On LBI, it's time to hit the beaches  
By DONNA WEAVER Staff Writer, (609) 978-2015
Published: Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Surf City residents walk onto the 17th Street beach entrance
Wednesday, the first day the beaches were reopened to the public. 
Staff Photo by Bill Gross

SURF CITY — Beaches finally opened Wednesday morning — in time for the upcoming holiday weekend. Wednesday afternoon, beachgoers took advantage of the warm temperatures and wider, ordnance-free sands.
Or almost ordnance-free, since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will only say that it located 95 percent of the munitions pumped onto shore during February's beachfill project.

On Fifth Street, an orange mesh fence that had blocked access to the beaches since March was tossed to the side of the beach entrance. Near the fence was a warning sign that lay partially covered by the sand. The signs stood for months warning the public of the unexploded ordnance.

“It's as safe as it can be,” said Keith Watson, corps project manager for the Surf City beachfill project.

Watson and corps spokesman Khaalid Walls were in Surf City on Wednesday afternoon for the beach reopening. Watson said the corps has taken extensive measures to get the word out that the munitions are dangerous
“We don't want people to become complacent. If they find something they should remember the three R's: recognize what it is, retreat from the area, and report it,” Watson said.
The warning signs posted at the beaches encourage the public to call 911 and contact a lifeguard. Lifeguards, however, will not be stationed on the beaches until mid-June.

Watson said that if more ordnance is located this summer, it's possible the beaches could be closed — but it's unlikely.

“We will have ordnance specialists in the area and lifeguards and police will be trained if anything else is found,” he said. “We're happy; we feel we have met our goal that the community and the DEP have asked us to meet. We appreciate the businesses and community being so cooperative, patient and working with us.”

Watson said he knows it's possible that the public may disobey the ban on metal-detecting, because people may be curious about finding additional munitions.

“We've had good cooperation with the town and the police, so we ask that if someone sees it, they should report it,” Watson said.

According to Watson, Fifth, 12th and 28th streets will have limited access until further notice. Watson said the limited access is unrelated to the munitions, but construction is still being completed on walkways at these beach entrances.

The walkway on Fifth Street is made of an orange, dusty fill, much brighter than the sand of the surrounding dunes. The split-rail fence that borders the walkway is so new that splinters of wood stand up along the edges. Piling stuffed into buckets waited at the crest of the beach entrance for a Bob-Cat construction vehicle to transport them along the beach to construct dune fence out of the gray bundles of fencing that lay in the sand.

Chris Sievers, of Bergen County, who owns a home on Eighth Street, stretched across the sand smoking a cigarette Wednesday afternoon. “I'm very pleased that the beaches are open; I'm ecstatic and I'm not concerned at all,” he said.

Sievers said he rents his home to the same people each year, so his rental business was not affected by the beach closings. He added that he wasn't worried about the posted signs warning beachgoers about the munitions. “I'm satisfied with what they did and I don't have any concerns. I think they did a great job on the beachfill project,” he said.

Construction vehicles passed beachgoers on towels and chairs Wednesday afternoon. Noel Artigliere, of Florham Park, and her friends were visiting Long Beach Island for a few days, she said. The group was huddled on the sand, facing the sun.

“I've been coming here my whole life,” Artigliere said. “I don't think they would have reopened the beaches if they weren't safe.”

Artigliere said her family owns a home in Manahawkin and she was surprised that the beaches in Surf City were so wide. Artigliere dug a hole in the sand with her feet — but not deeper than the 12-inch limit.

“I heard the beaches were reopened, so I was like, ‘Good, now I can go to my beach.' I think they got everything; I have faith in them,” she said as a Bob-Cat vehicle drove past carrying a load of piling.

The corps completed its scan for discarded military munitions earlier this week. Watson said the scan detected items to a depth of three feet. The beaches received eight to nine feet of new sand in February. According to George Follett, of the corps' Baltimore District, the corps will never be able to know whether they found everything. Watson said the best that could be detected was 95 percent.

Drew Kinzler, of Surf City, and John Borsellino, of Barnegat, said they were “stoked” as they walked up Fifth Street to take a peek at the reopened beaches. The pair was taking a break from preparing Faria's Surf Shop for Memorial Day weekend.

“This is awesome. We've been waiting for the beaches to open for months,” Kinzler said.

Borsellino was skeptical about the possibility of munitions exploding on the beaches — if they were going to explode, they would have already, he said.

“They're old; they've been out there forever. They dredged them up, pumped them through a pipe and ran over them with bulldozers. They would have exploded already,” he said. “They had them closed forever and the cops kept giving us hassle about going up there. I'm stoked.”
 

To e-mail Donna Weaver at The Press:

DWeaver@pressofac.com