Brick Residents Brave Rain, Mud to Protect Barnegat Bay

Brick residents and volunteers braved rain, wind and lots of mud to help make Barnegat Bay a cleaner waterway on Thursday.

With rain still pouring down, a number of volunteers gathered at John Zingis' home along the Tunes Brook Branch of Kettle Creek in the early afternoon, fresh off trudging through water sometimes waste-deep, cleaning up trash and helping the state identify unmarked outfall pipes that lead to the estuary.

"I have a hair dryer in the bathroom," Zingis said, as his fellow volunteers shed their waders and grabbed towels to dry off after hours of work.

Zingis, a township resident who operates Air Land and Sea Environmental Management, partnered with GTS Consultants of Freehold and the state Department of Environmental Protection to help improve the health of the bay watershed as part of the state's Barnegat Bay Blitz.

The volunteers cleaned up trash along creeks, in wooded areas, on school grounds, around lakes, and from marshes across the 660-square-mile watershed that encompasses 37 municipalities, 33 in Ocean County and four in Monmouth County.

“The enthusiasm today has been amazing despite the weather,” said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin, who joined volunteers in picking up trash from several locations around the bay.

Multiple groups from Brick cleaned up trash from the banks of creeks and streams in the township, and Zingis' group complimented their cleanup efforts with a special assignment: identifying outfall pipes, legal or illegal, which lead to the bay.

The group was joined by Kerri Standowski from the DEP, who said such outfall pipes can go unmapped, meaning the DEP does not know what type of material is flowing into the bay and where it's coming from.

Despite the rain, "it was actually a lot of fun," she said of the blitz, acknowledging that the occasionally deep water made for some adventurous moments, all worth it.

The group pulled multiple bags of refuse from the creek but "I know that our team wished we could have done more," Zingis said. "There is so much more in the creek and I’m afraid that this is merely the tip of the iceberg."

Zingis, an environmental engineer and avid recreational fisherman, said plastics were the most commonly found item, and suggested a bottle deposit program be instituted in New Jersey.

"I think the biggest thing we can take away from our cleanup work, is the fact that plastic floatables replaces Styrofoam as the greatest source of visible pollution going into Barnegat Bay," he said.

Wednesday's blitz event was the second of its kind, the first having been held last October. It was also the second that occurred on a rainy, miserable day.

Over 4,000 volunteers were expected county-wide.