Ride the Brown Tide

The NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) website said yesterday's beach and water conditions were "good."

Good.  Really? 

This picture was taken yesterday at Monmouth Beach at 2 PM.

Would you swim in this water? 

A friend of mine did.  He spent four hours surfing near Avon.  He said the water was so filthy that surfers were leaving with itching skin in search of a shower.  He couldn't remember worse water quality conditions, even during the 70's and 80's when things were really bad.

Whether the DEP wants to admit it or not, NJ has a significant water quality problem.  A result of overdevelopment on the shore, outdated sewer and stormwater management systems, global warming, and nutrient pollution run-off,  the Shore is continually threatened by harmful algal blooms.  

The DEP will inevitably attribute this brown tide to nature running its course, pointing out the historical occurance of such events.  What they will fail to mention, however, is the increased frequency and size of these algal blooms. 

Brown tides like this one are disgusting, though they are not nearly as big a risk to tourism and human health as red tides and other harmful algal blooms.  In NJ, the conditions are ripe, however, for more severe incidents to occur. 

That's because the coastal ecosystem in NJ is out of whack. 

Far more must be done to monitor, protect and restore NJ's fragile coastal ecosystem and to prevent harmful algal blooms. 

In future blogs I plan to tackle  some of the issues at play with NJ's marine water quality.  In the meantime, here are a few more pictures of yesterday's surf.