Beaches in northern Monmouth County are reopened Tuesday after dozens of
needles washed up
over the weekend along the Jersey Shore, briefly closing swimming Sunday afternoon at Seven
Presidents Park in Long Branch.
The theory from environmental experts is the needles come
from overflowing sewer and storm drains in the New York Harbor area, and when
conditions are right, they end up on the beaches. But Commissioner Tom
Arnone wants an investigation by the NJ DEP because he says there were just so
many needles concentrated in a small area.
Lifeguards and beach crews found more than 100 needles
between Long Branch and at Seven Presidents Park.
All swimming areas were open Monday, but lifeguards
were still checking the high-water marks for any leftover needles. Environmentalists
say although not as severe as the 1980s, medical waste and other garbage still
washes on shore on days such as today where there are strong east winds
following heavy rain in the tri state area.
“We've had
deluges, unusual deluges, for example, the recent wash up for the needles,”
says Cindy Zipf, with Clean Ocean Action. “We had the subways of Manhattan get
flushed, that doesn't happen all the time. So, you have all the pipes, all the
subways, you have all the underground infrastructure of the metropolitan New
York and New Jersey area get a wash and get a full flush.”
Zipf says
in a way, the East winds are helpful because people can pick up what they
normally don't see flushed out into the ocean. At the same
time, they become more aware of just how much trash is still floating
offshore.
“It’s not good for tourism but I think we have to
look at beyond just a tourism and this is what the marine environment has to
deal with all the time,” says
Zipf.
The New
Jersey DEP has confirmed the needles found were at home type diabetic syringes.
They washed up on shore as a result of the rains prior to enduring Tropical
Storm Elsa, combined with the East winds, which followed Saturday.
No
additional needles have been found since, and all beaches
are open.
Here
is the full statement from the New Jersey DEP:
“After high
tide on Sunday, the Monmouth County Health Department notified the DEP that
more than 100 home-use diabetic-type syringes had washed up at Seven Presidents
Park in Long Branch and Monmouth Beach. To protect public health and the safety
of beachgoers, parks and beach patrol staff, as well as lifeguards and members
of the Monmouth County Health Department, removed the debris, also known as
floatables, and placed them in appropriate disposal containers. Joline and
Atlantic Avenue beaches, both in Long Branch, and Pavilion Beach, in Monmouth
Beach, were closed.
The beaches
have since reopened for swimming after extensive raking overnight and during
the early morning that found no additional floatables. The Monmouth County
Health Department conducted additional inspections at each property and found
the beaches suitable for reopening today.
The
floatables came from outfalls in and around the NY/NJ Harbor following Combined
Sewer Overflows from large rain events prior to and during Tropical Storm Elsa.
The overflows, in addition to wind direction and tides, directed the floatables
onto the beaches from Pavilion Beach in Monmouth Beach to Joline in Long
Branch.
Combined
sewer systems are shared underground piping networks that direct both sewage
and stormwater to a central treatment system before being discharged into a
waterway. During heavy rainfall, the systems overflow, discharging mixed sewage
and stormwater to the waterway.
Beach
patrols, lifeguards and park staff will monitor the situation throughout the
next high tide cycle and notify local health authorities if any additional
floatables are found or wash up on the beaches.
New Jersey
has one of the most successful beach monitoring programs in the nation, known
as the Cooperative Coastal Monitoring Program, which uses a variety of
initiatives to monitor recreational beach water quality from mid-May to
mid-September every year. Throughout the beach season, the Cooperative Coastal
Monitoring Program coordinated by the DEP utilizes the resources of the state,
counties, and local governments to regularly sample bathing beaches for
bacteria, complemented by DEP aerial monitoring. Accordingly, water samples
from New Jersey ocean beaches are within the standard more than 99 percent of
the time.”