Controversial $3 Fee For Boaters To Access Island Beach State Park Is No 'Cash Grab,' DEP spokesman says

by Patricia A. Miller

There’s some good reasons for the new $3 fee for boaters who enter Island Beach State Park through a walkway near Tices Shoal in Barnegat Bay, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman said.

The fee will help pay for the extra lifeguards needed to staff a new third bathing beach farther down the Shore Road at the park, and hopefully save lives, said spokesman Bob Considine.

“The $3 fee is to cover at least some of the costs for lifeguard service that we feel is needed due to the amount of people who have chosen to illegally swim in the previously unguarded area in the past,” he said. ”This is not some cash grab. It’s not a tax. It’s not about generating revenue. It’s about safety and designating a guarded swimming area, plain and simple.”

Every summer lifeguards are repeatedly called to unguarded areas where swimmers are in trouble, he said.

“And that actually has an impact on our bathing areas where swimming is allowed because the guards are drawn to these other illegal swimming areas,” Considine said. ”A-7 is obviously a very popular spot, so we’re providing a lifeguard service at an area where we feel it’s really needed.”

Nevertheless, the fee has generated some controversy.

Berkeley Township Council members were the first to go on record opposing the fee. Now they have some company. The Beachwood Borough Council recently approved a similar resolution.

“This fee penalizes those who access the park at Tice’s Shoal by watercraft,” Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr. said then. “At the main entry gate, pedestrians or bicyclists that use the park for fishing, swimming or other recreational activities, are not charged.”

The resolution claims the fee shortchanges boaters, who already pay boat registration fees that end up being used for non-marine purposes when they should be put toward dredging local channels for better navigation.

And another municipality is posed to approve a similar resolution. Lacey Township Clerk/Administrator Veronica Laureigh confirmed the resolution is on the agenda for the next Lacey Township Committee meeting.

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