Save Barnegat Bay

Advocacy campaignsour advocacy work was focused on local issues. Our largest advocacy effort was to oppose the nrd settlement between basf and the njdep and later to work to submit an appeal of the settlement decision. We finalized the preservation of 32 acres of woodland in breton woods, brick township. We continued our efforts to help lacey township with bayfront erosion issues at forked river beach. We fought and helped empower community members to fight over-development proposals in various municipalities. Some of our activities included; work with our colleagues on bottle bill and epr plastics legislation and education. We continued our work to enforce wetlands and transition area protections in and around the metedeconk neck and the forsythe national wildlife refuge in brick township and other areas within the Barnegat Bay watershed. We participated in many local, state and federal meetings, issues and programs related to the protection and restoration of Barnegat Bay. We also assisted neighbors with local questions and environmental issues.

Projectswe continued to collect and press plant specimens for the emily decamp herbarium at island beach state park and the collection which is housed at Georgian court university. We continued to add to our collection that is housed at our ecocenter which is open to the public. We also worked to improve and maintain 5 native plant gardens. We hosted boy scout troop 50, as well as a frontier girls group along with opening up our facilities to local partners who need a meeting space.

Public education and outreach programs during 2023, we hosted or participated in 103 educational or outreach events either at our ecocenter or around the watershed. These programs included our summer steam program, student grant program, and yacht club programs. We also visited schools and clubs, and hosted over 1,000 toms river students at the ecocenter. We hosted a variety of cleanups at our ecocenter and around the watershed. We also hosted adult programs as well which included outdoor rain barrel workshops for various towns and organizations, screenings of our documentary drift, and talks regarding ongoing work on grant projects and other initiatives. In total we were able to reach over 6,800 community members from at least 20 different towns. We also continued three grant funded programs to 1) coordinate the scrubbing of bulkheads in lagoon communities to help abate jellyfish polyp growth and educate the public, 2) continued a pathogen track-down project with six towns around the basin of the toms river with a "find-it and fix-it" approach, and 3) continued to work on our educational campaign for municipalities about stormwater and the ms4 permit program and responsibilities.