Barnegat Bay documentary to air on local TV
By: Kirk Moore - Staff Writer
"Life on the Barnegat Bay," a documentary about the ecological deterioration of Barnegat Bay and hopes for its restoration, will be broadcast on local cable television systems Jan. 11 through Jan. 16.
Produced by the Barnegat Bay Partnership and the staff of Ocean TV-20 at Ocean County College, the film features Paul D. "Pete" McLain of Toms River, a veteran wildlife biologist and former deputy state wildlife director whose professional and personal life has been intertwined with the bay for most of his 80-plus.
With McLain's unique historic perspective, the film shows the decades-long decline of the bay, its causes and effects, from the nutrient pollution of storm water runoff and fertilizer misuse to the losses of native sea grass beds that McLain first mapped as a state biologist in the 1950s.
The film also features a look at the Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center near Island Beach State Park, and the Lighthouse Center in Waretown, where environmental education programs are teaching a new generation of students about the bay's problems.
The documentary will be broadcast Tuesday at 8 p.m.; Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.; Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; and again Sunday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. It can be seen on Ocean TV-20 on Comcast of Toms River, Long Beach Island Channel 20, and on Verizon FiOS in northern Ocean County, Channel 24.
