NJ protecting angler beach access
APNewsBreak: NJ protecting angler beach access
Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011 6:00 am
POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. (AP) — Bowing to an outcry from fishermen worried about getting kicked off the beach at night, New Jersey environmental officials are rewriting their proposed beach access rules to specifically protect anglers' right to fish during off-hours.
The move by the state Department of Environmental Protection addresses a key complaint about the new rules that emerged at a series of contentious public hearings this spring. The DEP undertook a sweeping revision of beach access rules, moving away from a one-size-fits-all rulemaking approach in favor of letting individual coastal towns write their own access rules.
That caused an uproar among beach access advocates worried that the new approach would embolden shore towns with a history of discouraging outsiders from using their sand to adopt even more restrictive policies. But the state calls those concerns overblown, asserting that no more than a handful of municipalities are truly problematic.
Fernando Costa, 39, of Monroe Township in Middlesex County welcomed the added protection for off-hours fishing. A construction worker who says he can only fish when it's raining or at night, he said he and his friends have been routinely chased away from a favorite fishing spot in Cliffwood Beach at dusk.
"We fish according to the tides, and a lot of the time, the good tides are at night," he said. "It's a good idea to put that in the law. We like the idea of being able to fish anytime."
Ray Cantor, a top aide to DEP Commissioner Robert Martin, said the department listened to concerns raised at the public hearings. He said the revised rules should be published in the New Jersey Register by the end of the year and enacted by Memorial Day weekend of 2012.
Under the administration of former Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, the state required uniform access standards along the coast, such as requiring access points every quarter-mile and mandating restrooms and parking. But those rules, issued under his DEP director Lisa Jackson, who is now administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, were struck down in 2008 by an appeals court.
The south Jersey beach town of Avalon had sued, saying the state overstepped its bounds by requiring too much public access and unreasonable requirements like 24-hour access to beaches and marinas.
Shortly after Republican Gov. Chris Christie took office last year, his DEP began rewriting the beach access rules to comply with key aspects of the Avalon ruling.
The new rules as proposed in April ask — but don't require — coastal towns to adopt a public access plan spelling out exactly where the public can get to the beach. For towns that balk, the state has several punishments it can mete out. One is cutting the town off from open space funding under the state Green Acres program. Another is ranking that town lower on the state's funding recommendation list for beach replenishment money. And a third is denying the town permits for beach and dune maintenance.
The rewrite being discussed now adds stronger language, enabling the DEP to revoke a town's beach access plan if it feels it is too restrictive. The changes also spell out that within three years after the issuance of the new rules, any beach town that fails to enact a suitable access plan will be denied permits to maintain its beaches and dunes.
Tom Fote, an official with the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, said the new language still leaves room for trouble.
"Who decides what's reasonable?" he asked. "Is it two hours, three hours, four hours? It should be from dusk to dawn. I'm a surf fisherman, and we fish through the night. These rules weren't written by anglers; they were written by lawyers."
The changes don't go as far as beach access advocates would like. They had sought a guarantee that towns could not transfer their public access responsibilities to neighboring towns. But the revisions make no such guarantee.
The DEP also rejected a request to return to the Corzine-era requirement of public access points every quarter-mile along the shore, saying every half-mile is good enough.
The rewrite also specifically inserts language ensuring that access must be governed by the Public Trust Doctrine, a legal concept adopted by New Jersey that dates to the Roman Emperor Justinian. It declares that the public has the right to swim in coastal waters and walk along their shores. Courts have held that the public has the right to walk or sit on the sand up to the mean high water mark.
The revisions also specifically state that public access to the shoreline is required along the Hudson River. If the department determines access is not feasible at certain spots, developers building projects along the shore can pay for public access nearby.
And the revisions also appear to take specific aim at a longstanding complaint about one town's restrictive parking laws that serve to keep outsiders away. Mantoloking limits on-street parking on most of its streets near the ocean to no more than two hours a day, discouraging outsiders from using the beach there. The proposed rewrite says existing limits to public access will be evaluated by the DEP, including restrictions on parking availability. On-street parking also is virtually nonexistent along Sea Bright's protective sea wall along Ocean Avenue.
"Alternatives to address any limitations determined to exist shall be provided, where feasible," the proposed changes read
