NATURAL and CULTURAL FEATURES of MONMOUTH COUNTY

In 1970, when the Clean Water Act was passed, there were 39 sewer treatment plants
discharging into the ocean off NJ, none of which provided secondary treatment; by 1988, there
were 13 plants, all of which provide at a minimum secondary treatment and chlorination
(NJDOH, 1990). The last primary treatment plant in the County to discharge sewage a few
hundred feet past the swimming zone was taken out of service in Asbury Park in 1988.
Currently there are 7 sewage outfalls in the County from Sandy Hook to South Belmar, mostly
constructed during the 1960’s and 1970’s, that discharge secondary or tertiary treated sewage
into the ocean at flows rated from 4.4 to 33 million gallons per day (MGD) from 1500 to 5800
feet offshore.
The County’s Bayshore and ocean beaches are closest to the 700 Combined Sewer Overflows
discharging into the NY/NJ Harbor or to its tributaries, 250 in NJ and 450 in NY (and some in
Connecticut), that legally discharge sewage into the Hudson-Raritan Bay complex (Gaugler,
2006; HEP, 2005). As little as 0.04” per hour of rain in NYC can overload the capacity of a
sewer plant and cause a bypass of sewage into the Bay (EPALISO, 2009). Since 1936, the
Interstate Environmental Commission has been mandated to protect the Tri-States’ region’s
waters (http://www.iec-nynjct.org/ ).
Many CSOs in NJ are now screened with “Net Capture” or other devices to retain floatables,
which include fecal material congealed in cooking grease and soap known as ‘greaseballs’ or
‘sewage cakes’ when they are found in the wrack line. The total number of CSO's in all of NJ
had been 275, but as of 2009 there were 222. This includes CSO's in southern NJ on the
Delaware River, in Camden County and in Trenton in Mercer County. However as of 2009 in
northern NJ in the Hudson-Raritan Bay watershed, there were 187 CSO's, 156 (83%) with
solids/floatable controls like Netcapture; the remainder are in design/construction phase. The
original number of CSO's in NJ has been reduced by about 20%, from 275 to 222; 52 were
eliminated when municipalities like New Brunswick and Rahway eliminated their CSOs by
converting to modern dual systems (separate storm water and sanitary sewer) (Olko, 2009). The
most southern CSOs on NJ’s Atlantic coast are the 9 in Perth Amboy on the Raritan River
estuary in Middlesex County.
In contrast, NYC has screened few of their 450 CSOs, relying instead on open water skimmer
vessels to catch floatables after they have been discharged into the bay (Gaugler, 2006; Meakim,
2005). NYC’s yearly average of 43" of rain causes about 27 billion gallons of untreated
stormwater and sewage to be discharged from these CSOs in a year (Riverkeeper, 2009). This
means that almost 63 million gallons of untreated CSO waste is discharged into the Bay from
NYC for every tenth of an inch of rainfall.
Geology and Structures
Beach sands generally become whiter and coarser from north to south; this is because silt and
clay formations outcrop along Raritan Bay and the northern coast, while the heavier Kirkwood-
Cohansey sands dominate beaches from Asbury Park south. Geology is one reason why the
ocean in northern Monmouth is usually not as blue as it is by Manasquan. The dappling that
occurs on the surface of flowing water happens because bright convex parts rise and focus
sunlight, while dark concave parts dip and diffuse the light (Ross, 2000).