New N.J. beach access rules a big step back backward: Star-Ledger Editorial

[finchaser]

say goodbye to fishing in DEAL and Elberon they will retaliate for what was done there the last few years by the snag and drop/pencil popper crew

[plugcrazy]

Parking is already a no no on Pullman. Very easy to make all the streets that way.

[hookset]

^If I lived there I would ask for that. Fishermen in the spring are pigs. Can you imagine coming home to your house and a guy is cleaning a fish in front of it or left the rack in your garbage can? I dont blame them for the parking closures.

[surferman]

There are some jetties in the cape may area where it already says no fishing in big letters.

[jigfreak]

^If I lived there I would ask for that. Fishermen in the spring are pigs. Can you imagine coming home to your house and a guy is cleaning a fish in front of it or left the rack in your garbage can? I dont blame them for the parking closures.

Close it all down. Some guys will never learn. No sense in trying its useless.

[DarkSkies]

The lines in the access battles are being drawn. The first battles are these easements that are vexing homeowners and officials alike. We can't move forward without the homeowners signing them. There are vaild arguments on both sides. Here is a Brick Patch article that tries to put some of that in perspective. Sent in by Fin, thanks.


http://brick.patch.com/articles/publ...uspatc00000001
Public Access Fears Dominate Brick Beach Replenishment Meeting
Homeowners concerned with easement language, lack of established dune line
3-24-13

• By Daniel Nee

Though Brick officials have pledged the status quo will remain along the township's oceanfront, homeowners at a meeting Saturday said they have concerns over preserving private beach access as well as the lack of an established dune line in a proposed beach replenishment plan.

In order for the project – which is primarily funded by the federal government – to move forward, oceanfront residents and beach associations would have to sign easements to allow the dunes to be built and maintained partially on private property.

The state has set an April 1 deadline for easements to be signed, while Rep. Jon Runyan's office has set a federal deadline of May 1.
"I do not want to put Ferris wheels or boardwalks behind anyone's house," Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis told more than 100 residents at the meeting. "I don't want more beaches. We have three beaches and that's enough. I don't want to take anyone's private beach."
Township attorney Jean Cipriani said the easements entitle public officials to access private property only for the scope of the dune renourishment project itself, so the prospect of using the documentation as license to build a boardwalk, restrooms or parking lots is out of the question.

"The Army Corps has confirmed through their project engineer that the public access that would be constructed is only to replace the exact access points that exist now," said Cipriani.
But some residents have doubts.
Homeowner Ed Pilot, as well as many others at the meeting, pointed to a subsection of the easement that states one of the goals of the project is to "implement the Public Trust Doctrine and ensure permanent public access, use and enjoyment of the beach and ocean."
"What's to prevent the DEP to come in after the project is finished and sue everyone to allow public access to their beach?" asked Pilot.
Attorney John Paul Doyle, representing 14 homeowners, also pointed to the public acces language, asking whether the easement – the boundaries of which are not technically defined yet in Brick – could mean private streets would be opened for public parking.
Cipriani said the easement is "limited by the project area," meaning the dune renourishment project itself.

Though some residents at the meeting claimed the section on the public trust doctrine – a legal principle that maintains certain lands are held in trust for the use of the public – was not present in earlier versions of coastal easements, a check of public records by Patch found that easement agreements in Long Beach Township and Mantoloking going back to 2007 included the same language.
In Long Beach Township, Surf City and Harvey Cedars, public access points did not change since replenishment projects were completed there, nor were showers, parking lots or other amenities constructed.
Acropolis said even advocates for more public beach access have been largely satisfied by Brick's current access level.
"There is a group of people around here where that's all they do - sue for public access," he said. "They've never sued Brick Township."

Cipriani said the state Department of Environmental Protection will not allow changes to be made to the easement document itself, though the township may be able to add a supplemental section explaining its position on certain issues.

