Water Safety

My Dad lives in a very small riverfront community called Eagle Point.  This neighborhood faces the Metedeconk River in New Jersey.  Every community down the riverside has a private beach that people, in the community, can choose to be a member of.  Members pay annual dues to maintain their membership to the beach.  Most of the communities have a relatively nice size beach along with a playground on the premises.  In my parents neighborhood, the beach is smaller than the parking lot.  It basically has enough room for a few people to sit or lounge, and a large pavillion which is larger than sand along the shoreline.  You would think, because of the modest size of the beach, you wouldn't have to pay that much unless you were docking your boat off the beach's docks and slips.  Well, that is absolutely untrue.  My family barely uses the beach badges, and my Dad pays $125 annually.  He doesn't have a boat and he doesn't jet-ski.  When my Mom was alive, they only went down there for their beach parties maybe once or twice a year.  I think it's a damn rip-off!  I wouldn't ever swim in that water, so I can't see why someone would pay for that.  The scary issue, when it comes to the river, is the unclean water.  My family is paying to swim, fish, dock boats, or dock jet-skis in unsafe water.

Now there are other reasons why I don't go down to the beach myself.  This river, which is also filtered for drinking water for our area, has runoff pollution.  There are many reasons behind all of that pollution.  Some of this is from storm water runoff, and some of this is also a result of boats that let go their waste in the water.  I can remember being a teenager and swimming at Windward Beach, a public beach on the other side of the river, and seeing fecal matter in the water.  I had immediately exited on to the sand, and went home to shower off as quickly as humanly possible.  After that incident, I found it very difficult to swim in that water.  I used to love playing in that water, but finding waste was the last straw.  My husband and I went to Windward just to sit on the shore and enjoy the view, but we would never swim there.  I've seen signs up that tell swimmers the water is contaminated.  Does anyone pay attention when they see signs that distinctly explain that the water is polluted?  That should raise some red flags.  Don't you think?  I can't even fathom how people actually eat the seafood that is caught from the river.  I can't help but to think that causes so many different health problems.

The Metedeconk River is an estuary into the Barnegat Bay, which eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean.  The Brick Municipality's water supply is actually taken from surface water off of the river.  According to the Trust for Public Land, seventy-five percent of this water is filtered for drinking water and other uses.  Ground water, which filters into the Metedeconk River, receives polluted water from short flow paths.  The increase of development causes even more hazards to the water supply.  It makes me really glad that I drink bottled water rather than the water from BTMUA.  That groundwater is the same crap that people swim in, bathe in, wash their clothes with, sometimes eat from, and in many cases cooking with.  I firmly believe in having a water filtration system in your home.  Luckily my parents have that on their kitchen faucet.  I can't see how that can make anyone feel safe.  Many towns within Ocean County do not have any storm water management plans.  This includes towns such Jackson, Howell, and even Lakewood.  Contaminated runoff, even with a plan in place, still threatens the cleanliness of the river water in Brick.  To minimize the damage from water runoff, many people need to mind what chemicals or liquids they spill onto the ground.  Many people in these developments, who have runoff plans within their town, still continue to break the laws that coincide with the plan.  I can't even imagine what our waterways will look like if the BP/Halliburton oil spill reaches them.  Wouldn't people want to keep the waterways as clean as we can right now?  Hopefully people will stop being careless.