A celebratory crowd gathered on Ocean Gate, NJ's Wildwood Avenue Pier on Thursday, July 29. They turned out for the American Littoral Society's 6th Annual Parade of Boats.

The parade transferred bags of shell seeded with oyster larvae from our oyster nursery/spat tank on the pier to a restored oyster reef off Good Luck Point.

This event is part of our work with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection funded Forked River Beach Oyster Reef Restoration project, which involves creating oyster reefs to protect an eroding shoreline. That project will also provide needed habitat and improve water quality through the eventual addition of up to 70 million oyster larvae.

The nursery and parade are part of the Littoral Society's Operation Oyster program, which aims to improve water quality in New Jersey's bays and estuaries, as well as improve coastal resiliency through re-establishing natural oyster reefs.
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The Littoral Society’s Operation Oyster initiative also involves work in the Delaware Bay and New Jersey’s Two Rivers area, as well as the “Shuck It, Don’t Chuck It” shell recycling program.

Please join the American Littoral Society on Thursday, July 29 for our 6th Annual Parade of Boats. Festivities will begin at 11 a.m. and conclude with participants escorting bags of oyster babies to our reef site off Good Luck Point in Barnegat Bay.

Everyone is invited to join us on Wildwood Avenue Pier and anyone with a boat can join the parade.

Those who attend will get to look at oyster larvae growing on shell in our on-site spat tank, as well as learn about the life cycle of oysters, their history in New Jersey waters, and why our bays and estuaries benefit from their restoration. ​

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Draft 2018-2020 Integrated Water Quality Assessment Report is out now for public comment. The report is focused on the Upper and Lower Delaware Basin within NJ. 

You can find the report here and view the release announcement here.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that each state establish water quality standards to meet the goal to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters” (33 U.S.C §1251(a)). The water quality standards lay out uses for each waterbody, criteria needed to meet those uses, and protections for those uses.

In early June, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Congressman A. Donald McEachin (D-VA) reintroduced the Environmental Justice Legacy Pollution Cleanup Act, a bill aimed at eliminating pollution that has disproportionately harmed communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income communities for generations. 

The bill is wholeheartedly supported by the American Littoral Society.

“Fixing our water and sewer systems is a matter of racial justice," said Tim Dillingham, Executive Director of the Littoral Society. "Communities that were once redlined are now twice as likely to live with toxic flooding, lead pipes and unfishable riverfronts. Senator Booker and Congressman McEachin’s bill is a welcome step to bring clean water and green jobs where they’re needed most. We urge local and federal lawmakers to work together to bring these investments home to the Delaware Valley.”

This critical legislation would invest over $200 billion to clean up legacy pollution. It is co-sponsored by Senators Schatz (D-HI), Smith (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Whitehouse (D-RI), Wyden (D-OR), Sanders (I-VT), Duckworth (D-IL), Markey (D-MA), Gillibrand (D-NY), Van Hollen (D-MD), Warren (D-MA), Blumenthal (D-CT), Merkley (D-OR) and Padilla (D-CA).

​NJ State Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman (R-16) was recognized for his outstanding contributions to coastal conservation at the American Littoral Society Members Day on Saturday, June 26.

The Littoral Society also saluted restaurateur Marilyn Scholassbach and the NJ Field Office and Coastal Program of the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) for their coastal conservation efforts. The Society was pleased to have Sen. Bateman and his family at the event to receive the award, along with a Danielle McCulloch Prosser for the USFWS.

The awards were just one aspect of the annual celebration for Littoral Society members, which took place at Society Headquarters from 9 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The event included seining, a botany walk, birding, shell scavenger hunt, a beach cleanup, and the annual Board of Trustees election – which was followed by a catered lunch and live music. ​

On Saturday, April 24, a group of hardy volunteers waded into the cold waters of Beaverdam Creek to place recycled Christmas trees between cribbing, where they will help reverse erosion that has been eating away at the shoreline of Slade Dale Nature Preserve for a century. The structures will help slow water flowing through the eroded area and capture sediment carried by the current.

Located in New Jersey's Point Pleasant Borough, the Sanctuary’s pine-oak forest, hardwood swamp, and salt marsh provide a space of protected wilderness in an otherwise heavily developed coastal area of NJ. The salt marsh at Slade Dale helps protect uplands from flooding during storms. It also provides nursery habitat for fish, and foraging habitat for birds such as osprey, egrets, and bald eagles.

The shoreline has eroded approximately 300 feet since 1930, and almost all low marsh habitat has been lost. 

BY TIM DILLINGHAM, ANDREW KRICUN, DON BAUGH | MAY 11, 2021

Perhaps nowhere in the nation are the issues of environmental, social and economic inequities and injustice more evident than in a 27-mile stretch of the Delaware River valley bordered by the cities of Camden, Chester, Philadelphia and Wilmington.

Our country faces a series of challenges that have exposed long-standing vulnerabilities to the health of our environment, our communities and our democracy. In addition, the American Society of Civil Engineers recently graded our nation’s drinking water infrastructure a C- and its wastewater infrastructure a D+, which represents entirely inadequate protection of the public health and the environment.