Festival Raises Awareness, Celebrates The Barnegat Bay

The 15th-Annual Barnegat Bay Festival was bigger this year than ever before, according to festival organizers.

This year’s festival had a record setting number of vendors and exhibitors, and the 'best weather,' said Program Director L. Stanton 'Stan' Hales Jr., Ph.D. of the Barnegat Bay Partnership.

For the fifth year in a row, the festival was held at the waterfront Wanamaker Complex in Island Heights.

“We all come here to work, to celebrate the bay,” said Hales.

Despite a ten minute thunderstorm interruption, crowds gathered from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Organizations including the Sierra Club, Friends of Island Beach State Park, and the Jacques Cousteau Coastal Education Center come to the festival every year to spread awareness about protecting the bay and local waterways.

Sponsored by the Barnegat Bay Partnership with support from its sponsors, the festival offered activities and exhibits that sparked the interest of people of all ages.

One of 28 Congressionally designated estuary programs throughout the United States, the Barnegat Bay Partnership (formerly known as the Barnegat Bay National Estuary Association), works to improve the health of Barnegat Bay and its surrounding waterways.

The Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor estuary reaches over 42 miles of shoreline from the Point Pleasant Canal at its northern tip to Little Egg Harbor Inlet at its southern end.

It is the Barnegat Bay Partnership organization’s priority to protect this entire system as well as its 'watershed,' which include the barrier beaches, wetlands, and dunes. 

The watershed is the area of land, over 600 square miles, that makes up the Barnegat Bay’s drainage system.

Almost all of Ocean County and parts of Monmouth County make up Barnegat Bay’s watershed, in which over 560,000 people reside.

Research, education, and restoration are primary goals of the Barnegat Bay Partnership.

The festival is a place for the Partnership to present its mission to the public through various presentations and exhibitions, said Hales.

Other organizations which serve and protect the environment also took the opportunity to provide education on environmentally sensitive habitats and biological resources in the area.                

Throughout the day children crowded around the touch tank provided by the Atlantic City Aquarium and planted seeds in take home pots.

Local artists and craft makers sold an array of items, from windmills made from recycled beer cans to homemade jewelry.

Many vendors and exhibitors are long time festival returners.

Jewelry and ornament artist Linda King has been selling at the Barnegat Bay Festival 'as long as it’s been going on,' she said.

Blake Rivas was there representing The Weather Vane, an organization dedicated to sharing knowledge about weather and oceans. A retired chemical engineer and member of the American Meteorological Society, Rivas said he has a lot of fun as a Boy Scout Counselor.

Rivas said he enjoys teaching kids about the importance of studying the ocean and weather.

Rivas uses a 'water tornado' device made out of plastic bottles to demonstrate the effects of weather on water.

This year, the winner of the Barnegat Bay Partnership’s Community Caretaker Award are the Potter Creek Crusaders, a group sixth-grade students and their teachers who work on local environmental projects.

“They went above and beyond the call of duty,” Hales said as he presented the Potter Creek Crusaders with their award.

Food vendors offered everything from 'shrimp just about every way' from the 'Shrimpman' to meat pies and other Scottish delights from Cameron’s Market.

Children and others favoring the sweet tooth enjoyed treats from 'The Treat Trailor' and sweet kettle corn made from the local favorite Jersey corn.

“There’s never been a better time to celebrate the bay,” said Hales.