Politics & Government

DEP Proposes Changes to Beach Access Rules

Environmental and advocacy groups worry rule changes could hurt public access.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection under Gov. Chris Christie and Commissioner Bob Martin has proposed a set of changes to public access rules regarding beaches and waterways.

The Public Access Rule will relax stringent access requirements made under former Gov. Jon Corzine's DEP. Rather than enforcing overall state mandates for access, the DEP says it will work alongside local officials to craft access plans tailored specifically for those towns.

"The DEP will work with towns and cities to craft access plans that make local sense and protect the rights and needs of residents and businesses, instead of imposing one-size-fits-all, state-dictated access rules," Martin said in a press release. "The Department, however, still has final authority to approve any municipal access plans. The plans must ultimately meet the needs of the public.''

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To some who advocate for public waterway access, leaving the ability to regulate access to municipalities is precisely the problem.

Advocates have spoken out against the proposed rule changes since they were first brought up in August of 2010. The danger, they say, is that putting more control over access in the hands of local officials is likely to result in less meaningful access for the public.

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John Weber of the Surfrider Foundation believes that it is the towns who have the worst record when it comes to providing access.

"We think the towns do have a bad track record," Weber said, referring to a "half dozen" towns in the state that provide severely limited access to beaches and waterways.

Weber says the Surfrider Foundation has sued or threatened to sue four towns in the last 15 years over issues involving usage and access.

"There's just so many instances where the towns were restricting access. It doesn't make sense to us to give more power back to the towns regarding access," Weber said.

The proposed rule changes would also no longer directly tie public funding to access. Advocates say this could lead to taxpayer money being spent on beaches that the taxpayers themselves may not access.

A late December 2010 poll conducted by the Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest says that 82.1 percent of New Jersey residents feel that when government funds are used to replenish beaches, towns should be required to improve visitor access.

"That's basically what the public feels is a fair trade-off," Paul Shelly of the Jersey Shore chapter of the Surfrider Foundation said of the poll results during a March media event. "This is not some kind of offbeat view for New Jersey."

The DEP will instead create a ranking system by which municipalities will be judged based on the amount of access they provide. The ranks will be part of the criteria by which beach replenishment projects will be chosen.

"We say 'put it in the rule,'" Weber said of the ranking system. "It's not in black and white where everyone can see it."

"Quite frankly, we don't trust it," he added.

While the DEP has been quick to point out strategic relationships it is developing with local municipalities, Weber believes that many of the ideas for access being developed could ultimately be shelved if they are not mandated.

"All of that could evaporate tomorrow because of money or a variety of other reasons," he said.

In proposing these rule changes, the DEP pointed to a 2008 decision by the New Jersey court system striking down Corzine-era access rules mandating 24 hour, 7 day a week access to waterways and empowering the DEP to deny funding for beach replenishment projects to municipalities who failed to comply.

A lawsuit filed by the Borough of Avalon against the DEP claimed that the DEP had overstepped their bounds by circumventing a municipality's ability to regulate its own beaches.

According to the court, "it is the municipalities, not the DEP, that owns and operates and therefore bears responsibility for the management of its beaches."

Before officially adopting the rule change, the DEP will hold two public hearings on the rule changes, one at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 12 at the Liberty State Park Railroad Terminal and another at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 17 at Richard Stockton College. They will also accept written public comments submitted before June 3.




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