Current Projects
Stormwater Implementation Grant Program 2009 Public Participation & Education Minigrants Research & Implementation Grant Program
_____________________________________________ Stormwater Implementation Grant Program In an effort to assist with on-the-ground local projects and working with communities to address stormwater management, the Barnegat Bay National Estuary Program (BBNEP) initiated a new grant program for stormwater implementation activities focusing on New Jersey's NJPDES Stormwater/UIC rules (N.J.A.C. 7:14A-25.4 and 25.8(b)). In May 2007, ten project proposals were approved for funding. Projects approved for funding were those that clearly sought to improve water quality in the Barnegat Bay watershed by implementing the Phase II Municipal Stormwater Rules, and were proactive in their efforts to improve stormwater management in their town or borough. Grants were awarded to the following municipalities and projects:
Work on these projects began in June 2007 and will be completed by May 2008. Each award recipient is required to match the amount given by the BBNEP by a minimum of 33%. The BBNEP’s 2009 Public Participation & Education Minigrant Program Recipients This year marked the first round of minigrants since the BBNEP completed its Strategic Plan in 2008. Applicants were challenged to use the Public Education and Participation grant program to help the BBNEP address some of the priorities in the new plan. Twenty-three proposals for projects totaling well over $100,000, were submitted to meet that challenge. The BBNEP has awarded minigrants to eight of these projects and will contribute $29,045 toward the total $84,265 cost of these projects. The Public Education and Participation grant program is designed to help increase awareness about the importance of the Barnegat Bay and its watershed, as well as promote knowledge and participation in protecting and restoring it. This program is open to individuals, schools, non-profit organizations, businesses, and government agencies. All projects must include a strong public education component to be funded. These projects will reach thousands of residents and visitors in the Barnegat Bay watershed. If you would like to be added to our Minigrant Information mailing list to receive an application, please email jcava@ocean.edu. Listed below are the eight organizations that will receive funding and their projects: Bay Head Environmental Commission, Bay Head Keeping with what has emerged as this year’s project theme, the Bay Head Environmental Commission’s (BHEC) Rain Garden project will be planted at the Bay Head Reading Center. There it will serve to raise community awareness about the benefits of rain gardens. It will be a demonstration of the effective diversion of storm water run off from the library roof, and other impervious surfaces. Interpretive signage will be prominently located around the garden and will explain the process of how rain gardens provide stormwater management benefits and help reduce non point source pollution. A permanent display will also be located inside the Reading Center and will provide a tutorial about non point source pollution prevention in the Barnegat Bay watershed. Further, the “Timely Topics” presentations sponsored by the BHEC during the summer will dedicate one evening to the rain garden. The BHEC members hope that his demonstration garden will motive residents and visitors to divert stormwater runoff to a rain garden on their own properties. Lavallette Department of Public Works, Lavallette The Borough of Lavallette, with help from volunteers from the community, will design and establish “Island Bay Front Gardens” – an environmentally-responsible landscape for the Lavallette Bay Front. “Island Bay Front Gardens” will be created through careful design and planning, which includes soil testing and selection of plant species native to the Barnegat Bay watershed and the coastal region. The objectives of this garden are: reduce non point source pollution by developing and adopting Integrated Pest Management methods and use of organic, slow-release nitrogen fertilizers, eliminate the need for irrigation systems by careful plant and site selection, achieve public participation with all stages of the project, educate the community on the benefits of the gardens features, and provide access to the bay by way of a low impact (clam shell) foot path. Educational signage will also be located in the garden to provide a greater understanding of the garden’s benefits to visitors. Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences, Loveladies Through creation of the “premiere Coastal Rain Garden on Long Beach Island” in a high-visibly location, the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences (LBIF) hopes to achieve their project’s three-pronged goal: 1) use this garden as an educational demonstration project to instruct the mechanics of future rain gardens on Long Beach Island, 2) use the garden as the centerpiece for public outreach and education efforts on water quality issues and habitat enhancement for the Barnegat Bay ecosystem, and 3) promote the artistic use of the garden setting for art and music programs. In addition, the garden itself will remedy a low-lying area on the LBIF property that retains standing water near the facility entrance. The garden’s proposed location, on the east side of the LBIF property directly adjacent to Long Beach Boulevard in Loveladies, makes the garden prominent and visible to passersby, as well as to the more than 30,000 people served by the organization each year. To further educate the community on the benefits of rain gardens, the LBIF will produce a flier (on recycled paper) and distribute it to local groups, landscapers, and include in realtor packets. Visit the LBIF website for more information or to get involved. Master Gardeners Association of Ocean County, Inc., Toms River With this minigrant funding, the Master Gardeners of Ocean County, will publish and distribute a 2010 gardening calendar that will inform and educate the public of environmentally-friendly horticultural