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by Kirk Moore
Staff Write, Asbury Park Press (Reprint)
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association December 2002 Newsletter)
If the state Senate bill is amended,the state DEP would create wider slow speed zones.
An environmental group will seek to amend a state Senate boating bill so that the Department of Environmental Protection can designate 300 footwide slow speed zones near shorelines with bird nests and other wildlife habitat.
The Senate bill (S220), approved recently by the Senate Environmental Committee, already aims to protect aquatic vegetation such as eelgrass in extremely shallow waters a foot deep or less.
The bill sponsor, Sen. Leonard T. Connors Jr., R Ocean, will support amending the bill to create more no wake areas when the measure comes up for a vote by the full Senate, said Tim Dillingham of the Sandy Hook based American Littoral Society.
The change would allow the DEP to map out environmentally sensitive shorelines or bay islands and mark them as slow speed, no wake zones for passing boats. The rule would mean captains would have to slow their vessels so they do not push a substantial bow wave.
“These areas would be tied to sections of the shoreline” and extend 300 feet out into the water, Dillingham said. The rule would not result in widespread speed restrictions on open bay waters, a point that was unclear in a story Friday in the Asbury Park Press, he added.
The 300 foot buffer will be recommended based on studies by Joanna Burger, a Rutgers University shorebird expert. In a 1998 survey, Burger and her researchers documented disturbance of shorebirds by boats passing close to islands in Barnegat Bay
The Connors bill would limit motorboat operation in extremely shallow water of 12 inches or less, but only where submerged aquatic vegetation is visible, Dillingham said
“If there’s submerged aquatic vegetation in 12 inches of water you can’t drive a boat across it unless you’re a (commercial) crabber, clammer, shrimper or a researcher,” Dillingham said
The bill also exempts law enforcement officers on patrol duty and non-motorized boat operators, such as sailors and kayakers, who can skim the shallows without gouging grass beds.
“The bill is attempting to say, boats shouldn’t be driven across submerged aquatic vegetation,” Dillingham said.
Sea grasses, such as eelgrass and widgeon grass, are important habitat for marine life sheltering juvenile fish and crabs, for example, and food for waterfowl, say scientists who study New Jersey coastal bays.