Following Super Storm Sandy, Little Egg Harbor Township and Tuckerton Borough jointly applied for and received $2.1 million through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s (NFWF’s) “Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Competitive Grants Program.” The municipalities sought to stem shoreline erosion and provide continued mitigation protections to homeowners in the Iowa Court section of Osbourn Island in Little Egg Harbor and on East Green Street in Tuckerton.
The Barnegat Bay Partnership was asked to provide pre- and post-project implementation monitoring and received funding from the New Jersey Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership in support of our time. The funding also served as a match to the NFWF grant.
BBP staff conducted baseline monitoring in 2017 and 2018 before construction began in the summer of 2019. During the construction phase, the BBP worked with Steve Jacobus of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Information Technology and videographer Kirk Jarvis to document the project using drone, video, and still photos. The end result is a BBP video entitled “Protecting our Shorelines.”
The Barnegat Bay Partnership has received additional funding from Little Egg Harbor (through a NJDEP 319(h) grant the Township received in 2019) to continue monitoring until 2024 and provide technical support to help the municipalities adaptively manage the two projects. We are monitoring the following metrics: position and integrity of structures, elevation changes, vegetation (survivorship of plant plugs, growth, and robustness), bycatch and wrack capture, shellfish presence, and water quality.
