Author Topic: F Cove use might be stopped by the federal government (Read 15280 times)

Fishin Dude · « **on:** February 22, 2009, 12:39:40 PM »

Anyone who has ever hung out in F Cove knows how cool this place can be, the loss would be a shame.

Brick, Save Barnegat Bay join forces to save F Cove
Feds want to limit public boat access at popular summer spot
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis pauses during a tour of F Cove Friday. The area, which is part of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, is a popular spot with boaters in the summer. Brick officials and Save Barnegat Bay are fighting to keep it accessible to boaters.

All is quiet on a brisk February day at F Cove in the Reedy Creek area of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge off Mantoloking Road.

The sun arcs off the tidal marshes. White swans glide along the tea-colored water and dip their beaks. Deer and raccoon tracks stud the sand in the uplands portion of the property.

But F Cove looks nothing like this in the summer. By Memorial Day, boats that can make it through the 15-foot-deep lagoons pull up close to the narrow beaches. People barbecue, swim and visit from boat to boat. F Cove gets a workout until after Labor Day.

"You cannot come in here on the weekends," Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis said during an impromptu tour of the area recently, as he bounded up a dune bluff. "The boats are side by side."

CHRIS KELLY staff F Cove in the Reedy Creek section of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge was quiet on Friday. But township officials and Save Barnegat Bay want to make sure boaters can still make their way into the popular recreation spot this summer.

And Acropolis, the Township Council and the environmental group Save Barnegat Bay want it to stay that way. All oppose the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans to limit public access to the popular spot for a restoration project.

F Cove is the second most popular access area in Barnegat Bay, just north of the Traders Cove property and the Mantoloking Bridge. Tices Shoal, off the bay side of Island Beach State Park, is the first, Save Barnegat Bay Chairman William de Camp said.

Officials from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, a bureau of the Department of the Interior, do not think the summer activities at the cove meet the definition of congressionally mandated recreational activities suitable for a federal wildlife refuge. The recreational activities include hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, wildlife photography, nature-related interpretive experiences and environmental education.

And de Camp agrees, up to a point. F Cove visitors have "broken every rule" when it comes to a wildlife refuge, he said.

"My argument is more a moral one," de Camp said. "People are getting harmless enjoyment in that place. Some accommodation ought to be reached. Government exists to serve the people. People love this place and they are doing little or no harm."
The land around F Cove during the mayor's tour appeared remarkably free of litter, save for a few beer bottles and two empty 30-can cartons of Bud Light.

"Nobody is destroying it," Acropolis said. "You don't see dirt bike trails. It's pretty clean. Ninety-five percent of the people who come in take their garbage out."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service want to dump dredge spoils in the area's deep lagoons, restore the wildlife habitat and tighten up management of the refuge.

That would mean filling in the lagoon areas to a shallower depth, so larger boats could not get through, Acropolis said.

"Once you fill this in, you cannot get it back," he said. "It's gone forever."

F Cove was born in the 1950s, when a developer began carving out lagoons for an eventual waterfront development. The dredged lagoons formed the shape of the letter "F." But the Ocean County chapter of the Isaac Walton League, the precursor to Save Barnegat Bay, challenged the project and the developer ran out of money, de Camp said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service purchased the 120-acre property in the 1990s. It was the first purchase for the Reedy Creek unit of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge and is located in the northernmost portion of the refuge.

"Over the last seven years, these coves have been discovered by boaters," de Camp said. "On a summer weekend, there is a gigantic amount of boats in there."

The agencies plan to lower some of the dunes to create a habitat for rare diamondback terrapins and install bollards — pilings placed in the water — that would limit access to F Cove for boats above a certain size, de Camp said.

Township Council members unanimously passed a resolution at the Feb. 3 meeting opposing any closure of F Cove. The resolution also asks Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon any plans that would result in the closure of all or certain portions of F Cove.

"It's a place where people go in the summertime," council President Joseph Sangiovanni said at the meeting. "People pull their boats up on the beach and barbecue or swim."

De Camp said it was difficult for Save Barnegat Bay to oppose the Fish and Wildlife Service, which he described as a "model government agency."

"They have been incredibly good about buying land, even though they are way overstretched for managing it," he said. "Fish and Wildlife aren't the bad guys. The American Littoral Society has been pushing this project. I don't think they knew when they started, this was the second most popular access in Barnegat Bay."

Save Barnegat Bay is urging people to write to Sangiovanni at Town Hall to help find an alternative to the plan, de Camp said.

"You can't get in here in the summer," Acropolis said. "Where are these people going to go?"

IrishAyes · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2009, 12:55:35 PM »

Just another case of pleasing a few at the expense of many. That is what this entire country is getting to be all about.

How sad.

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Author Topic: F Cove use might be stopped by the federal government (Read 15280 times)