​The last weekend of September was all about oysters at the American Littoral Society.

Society staff attended festivals in Asbury Park and Red Bank at which we recycled shucked oyster shells by the bucket full.

On Friday and Saturday, Sept.  24 and 25, we were at AsburyFest talking about the Society's Operation Oyster work, including our "Shuck It, Don't Chuck It" oyster shell recycling program, as well as how those shells are being used to help restore bays, estuaries and beaches in New Jersey.

On Sunday, Sept. 26, we pitched our tent at the Red Bank Guinness & Oyster Fest for a crazy day of talking about our work in the Two Rivers area, while collecting the shells from about 8,000 oysters consumed by festival attendees.

Shells collected from those events pushed our total shell collected this year from participating restaurants to nearly five tons. The recycled shell is trucked to our curing site on Sandy Hook, where they spend about a year in the sun before being used for living shoreline and reef projects around NJ.

Click here to learn more about our shell recycling program, Operation Oyster, and reef building projects. 

Despite delays and weather issues, over 25 volunteers and local homeowners joined the Littoral Society on Saturday, August 21 to help restore a salt marsh and create a hybrid living shoreline on Shark River Island in Neptune Township, NJ.
 
The work on the living shoreline was part of a larger project to stabilize an eroding shoreline that is owned by Seaview at Shark River Island Homeowners Association (a community of approximately 200 townhouses).
 
"While calling a waterfront community home has many benefits, it also brings unique challenges," said Michael Brantley, Mayor of Neptune Township. "This partnership, including Monmouth County, the Seaview Island Homeowners Association, Neptune Township, and the American Littoral Society, is making an incredible impact and will protect the lives and property of our residents, as well keeping our shoreline beautiful, for generations to come.”
 
The project also involves Stockton University, The Nature Conservancy, and private companies (including ECOncrete and Renova Environmental Services), which brought either additional expertise for engineering and monitoring of a project that combines natural solutions - such as the living shoreline - with hard barriers, like concrete mattresses or additional funding.

After nearly 30 years of lawsuits and negotiations, the dispute over 100 acres of privately-owned, environmentally sensitive wetlands in Cape May has finally been resolved, with the outcome guaranteeing the property won't be developed.

The owners of the property, East Cape May Associates, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection completed an agreement in mid-August that will preserve the property in its natural state by transferring ownership to the state for $19 million. This tract represents the last privately held contiguous open space in Cape May and is located near the town's Coast Guard Training Center. 

"The American Littoral Society welcomes the news of the preservation of the East Cape May Associates tract at Sewell Point in Cape May City," said Tim Dillingham, Executive Director of the Littoral Society. "The Littoral Society has fought to protect this property from development for approximately 25 years, having participated as amicus in numerous legal proceedings, including two appellate arguments and a six-year mediation lead by the late Supreme Court Justice Daniel O'Hern.
 
"Its environmental values, significance and sensitivities warrant its preservation," Dillingham said. "We commend the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Concerned Citizens for Sewell Tract Preservation (a nonprofit that formed about seven years ago as a plaintiff intervenor in the long-running litigation), and the other litigants for achieving this result."

On Monday, July 26 the Littoral Society Restoration Corps and South Jersey Watersavers went to the NJ's Cumberland County Library to talk with kids about Critters, Creeks and Coasts. The hour-long program focused on freshwater benthic macroinvertebrates, rain barrels, and oyster reefs in the Delaware Bay.

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. ​