Attention northern Barnegat Bay boaters I have just learned from another well informed boater that the F-Cove here in Brick,NJ. My or will be closed to boaters. this cove been a favorite of a many of boaters over years pass and more so with the high price of gas. but perhaps people leaving there trash behind or going ashore to relieve them selves maybe the reasons they want to close the cove. as I said before I got a call from a fellow boater and don't have the the facts. so I would like anyone who has some info.
F-Cove "ALERT"
- Thread starter TMcCann
- Start date
How can they just close off a water way? I can see making landings illegal especially when people abuse a place but close the entire water way doesn't seem right.
They tried something similar in our favorite anchorage on the Hudson River, posting signs that all watercraft must remain 750 feet from the shore. Not many people listened thou and I've yet to see it enforced.
Keep us all posted thou.
They tried something similar in our favorite anchorage on the Hudson River, posting signs that all watercraft must remain 750 feet from the shore. Not many people listened thou and I've yet to see it enforced.
Keep us all posted thou.
Rommer:
I'm not sure if you are familiar with F cove, but bascially it's a series of manmade canals shaped like an F that were never developed. I think the original owner/developer got caught up in the wetlands acts. Anyway, I'm not sure I would say that they are actually closing down a compete waterway....more like access to a small section. In my 30 years of boating the Barnegat Bay, I've only been in there once and it was just not my boating 'style'. Many boats, not all, get a little carried away...especially with the alcohol....and then they head out right into the ICW. There have been a few accidents in the area and last season, this is very close to where a fatal late night accident occured.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with F cove, but bascially it's a series of manmade canals shaped like an F that were never developed. I think the original owner/developer got caught up in the wetlands acts. Anyway, I'm not sure I would say that they are actually closing down a compete waterway....more like access to a small section. In my 30 years of boating the Barnegat Bay, I've only been in there once and it was just not my boating 'style'. Many boats, not all, get a little carried away...especially with the alcohol....and then they head out right into the ICW. There have been a few accidents in the area and last season, this is very close to where a fatal late night accident occured.
This area two years ago was posted wild life refuge do not enter beach. at that time I called the State Police to see if boaters where band from the cove and there reply was you can beach your boat but you could not go to shore. well the signs an enforcement didn't last long.
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Does the group "Save Barnegat Bay" own that parcel or is that part of the Pirates Cove fiasco?
More headlines in today's paper:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901310339
BRICK — The F-Cove, a popular weekend boat anchorage near the Mantoloking Bridge, could be used for a first attempt to restore Barnegat Bay's abandoned artificial lagoons and wetlands buried under decades-old fill.
But boaters are upset about plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to eventually limit boat access at F-Cove. In an evolving debate, environmental groups are worried the opportunity to bring more fish, crabs and wildlife to F-Cove could founder over the public access question.
"The issues of restoration and access are two separate issues," said Bill Shadel, director of habitat restoration for the American Littoral Society, who helped organize meetings with the Fish and Wildlife Service and other groups interested in the F-Cove proposal. "The Littoral Society is not advocating closing F-Cove, by any means."
F-Cove is named for the shape of its lagoons, which were dug many years ago for waterfront housing. But the land around it became part of the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in 1991.
In the early years of this decade, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a long report on potential environmental restoration projects on Barnegat Bay, and the old lagoons topped the corps' list as a good prospect for success.
"Inside the lagoons the water is 14 to 17 feet deep. When it's that deep it gets anoxic (oxygen-deprived) in the summer and nothing grows there. So it's not doing much for the fish," refuge manager Steve Atzert said.
Partially filling the lagoons with dredged sediment from navigation projects, and raising the bottom to a depth of 6 feet, would put it within range of sunlight so eelgrass and other aquatic plants could take hold, he said.
Digging new channels between the arms of the F-shaped lagoon and another L-shaped lagoon a few yards to the north "would be an opportunity for the Metedeconk River to flow through the L lagoon to the F lagoon, and out to the bay," Atzert said. That would increase tidal flow and bring more life to the lagoons, he said.
In preliminary talks in December, representatives of agencies and environmental groups liked those ideas, Shadel said. But Atzert told them the Fish and Wildlife Service has its own reasons for keeping powerboaters out of the lagoons.
"There's a lot of partying that goes on back there now," Atzert said. "The primary purpose of refuges is wildlife," as mandated by Congress, he said, followed by wildlife-dependent human uses like hunting, bird-watching and fishing.
"We are definitely interested in changing the kind of boating access that goes on back there," Atzert said.
That's what concerns environmental advocates.
"You have to ask, what is government here for?" said Willie deCamp of Save Barnegat Bay. "This is the second most popular public access on Barnegat Bay, after Tices Shoal at Island Beach. . . . An accommodation ought to be reached."
