Letter To The Editor: Shark River Needs Help Now

The Shark River is dying. Many promises have been made with no results. If there was another simple solution the river would have been dredged 15 years ago.

Eighteen acres along the river was given to Wall for free that was to benefit all the people. This Wall Township site is our only hope for a viable economical dredging solution. Wall and all the other towns have had the mud runoff after a rain, which has filled the river for the last 40 years with no solution to help remove it.

Wall Township & Mayor, Mr Hoffman, please be good neighbors as you have recently asked of others. Let the NJDEP reevaluate the land at the Camp Evans Site. If they approve, let it be used as the clean dewatering site. Dredging may start this summer and bring this valuable resource back to life.

The head of the DEP said that if Wall works with them the project can move forward.

Sean Kean, please recheck the facts. The original dredging project is for all the state Channels, including Wall. As our Assemblyman, you represent all the people. Mr. Kean & Mr. Rible as you both stated in 2009 you “would not let politics get in the way and you would not stop working until the river was brought back to health.”

The following all have been rejected: Mud sediments pumped off shore, Belmar’s Maclearie Park, create another island, fill Musquash Cove.

Assemblyman Rible, you are sponsoring a bill to help with dredging projects, start with the Shark River.

The river pollution after a rain is not safe for your children in the recreation sailing program; beaches are closed. Both the DEP & Clean Ocean have had the sediments tested and they are safe. Not like the misinformation that was presented back in 2008. Also, if any contaminants were to be found, the DEP is fully responsible.

Eight hundred thousand pounds of dead fish, the surge of water from Sandy, water pollution, channels not navigable, clams, and shellfish not edible. Next, the green head flies will invade the Shark River as it turns into a salt marsh just like the back of the Barnegat Bay. This will also affect the 9th Avenue Pier and the other surrounding businesses and homeowners.

Who will step up and help? This has been going on longer than any gridlock in Washington. Aren’t we all neighbors who can work this out for all to benefit? This is no longer an inconvenience. The truck traffic would be minimal.

Approve the first step and the long overdue Dredging project starts. This would be only the first stage to build a living sea wall to protect the land around the river and to bring the rest of the sea life back to health.

How can anyone be against it? Contact your Mayor, councilman, Assemblyman, Freeholder, the papers and your neighbors. Let them know you are in favor. The funding & project have been approved. I have much more information on this.

Thank you,

John F. Dempsey
Friends of Shark River