Posted on June 24, 2019
The long-awaited shoreline protection project for Tuckerton Beach in Tuckerton borough has begun. Albert Marine from Waretown has started mustering its equipment on South Green Street and has delivered some sand to the Tuckerton Cove.
During the June 17 borough meeting, Councilman John Schwartz explained the project consists of sand replenishment along the cove line and a concrete breakwater. The Micalizzi family owns the land and they have given Tuckerton an easement to do the project. The project is being paid for through the $2.1 million National Fisheries and Wildlife Foundation grant of 2015 that is shared with Little Egg Harbor Township for its shoreline project on Iowa Court on Osborn Island.
Progress is being made on another project in Tuckerton Beach. Lanyard lagoon, an undeveloped lagoon off Kingfisher, will be bulkheaded using a $350,000 Non Point Source Pollution grant from the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection and obtained by BRS Consulting, a non-government organization. BRS has asked to be the project manager, and the council agreed to that. It will be paid $6,820 out of the grant.
Residents of Paradise Cove have received notice that Tuckerton has applied to the NJDEP for a freshwater wetland general permit in order to locate a temporary dredge pipe across two lots owned by AT&T. Paula Sullivan, who lives on Admiral Drive, said she was thrilled to hear the project was moving forward and wanted to know if the lagoons were being dredged. Schwartz told her only the mouths of the lagoons that lead into Thompson’s Creek will be dredged, as well as Thompson Creek itself. The target de-watering site for the mud is the five to six acres of the Gomez property, although the lease agreement between Gomez and the borough is still in negotiations, he said.
The permit also states the dewatering sites for the dredging of Tuckerton Creek and the mouths of Tuckerton Beach lagoons will be the South Green Street Park. But Schwartz said that was just for reasons of expediting the permit process. The borough is still talking with DEP officials to use the material to bolster the marsh elevation on the north side of South Green Street: the 45 acres called the Knoeller property, he said after the meeting.
“We are working with the DEP to keep the material right here in the borough. We’re hoping to use it for thin layer deposition. If we trucked it, it would cost $67 a cubic yard to remove.”
Schwartz said thin layer deposition on the marsh could be between 6 inches and a foot.
During the regular meeting, the council adopted the 2019 municipal budget, renewed seven liquor licenses, and received three grants: a DWI enforcement grant of $1,125, a $9,453 Clean Communities Grant from the DEP for street cleaning and recycling, and a $225,000 state department of transportation grant for the resurfacing of Curlew Road.
Deputy Mayor Sam Colangelo proposed a resolution for a shared-services agreement with Bass River Township for the use of Tuckerton’s public works and water utility equipment as needed. The borough receives a set amount of “rent” depending on the equipment used by Bass River.
On Saturday, June 22, the Tuckerton Environmental Committee will be picking up litter on the stretch of Route 9 from the borough hall north to the borough line as part of the Adopt a Highway program.
And the county documents shredding truck will be in the Eagleswood Municipal Parking lot on Thomas Avenue on June 29.
During the public comment period of the meeting, Anne Marie Sweeney of South Green Street asked that the previous meeting’s minutes be corrected where it stated, “she did not know what the meeting with Mr. Niles was about.”
“I did know,” she said. “And when Mr. Schwartz said, ‘We met with him two weeks ago and he never returned the information,’ well, Mr. Niles was never given the information from the engineer.”
“It’s not personal, but when we’re lied to, it feels personal,” she added. (According to Sweeney, this stems from a previous municipal meeting when Sweeney had asked if the borough would meet with Larry Niles, an engineer from another company who had experience with shoreline protection projects. The mayor said no –because Owens and Little is the town’s engineer – but the next day Schwartz had set up a meeting with Niles that the mayor was invited to attend.)
Sweeney also pressed the mayor and council to stream the municipal meetings so people who own houses in Tuckerton Beach but can’t always be at the meeting could see them and also have the ability to ask questions during the public comment period.
The mayor said the council would look into it.
Source: thesandpaper.net
