a number of factors working together may have contributed to the event, there are some people that believe this devastating ecological event could have been avoided with preventative maintenance, or more specifically, the long-overdue dredging of the Shark River.

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