Construction and Noise
The county moves slowly. Discussed since Sandy, First Avenue had been regularly flooded with heavy rains. Beach replenishment buried some of the outflow pipes. They needed to be widened and extended out toward the ocean. Monmouth County maintains First Ave. to Washington Blvd.
Some neighbors on Baltimore Blvd complained about the look of the pipe and crib, but the work solved the flooding problem. The side benefit of the construction was the resurfacing of First Avenue. Mayor Farrell laid out plans to repave every road in town over several years without raising taxes.
The significantly larger pipes waiting to go under Baltimore Blvd.
There was also an effort to improve the water quality in Wreck Pond. Runoff of bacteria and fertilizer had polluted the waterway. The closing of the inlet since the 1930s limited outflow to the size of the outfall pipe. The pollution closed the beaches after heavy rain. The pipe at the Spring Lake border was extended 600 feet into the ocean to disperse the runoff. This ended beach closures, but was tragic for the Alewife, a tiny fish that spawned for thousands of years in the pond through the inlet.
Four summers after the big storm, the tiny alewife now had a naturally lighted pathway to swim from the ocean to the pond to breed. The federally funded project reworked the outflow mechanism and allowed more frequent flushing of its waters. A new box culvert provided light through grates on top of the dunes with a flatter, more natural bottom and a shorter swim for the fish. Biologists captured and counted fish migrations.
Wreck Pond’s fish gate alongside the outflow pipe in Spring Lake
Noise pollution was another area tackled by the borough. Quality of life ordinances were common in the borough. It was the only community with a ban on beer pong in front yards. But the construction and noise ordinances were an overlapping mess. Councilman Jim Rotolo suggested a ban on construction in the borough on Saturdays in the summertime. While someone could work in their own yard, contractors and their noisy equipment were unwelcome before 8 am and after 6 pm during the week all year long, and are now banned on summer weekends when parking is at a premium and people want to enjoy their porches and yards.
Dr. Rotolo wanted the ban to start at Memorial Day, but the ordinance started at the end of June for the first few years as an experiment. It proved popular and is now as originally proposed.
Lisa Luke took over the Sea Girt Library. The 2014 discussion about leaving the Monmouth County System regained steam, but was still two years from being on the ballot.
Heavy trucks sink potholes. Ice expands and rain washes away gravel. A gravel road is not so easy to maintain.
The real estate boom that started after Sandy put construction vehicles on Carriage Way in the Park. This road, along with The Terrace, were the only unpaved gravel roads in town. There was significant debate about paving the roads, just fixing the potholes, or totally reworking the roadbeds. Everyone had an opinion. The mayor lived in the park and recused himself from the votes. The roads would get emergency repairs before the roadbeds were totally reworked.