Mixed grades for the bay Christie must plug some major gaps to reverse decline
When comparing Gov. Chris Christie’s performance to that of his predecessors over the last three decades, it is impossible not to feel positively with respect to Barnegat Bay. Much has been accomplished.
An overview of the Christie administration’s policy toward New Jersey’s largest body of water, however, reveals gaps in his 10-point plan that must be filled if Barnegat Bay’s decline is to be reversed.
Most prominent on the positive side is Christie’s signing into law the strongest-in-the-nation fertilizer law whose basic concepts originated in Save Barnegat Bay’s Lavallette office. Starting in January 2013, any bag of lawn fertilizer a homeowner pulls off a store shelf will have at least 20 percent of its nitrogen in slow-release form. Less polluting nitrogen will be carried by groundwater and runoff to Barnegat Bay.
A second significant area of accomplishment is the increased funding of improved stormwater detention basins. Although the number of upgraded basins is but a tiny percentage of those in the bay’s watershed, these new initiatives will teach us much about how to capture the nitrogen in rainwater on land, before it can run to the bay to become food for harmful algae.
But these focused attempts to benefit Barnegat Bay need to be supplemented by other efforts if the bay’s decline is to be reversed.
The key contributor to the bay’s decline is nitrogen deposited from the atmosphere by rain. On account of excessive burning of fossil fuels, too much nitrogen is already in the rain as it falls. As a result, harmful algae proliferates and chokes out the healthy species in the bay.
By picturing a raindrop falling with too much nitrogen already in it, we can derive four basic policy goals for healing Barnegat Bay.
First, we need to burn less fossil fuel.
Second, we need to end overdevelopment so that forested areas remain to absorb nitrogen and prevent it from reaching the bay.
Third, we need to revamp Ocean County’s stormwater management so that every possible drop of rainwater passes through a planted area for nitrogen removal on land prior to reaching the bay
Fourth, we need to stop adding nitrogen to the bay through the ways we use fertilizer, clean up after our pets and de-ice our sidewalks.
The major and presumably inadvertent failing of Christie’s 10-point plan is that it is silent with regard to clean air policy. Without a concerted effort to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, Barnegat Bay cannot be saved.
The administration’s record on clean air is mixed. On the positive side it has sued the state of Pennsylvania to clean up a huge source of nitrogen emissions from a coal-powered plant across the Delaware River from Warren County.
To the bay’s detriment, however, the Christie administration has withdrawn New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative of 10 northeastern states. This retrograde action can only harm Barnegat Bay.
In the area of land use, the administration has supported a bill in the Legislature that would allow sanitary sewers — and the overdevelopment they enable — to be extended to vast areas of Ocean County. Lakewood, for example, could soon become the third-largest city in the state. Barnegat Bay simply cannot survive such intensive overdevelopment.
A further disappointment is the administration’s allowing the Fukushima-style nuclear reactor at Oyster Creek — America’s oldest — to continue operating without cooling towers until 2019. Between now and then, Oyster Creek will strain a volume of water equal to 2.3 percent of the bay’s total volume of life every day. This is simply unsupportable.
The state Department of Environmental Protection must also acknowledge what the rest of the world knows: Barnegat Bay is environmentally “impaired.” Officially declaring that obvious fact will strengthen regulators’ power to reduce nitrogen inputs.
Finally, the governor must abandon his legally questionable initiative to allow bureaucrats discretion to issue waivers to our state’s fundamental environmental laws. Barnegat Bay deserves to be protected without the threat of behind-the-scenes power brokers pushing through harmful regulatory waivers.
These deficiencies can all be remedied. There are many different ways to address and readdress such problems as air pollution, overdevelopment and the permitting process.
If the Christie administration can fill these gaps with meaningful initiatives, Christie may leave a legacy as a benefactor to Barnegat Bay alongside Gov. Alfred Driscoll, who conserved Island Beach; Gov. William Cahill, who signed the Tidal Wetlands Act; and Gov. Brendan Byrne, who signed the Pinelands Act.
But there is work to be done, and there are strong forces that must be stood up to.
