Blogfinger

Save our environment. Photo in Ocean Grove by Moe Demby, 2015. Blogfinger staff. ©    Updated and re-posted  from 2016.

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.  2016.

Scene:  Neptune Township Mother Ship.  I am at the counter occupied partly by the Assistant Land Use Administrator–George Waterman. On the counter are some educational  fliers.  One of them seemed interesting: “Solutions to Stormwater Pollution.”

It said, “Stormwater pollution is one of New Jersey’s greatest threats to clean and plentiful water, and that’s why we’re all doing something about it.”

It also said, “Pollution on streets, parking lots and lawns is washed by rain into storm drains, then directly to our drinking water supplies and the ocean and lakes our children play in.  Fertilizer, oil, pesticides, detergents, pet waste, grass clipping: You name it and it ends up in our water.”

PG: (thinking)  “It says, ‘Easy Things You Can Do Every Day to Protect Our Water,’ so what about Wesley Lake?”

GW (walking over to the counter where I am perusing his flier)   “What have you got there?”

PG  (handing it to him)  “George—What is Neptune Township doing about dirty street water runoff?”

GW (smiling; he removes all copies of the flier and jokingly begins to walk away)  “I think we should dispose of these.”

PG:  (With a name like Waterman they could give him that job……)

September 24, 2018 update by Jack Bredin and Paul Goldfinger, reporting from Blogfinger.net:

In the past, someone changed the tax map to show a new name for Wesley Lake:  “Wesley Detention/retention basin.” No one at the Township, including the Wesley Lake Commission and the Township Committee would admit to doing this, but someone had to tell the Tax Assessor Bernie Haney to do it, and one would need a resolution from the Committee to make that change; but there was no such resolution.

We know that the dirty water street drainage comes down Rt 33 from Neptune Boulevard and then is carried north into A. Park  by a pipeline via Rt. 71 into the Lake.

The Rt. 33 drainage is the responsibility of the State since it is a State road.

The Rt. 71 component is a County road, and the big pipe that drains into the western end of the Lake is the responsibility of the County.

No wonder the State DEP and the County have been quiet on this issue.

It now seems that the Neptune change in name was done to help developers justify the dumping of dirty water into Wesley Lake.   The polluters of Wesley Lake are the State, the County, Asbury Park, and Neptune Township.

The Township should immediately pass a resolution to return the official tax map name to “Wesley Lake,” or be accused of being complicit in helping the North End Redeveloper subsequently  pollute the lake even more.

RUSS CARLYLE with BLUE BARRON  “Garden in the Rain.”