practices. The theme of the calendar will be how fertilizers and horticultural practices impact the health of the Barnegat Bay ecosystem and the native plant and animal species that reside there. Each month, the calendar will have a gardening “to do” list. This list will include reminders for when and when not to fertilize, soil testing advice, and good watering practices, among other things. Calendars will be made available this fall through Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program, among other Ocean County locations. For more information about the Master Gardeners Association of Ocean County, visit their website. Nellie F. Bennett Elementary School, Point Pleasant Thanks to several motivated teachers at their school, 3rd – 5th grade students at Nellie F. Bennett Elementary will receive special interactive lessons and presentations about the importance of the Barnegat Bay ecosystem, what is threatening its health, and what they can do to protect this great resource. Direct instruction will come primarily from an education specialist from Jenkinson’s Aquarium, in addition to hands-on activities, such as the Enviroscape Model®. These activities will cover many subjects including math, reading, writing, geography, and science. New Jersey Audubon Society, Bernardsville A select group of teachers from the Toms River Regional School District will participate in a five-day summer institute lead by the New Jersey Audubon Society with the goal of more effectively integrating the district’s K-12 science curriculum with inquiry-based learning using environmental issues. Through real-life experiences, interactions with local natural resource experts, and focused facilitation, these teachers will use the Barnegat Bay watershed as the foundation for teaching about relevant environmental issues as identified as priority issues in the BBNEP Strategic Plan (i.e. water quality degradation and eutrophication in the estuary). In addition to this specialized training, teachers will receive a variety of New Jersey-specific curricula and resource materials to supplement their existing curricula. Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, Toms River Through the “Sustainable Landscapes Education Project”, Extension Agents Rich Mohr and Cara Muscio will help to address water quality degradation and water supply/flow issues by increasing the adoption of landscaping best management practices among property managers and homeowners in the Barnegat Bay watershed. To accomplish this, they will establish six “Sustainable Landscaping Demonstration and Education Sites” in Ocean County, and then assess and analyze the practices used at those sites, which will include the use of rain barrels, native vegetation, and other bay-friendly practices. A website will also be created to provide educational materials about the best management practices being utilized. Native Gardeners of Seaside Park and the Borough of Seaside Park The “Native Vegetation Education, Outreach and Native Garden Walking Tour,” is a multi-phased effort with partners including: the Native Gardeners of Seaside Park, the Borough of Seaside Heights, the American Littoral Society, the Urban Coast Institute of Monmouth University, Save Barnegat Bay, and now, the BBNEP. The goal for this project is to protect, restore, and enhance the Barnegat Bay ecosystem through education about and promotion of native gardens and rain gardens as remediation strategies for development practices that have damaged the watershed. Through this partnership project, 14 residential properties ("native gardeners") in the Borough to serve as “model” native coastal gardens participating in the educational walking tour. These properties will also each display educational signage about their garden and its benefits to the local ecosystem. Through a matching grant from the Urban Coast Institute, the Borough will also plant a demonstration native vegetation rain garden on public land, which will be included on the educational walking tour. Brochures and posters for the walking tour will also be produced through this project. The BBNEP Research and Implementation Grant Program The BBNEP provides annual funding to help underwrite the cost of projects which address priority issues and actions established by the Program and its partners. Typically, these projects call into two categories: research and monitoring, and implementation. Current research and monitoring projects * Dr. Michael Kennish and Scott Haag of Rutgers University will be conducting research in the bay during summer 2008 with the objective of developing a robust indicator of nutrient over-enrichment for the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary. The objective of this work is to apply a robust indicator of nutrient over-enrichment for the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary that will yield rapid detection of early eutrophication during the plant growing season. This indicator will thus have great utility for future monitoring of estuarine condition in the system at a significant reduction of time and cost relative to traditional seagrass surveys. Since it is too labor-intensive and costly to conduct estuary-wide seagrass surveys on an annual basis, the tracking of eutrophic condition in the estuary must be based on statistically sound sampling linked to an innovative approach. More specifically, they will collect data on the ratio of leaf nitrogen concentration to leaf mass of eelgrass (Zostera marina) samples from disjunctive seagrass beds along the estuary gradient. Quantitative measures will then be calculated to generate a matrix of values from which the eutrophic condition of the estuary can be determined during the plant growing season. Leaf nitrogen content has been shown to provide an accurate integrated measure of environmental nitrogen experienced by eelgrass in other estuarine systems as noted above. This work will apply this measure to the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary to determine eutrophic condition. This data will be used in Outreach and Education, specifically