Superstorm Sandy left a 22-mile trail of debris along the fragile tidal marshes and woodlands of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, which protects more than 47,000 acres of southern New Jersey coastal habitats. Although an initial assessment of the area was conducted last December to survey the property and remove any highly toxic items, most of the wreckage, such as rooftops, boats, docks, household chemicals and drums that may contain contaminants, among other items, was left untouched.
| Photo via Asbury Park Press Cedar Run resident, Ray Fisk, traipses through the debris left by Sandy at the Forsythe Refuge. |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which received nearly $65 million in federal emergency funding for projects at national wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries damaged during the 2012 storm, recently awarded a nearly $4 million contract to New York-based Coastal Environmental Group Inc. to help restore these environmentally sensitive coastal areas.
“Forsythe Refuge’s marshes buffered inland areas from the full brunt of Hurricane Sandy. Nature is our best defense against future storms, and we will clean and restore this vibrant and resilient stretch of coast to sustain wildlife and protect the people of New Jersey in the future,” said Refuge Manager Virginia Rettig.
The project is set to begin in Brick Township, followed by Stafford and Eagleswood townships, where the bulk of the debris is located. It will then proceed through additional zones in Ocean, Burlington and Atlantic counties. Some debris will be removed using tracked vehicles to minimize damage to the marshes, and some will be cleared by boats and specialized watercraft. The entire cleanup should be completed by next spring.
Coastal, a small, minority-owned business, has a proven track record of working with the federal government on major environmental projects, such as the response to Hurricane Katrina and remediation at Superfund sites. Earlier this year, it worked on a post-Sandy debris removal project at Fire Island, N.Y.
Clint Whitton, the company’s project manager for the debris cleanup, said Coastal is committed to providing jobs and supporting businesses in the local area. The company is in the process of hiring local personnel to staff work crews.
Coastal began on-the-ground reconnaissance last week to develop a strategy for the work. Service biologists and independent project inspectors are advising the company throughout the development. The evaluation is expected to take a few weeks.
“We’re going to be looking very closely at the kind of equipment that they’re using and how they’re going to access the sites, what routes they’re going to take and where they might have staging areas. They have a lot of homework to do on how to best access each area,” said Rettig.
“The only saving grace of this situation is we are not in an industrialized zone; the debris came from largely residential and commercial areas like Long Beach Island and Mantoloking. It’s the kind of stuff you might expect when homes and small businesses were inundated with water. There’s certainly still a concern about the accumulation and potential contamination of lower-level hazards such as paint and household cleaning products, which are still out there and are still a concern for everyone’s safety and for the environment in general. So we’re eager to get out there and start cleaning it up,” she added.
The refuge is one of the most important habitats for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds east of the Mississippi River. Officials are especially concerned about the habitat, which has had debris sitting on it for nearly a year.
“We’re going to be coming behind the cleanup, looking at the impacts of not only the debris, but the cleanup itself,” Rettig stated. “The biggest concern right now is that these areas have probably become depressed, or have sunk a little bit, because of the weight of the debris. We’re also worried about the killing of the vegetation that’s sitting under the debris right now. We had a whole growing season where we had debris on it, so we’re eager to get it off to make an evaluation.”
Refuge officials do not expect to have any clear information regarding the effects of the debris on the habitat until later in the spring.
Although some residents inquired about personal property after the storm, Rettig said officials would not be pursuing individual homeowners to help reunite them with their belongings during the cleanup.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and the contract is for debris removal and not to find owners’ individual pieces of property,” Rettig said. “I would imagine that after this amount of time, things are pretty broken down and, quite frankly, picked over. There have been a lot of people back there over the last year,” she added.
For more information about Sandy recovery efforts at national wildlife refuges, visit fws.gov/refuge/edwin_b_forsythe.
–Kelley Anne Essinger
–Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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