The wildlife service is thinking about blocking the lagoons with bollards, similar to barriers that block vehicle access at public buildings but allow pedestrian access, deCamp said. That would keep out powerboats but allow kayakers and hunters in duck boats to get in.
The Sandy Hook-based American Littoral Society advocates using clean dredge sediment to restore wetlands, a task it says is critical as sea-level rise erodes coastal marshes. But the society has a much older principle of standing up for public access and does not support blocking the lagoons, Shadel said.
The discussion is in its very early stages — Atzert said there's no funding for the project yet — and nothing can move forward before there is a public hearing and comment period on the draft proposal, which dates to 2003.
There are several restoration options, such as leveling the old sand berms that builders cast up alongside the lagoons, which would make wider beaches that could be used by diamondback terrapins and wading birds, Shadel said.
The state Department of Transportation could provide the lagoon fill from its dredging work. In that scenario, the agency would most likely tow hopper barges filled with sediment into the lagoons and release the loads there, Atzert said. The project cost has been roughly estimated at $1.4 million just using the bermed sand on site, he said.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901310339
BRICK — The F-Cove, a popular weekend boat anchorage near the Mantoloking Bridge, could be used for a first attempt to restore Barnegat Bay's abandoned artificial lagoons and wetlands buried under decades-old fill.
But boaters are upset about plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to eventually limit boat access at F-Cove. In an evolving debate, environmental groups are worried the opportunity to bring more fish, crabs and wildlife to F-Cove could founder over the public access question.
"The issues of restoration and access are two separate issues," said Bill Shadel, director of habitat restoration for the American Littoral Society, who helped organize meetings with the Fish and Wildlife Service and other groups interested in the F-Cove proposal. "The Littoral Society is not advocating closing F-Cove, by any means."
F-Cove is named for the shape of its lagoons, which were dug many years ago for waterfront housing. But the land around it became part of the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in 1991.
In the early years of this decade, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a long report on potential environmental restoration projects on Barnegat Bay, and the old lagoons topped the corps' list as a good prospect for success.
"Inside the lagoons the water is 14 to 17 feet deep. When it's that deep it gets anoxic (oxygen-deprived) in the summer and nothing grows there. So it's not doing much for the fish," refuge manager Steve Atzert said.
Partially filling the lagoons with dredged sediment from navigation projects, and raising the bottom to a depth of 6 feet, would put it within range of sunlight so eelgrass and other aquatic plants could take hold, he said.
Digging new channels between the arms of the F-shaped lagoon and another L-shaped lagoon a few yards to the north "would be an opportunity for the Metedeconk River to flow through the L lagoon to the F lagoon, and out to the bay," Atzert said. That would increase tidal flow and bring more life to the lagoons, he said.
In preliminary talks in December, representatives of agencies and environmental groups liked those ideas, Shadel said. But Atzert told them the Fish and Wildlife Service has its own reasons for keeping powerboaters out of the lagoons.
"There's a lot of partying that goes on back there now," Atzert said. "The primary purpose of refuges is wildlife," as mandated by Congress, he said, followed by wildlife-dependent human uses like hunting, bird-watching and fishing.
"We are definitely interested in changing the kind of boating access that goes on back there," Atzert said.
That's what concerns environmental advocates.
"You have to ask, what is government here for?" said Willie deCamp of Save Barnegat Bay. "This is the second most popular public access on Barnegat Bay, after Tices Shoal at Island Beach. . . . An accommodation ought to be reached."
The wildlife service is thinking about blocking the lagoons with bollards, similar to barriers that block vehicle access at public buildings but allow pedestrian access, deCamp said. That would keep out powerboats but allow kayakers and hunters in duck boats to get in.
The Sandy Hook-based American Littoral Society advocates using clean dredge sediment to restore wetlands, a task it says is critical as sea-level rise erodes coastal marshes. But the society has a much older principle of standing up for public access and does not support blocking the lagoons, Shadel said.
The discussion is in its very early stages — Atzert said there's no funding for the project yet — and nothing can move forward before there is a public hearing and comment period on the draft proposal, which dates to 2003.
There are several restoration options, such as leveling the old sand berms that builders cast up alongside the lagoons, which would make wider beaches that could be used by diamondback terrapins and wading birds, Shadel said.
The state Department of Transportation could provide the lagoon fill from its dredging work. In that scenario, the agency would most likely tow hopper barges filled with sediment into the lagoons and release the loads there, Atzert said. The project cost has been roughly estimated at $1.4 million just using the bermed sand on site, he said.
Latest positive info on F-Cove. http://bulletin.gmnews.com/news/2009/0219/front_page/001.html