Mission Statement: To improve the degraded water quality of the marine waters off the New Jersey/New York coast. Clean Ocean Action (COA) will identify the sources of pollution and mount an attack on each source by using research, public education and citizen action to convince public officials to enact and enforce measures that will clean up and protect the ocean.
P.O. Box 505 Highlands, NJ 07732-0505
Phone: 732-872-0111
Fax: 732-872-8041
E-mail: cleanocean@monmouth.com
Web site: www.cleanoceanaction.org
Formed: 1984
Membership Cost: None really, but $25 a year for monthly newsletter/action alerts
Chapters: 1
Executive Director: Cindy Zipf
From the Beach: 43% citizens, 57% private foundations
To the Beach: 89% to programs, 7% management, 3% fundraising
Roots | Past Victories | Present Battles
Roots
The water off the New Jersey Shore is cleaner now than it has been for decades. The days when New York City hospital waste, syringes and used condoms regularly washed up on Jersey Shore beaches are gone. Surfers can thank a local environmental group whose persistence, organization and numerous successes have made it a national model -- Sandy Hook-based Clean Ocean Action (COA).
COA arose from the American Littoral Society's Ocean Dumping Task Force campaign in 1984. COA's power comes from a large coalition that has become a support network that shares a common goal: to "investigate [the] sources, effects and solutions of ocean pollution." The coalition partners come from three groups:
1. COA Participating Organizations. The Participating Organizations are more than 100 fishing, real estate, boating, diving, conservation and women's groups.
2. COA Concerned Citizens. This group is the independent supporters and activists who are the foot soldiers of COA. They attend meetings, write letters, pressure legislators and make things happen.
3. COA Concerned Businesses. This is a subsidiary task force of 275 resort and shore businesses: restaurants, hotels, surf shops, bait and tackle shops, professionals and corporations.
Recreation, business and "green" groups are often at odds with each other. But New Jersey's economy and quality of life, and especially the economy and quality of life at the shore, are built to a great degree on the life of the sea. The fishing and shellfish industries, and the economically significant tourism, real estate and construction industries, are dependent on healthy marine and coastline ecosystems. By the mid '80s, after decades of abuse, environmental conditions at the shore were impossible to ignore. COA stepped in to assume leadership and execute a plan of changes.
The COA full-time staff of seven investigates sources of pollution, researches and constructs solutions, and provides members with the organizational and political apparatus to realize goals. The staff is the heart and mind of the operation and the engine that drives the larger coalition. Headquarters is an older wood frame building on Sandy Hook, and COA maintains satellite offices in Central Jersey in Tuckerton and South Jersey in Wildwood.
Executive Director Cindy Zipf explains her group's appeal: "We represent a coalition of over 170 organizations and 70 student groups. That means our supporters number in the hundreds of thousands."
With a steadily increasing northeast surfing population, COA is certain to expand in both numbers and influence over New Jersey's clean-water concerns.
Past Victories
(1988) End of ocean incineration
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first considered ocean-based incineration of toxic waste in the '70s. COA entered the battle against ocean incineration in 1985, when the EPA was considering granting a permit to Chem Waste Management, Inc. to burn toxic waste, including PCBs, off the Jersey coast. Eventually, due to overwhelming opposition, the EPA cut ocean incineration from its budget. The site off the Jersey coast was never used.
(1989) End of industrial waste dumping
Between 1986 and 1989, COA participated in a campaign to end industrial waste dumping at two sites off the Jersey coast, 17 miles off Long Branch and 106 miles off Cape May. The Long Branch site had been known as "Acid Waters" and the Cape May site had been used by more than 100 dumpers since 1961. By 1986, only two companies, DuPont of Delaware and Linden, New Jersey, and Allied Signal of Morristown, New Jersey, used the sites. Organized citizen opposition, including a boycott of DuPont's fishing line, resulted in a decision by the last two companies to discontinue using the site. Dumping stopped by 1989.
(1989) Ciba-Geigy outfall pipe plugged
For more than two decades, the Swiss-owned Ciba-Geigy company released pollution directly into the ocean from a pipe at its Toms River, New Jersey, plant. The company was also a large employer in Ocean County; so public outcry over the pollution provoked little governmental action. Finally, a large coalition including legislators, COA and other environmental groups was able to force passage of a law prohibiting ocean pollution through private pipelines.
(1992) End of sewage sludge dumping
Sewage sludge had been dumped in the waters off New Jersey since 1924. A large fish kill in 1976 resulted in a 1977 law designed to end sludge dumping by 1981. However, New York City sludge continued to be dumped after 1981. Public pressure and a group called the Clean Sludge Coalition, which included COA, brought an end to sludge dumping with the New Jersey Sewage Discharge Elimination Act of 1988 and the Federal Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988. These laws also forced development of new uses for sludge, including recycling.
(1993) End of ocean wood burning
1993 brought an end to an Army Corps of Engineers-controlled program of open-barge wood burning at a site off Point Pleasant, New Jersey. The program had been a water and air pollution problem since its inception in 1968.
Present Battles
Toxic material dumping at HARS
COA's most pressing and heated battle is over the proposed dumping of toxic dredge material from New York and New Jersey area ports. The material is slated to be dumped at the Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS) off Sandy Hook. Four proposals are now being debated. Many parties are involved in this battle, including COA, New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman and other legislators, the Port of New York/New Jersey and Vice President Al Gore.
Student Summit and Educational Extravaganza
The Student Summit is an educational program that gives middle and high school students a focused and hands-on exposure to Jersey Shore ecosystems. The Summit covers various science areas (birds, horseshoe crabs, wetlands, etc.) and offers ideas for educators to take the field experience to the classroom. The related Educational Extravaganza is an ecology workshop held on the beach at Wildwood, New Jersey. The Extravaganza strives to "combine fun and education" and exposes thousands of students to coastal issues over a several day period.
Beach Sweeps 2000
Beach Sweeps has grown into one of COA's most popular programs. It covers the entire coastline, as well as inland lakes and streams. COA provides analysis of the types of trash collected, and Beach Sweeps has been included in the U.S. Library of Congress "Local Legacies" cultural documentary program.
Opposition to sand mining
COA actively opposes any form of "sand mining" (specifically, commercial dredging of seafloor sand and gravel for private use) off the Jersey Shore. Approval of sand mining projects, COA argues, would set a national precedent for such activity, cause ecological damage and possibly disturb existing toxins on the sea floor.
Project B.E.A.C.H.
This stands for the Better Environmental Awareness Community Handbook. The handbook is published by COA and is an educational and reference resource for New Jersey's environmental community. Citizens can consult the book to see how certain issues affect their localities, and who to contact regarding certain issues. The information is also updated and kept online for quick reference, and includes a survey for added interactivity. -- Jon Wagner
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