with the JCNERR and Tuckerton Seaport with their new monthly “Lunch-N-Learn” public seminar series. They also plan to hire a teacher to work “in the field” with researches and then have the teacher develop a fourth grade curriculum devoted to shallow bays and the impacts of Eutrophication on Estuarine Systems. This project is expected to be complete by fall 2009. *ReClam the Bay, LLC, a not for profit organization that developed out of the Shellfish Restoration Project work of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, will develop and implement a state approved training certification for Shellfish Gardeners. The goal of this project is to develop a state approved training and certification program for shellfish gardeners. There are two primary objectives: by December of 2008 twenty-five ReClam the Bay volunteers will have been trained and certified to raise shellfish using State of New Jersey approved gardening techniques, and by December of 2008 twenty-five ReClam the Bay volunteers will have helped to educate more than 5,000 people concerning water quality issues in the Barnegat Bay Watershed. * Building on his research on Barnegat Bay's blue crabs, Rider University biologists Paul Jivoff, Ph.D., and his research team will research current population structure, reproductive potential and fishing effort for the blue crabs in the Barnegat Bay. Blue crabs are one of the most important commercial and recreationally fished species in New Jersey. Importance of the population of this crab being abundant has increased almost 10-fold over the last three decades. Also, during this time the blue crab population has declined drastically. There is a poor understanding of the current status of our crab population, which makes it critical to gather information. Rider University researchers will also assess the seasonal availability and habitat use patterns of blue crabs in Barnegat Bay. They also plan to examine the relative abundance and population structure of the adult blue crabs in the Barnegat Bay using field sampling traps out of Rutgers University Marine Field Station. This project is expected to be completed by spring 2009. * Researchers Ron Baker, Ph.D. and Christine Wieben of the U.S. Geological Survey New Jersey Water Science Center are working to determine the sources of nitrogen inputs to the highly eutrophic Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary. Since determining the relative importance of these nitrogen sources is difficult, but critical to effective management of nutrient loadings, such a determination is needed so that management actions may be properly prioritized and accurately justified. In order to determine the relative importance of different nitrogen sources, they are first going to identify the relevant information that is currently available, update nitrogen loading estimates, and formulate plans for a nitrogen-source assessment. This information will be critical in designing a cost-effective study to determine the sources of NPS nitrogen inputs. This project is expected to be completed by winter 2009. *In partnership with Monmouth University, Birdsall Engineering, Inc. is working on a Bacterial Source Tracking Project in Silver Bay. The goal of the project is to utilize GIS technology and Bacterial Source Tracking methodologies to determine specific sources of fecal pollution in the Silver Bay watershed (a sub-watershed of the Barnegat Bay watershed) and to identify applicable best management practices that can be employed to address the identified fecal sources. Current implementation projects * In order to create a “one-stop shopping” location for all information, data, and reports relevant to the Barnegat Bay estuary and its watershed, the BBNEP is working to create an Information Management System for the current BBNEP website. This project is being coordinated by the BBNEP in partnership with the United States Geological Survey. The new website additions will feature user-friendly graphics which will allow the user to find the information they are looking for by topic area either on the BBNEP site, or linked to one of our partners’ websites where Barnegat Bay-related data and reports are available. Similar projects have been completed by the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary Program and the Chesapeake Bay Program (www.eyesonthebay.net). *The newly formed BBNEP Sustainable Communities Workgroup is working on developing mechanisms and incentives for builders, developers, planners, and municipal officials in the Barnegat Bay watershed to implement best management practices and low impact design strategies when designing and constructing residential and commercial buildings. The workgroup is using the “Builders for the Bay” program created by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, the Center for Watershed Protection, and the National Association of Home Builders as a model for how municipalities, developers, and environmental organizations can come together in an effort to minimize the damage to the Barnegat Bay from increased runoff and the fragmentation of wooded areas. * The Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program is a partnership between Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, the BBNEP, the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders, the NJDEP Bureau of Shellfisheries, and the Natural Resource Education Foundation of New Jersey. The goals of this program are to involve volunteers from the watershed in the revitalization of the clam and oyster populations in Barnegat Bay and educate the citizens of the watershed about the importance of shellfish to the bay and how they, as citizens, can work to improve the bay’s ecology through improved stewardship. Please click here for more information.
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The Barnegat Bay National Estuary Program (BBNEP) supports projects through competitive Requests For Proposals (RFPs), minigrants, and other funding mechanisms. The following list highlights examples of the projects currently being supported by the BBNEP.