Acropolis said eventually, the debate over whether to sign easements may be ended by legislation.
"There is a deadline, and it will move forward," said Acropolis. "I would much rather have input at the local level with you than have someone in Trenton set the policy as for what should happen."
Legislation that would empower municipalities or the state to condemn the easement areas and factor in the added value of the project to reduce payouts to homeowners is pending, and Gov. Chris Christie has come out strongly in favor of the replenishment project.

Acropolis also spoke of the need for replenishment to protect all of Brick's residents, including those on neighboring streets on the barrier island as well as those across the bay.
"Most of the professionals believe that if the breach [in Mantoloking] hadn't happened, most of the homes on the mainland would not have flooded," the mayor said.

[bababooey]

I don't see compliance with all the folks who are lawyered upalready. This will probably have to be handled in the courts. my .02

[bababooey]

Something to think about - an article detailing how Bay Head ws saved from further damage. I really feel we need barriers along the whole NJ Coast. The homeowners who don't agree should have to have a minimum of $5 million insurance policy.

What do you guys think?

http://weather.yahoo.com/long-forgot...115800832.html

How Long-Forgotten Seawall Fended Off Sandy

By By Laura Poppick, Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – 11 hours ago

• 
  LiveScience.com/Jennifer Irish, Virginia Tech - A relic seawall in Bay Head, N.J., dating back to 1882, was uncovered by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The forgotten structure staved off a significant amount …more of property damage. less

A buried and forgotten seawall built in 1882 may have significantly weakened Hurricane Sandy's grip on one New Jersey town, new research shows.
Bay Head — a beach town located along the northeast shores of New Jersey — lay directly in the violent path of Hurricane Sandy when the storm barreled toward the Eastern Seaboard last October. And yet only one house from the town was lost to the storm. The neighboring town of Mantoloking, on the other hand, lost more than a quarter of its houses.

To figure out how Bay Head thwarted Sandy's blow, a team of coastal engineers from Virginia Tech visited the region within two weeks of the storm to survey the area. They found what they believe to be their answer in a 4,000-foot-long (1,200 meters) wall of rocks that many residents hadn't even known was there, they reported earlier this month in the journal Coastal Engineering. [Jersey Shore: Before & After Hurricane Sandy]

"Once we got there, we immediately saw the seawall," Jennifer Irish, an engineer at Virginia Tech and a co-author of the study, said in a statement. The team noted that dunes along the beaches of both Mantoloking and Bay Head likely helped beat back some waves, but that the seawall provided a clear advantage for Bay Head. "The beach and dunes did their job to a certain point, then the seawall took over, providing significant dampening of the waves. It was the difference between houses that were flooded in Bay Head and houses that were reduced to piles of rubble in Mantoloking."

Two towns
The team examined satellite imagery and beach data from the two regions to assess whether other factors could have played a role, but found nothing that stood out as strongly as the seawall.
"Because of [the towns'] close proximity, and based on our survey, I feel confident that the conditions that they were exposed to were virtually identical," Irish told Livescience.

The team believes that the combination of the hard seawall — which stands about 5 feet (1.5 m) above the sand — and overlying soft sand dune likely accounts for the structure's effectiveness.
"A seawall on its own is detrimental to the beach," said Patrick Lynett, an engineer at the University of Southern California who was a co-author on the study. By deflecting waves seaward, seawalls increase the amount of wave energy hitting beaches and cause more sand to wash away, he explained. "The seawall is good at protecting the town from being flooded, but for an extreme storm, it's not good."
The sand on top of the seawall provided extra cushioning, dampening the energy channeled back to the beach.

Extreme erosion
Other structures, like jetties that run perpendicular to beaches and breakwaters that sit underwater near shores, can also help prevent erosion, but usually not under extreme conditions like Hurricane Sandy. The team thinks that the combined seawall and dune could provide a good model for other beach towns looking to prevent erosion. But every beach is different and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, Lynett said.

The team now plans to look more closely at their data to try to better understand how storms as large as Sandy affect erosion and other beach processes.
"We really hope we can learn a lot from this terrible event, and improve our ability to recover and increase the resiliency of coastal communities," Irish said.