Preserving the County’s Coastal Wetlands
Early in the summer, a fascinating project popped up in my Facebook feed. “Dock removal?” I thought to myself. “What in the what?” I began following this person, and the following is what happens when you turn your curiosity into storytelling.
The Jersey shore would not be what it is without coastal wetlands. They protect vulnerable land from the bulldozer effect of the easterly winds of major stormfronts pushing and then retaining water into back bays. According to one study, during 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, tidal wetlands along the Northeast’s coastal corridor prevented around $625 million in floodwater damage. Additionally, we need wetlands to help absorb runoff from human development and activity, as well as to store carbon. Wetlands also facilitate fishery production, and provide an ideal habitat to support the plants and animals that, in turn, maintain the health of the wetland system.
Environmental pressures from human activity like development, fishery depletion, diking, and filling in marshes have all contributed to the degradation of the area’s coastal wetlands. It is the ever-accelerating pace of sea rise, however, that has most significantly contributed to coastal wetland degradation. Provided there is space, and they are not outpaced by sea level rise, tidal marshlands along Cape May County’s eastern coast can migrate inland. However, annual sea rise is higher than what coastal marshes can withstand in order to protect coastal erosion. This matters, especially when major storms hit the county’s 30 miles of Atlantic coastline.
Even so, it is understandable to question the health of our wetlands and the threat of sea level rise when driving over Grassy Sound toll bridge to Nummy Island on a sunny mid-September afternoon, as I recently did on my way to learn more about the immediate risk to our county’s coastal wetlands. From the vantage point in my car, the island’s salt marshes appeared clean and serene. Mid-September is a bit of a “last hurrah” with visitors; just a few boats and wave runners were in use. I observed some Osprey and various gulls overhead, and later, after parking my car and walking along the berm, was buzzed by a Seaside Sparrow.
I spent about an hour that afternoon on Nummy Island with John Kauterman. He’s the co-founder of a nonprofit called the Tidelands Initiative (although modest as he is, I imagine he would not introduce himself this way). He and co-founder Kevin Dougherty established the initiative in 2022. Their objective? Raise awareness about the need to avert wetland degradation and promote conservation through education and volunteerism. The current goal is intentionally manageable. They want to show that it’s possible to clean up an entire county, and to make Cape May County an example for New Jersey’s other counties.
Where an untrained eye like mine sees marshland as I drive along the Grassy Sound toll bridge, Kauterman, a resident of Cape May County nearly all his life, knows better. In fact, that knowledge spurred him to begin cleaning wetland debris. “As I drove around Cape May County, I’d noticed trash accumulated on the roadside. It looked like a city.”
In 2019, he decided to take action. “I had some time off around New Year’s, and thought cleaning this up would be a good way to start the new year.” Initially, John committed 40 hours to the cleanup effort. “That quickly evolved into 80 hours because once you see the trash, you can’t unsee it!”
Once he noticed it, he saw it everywhere—and in unexpected ways. In the wetlands encompassed by Stone Harbor Boulevard on the north side down to Wildwood Boulevard on the south, John has removed 15 old docks in just three years. Why dock removal? Because a single 3×3’ piece of dock will disintegrate into millions of tiny pieces. And “because floating docks contain lightweight and buoyant foam,” Kauterman points out. “As the dock breaks down, the foam releases into the wetlands. It’s an ecological mini disaster.” Priority projects include areas vital to nesting marsh birds. Another site of interest on Cape Island is Garrett Family Preserve and the railroad tracks. “There’s an overturned sailboat that is a personal goal of mine to remove.”
I had missed the window to observe Kauterman at work, but for a good reason: he had a volunteer helping out with that day’s Nummy Island haul. He estimates that Avalon’s old docks have been removed, but that Stone Harbor “has a seemingly endless supply.”
But where’s this trash coming from in the first place? “Construction and carelessness. It’s like something from the 1980s, when smoking was acceptable in homes,” Kauterman says. In fact, the debris pileup among the phragmites in Nummy are a vestige of August’s Hurricane Erin. As Kauterman explained, because Erin was a north/northeast storm, all debris deposits faced the northeast.
Every clean-up effort is different, but often is something like a time capsule. “I find bottles from the 1960s and 1970s, and then all the plastics. It’s basically 60 years’ worth of debris.” Growing up in Avalon in the 1980s and 90s, Kauterman witnessed the shift in visitors to this area. “The tourism cycle, and even its characteristics, has shifted far from where they once were. It used to be that when visitors came to Cape May, they were hunting and fishing, and living off of the land. Now vacationers live in isolation, demand more amenities, bring more things, and that increases consumption,” he says. “Going green sounds good in theory, until you ask people to change their behavior.”
One example John cites is plastic straws, which have become something of a cultural flashpoint. “While I’m on a site, plastic straws are, in fact, everywhere on the water’s surface. It sometimes looks like the straws from every Wawa and McDonald’s were just dumped at once.” So why their prevalence at cleanup sites? It’s about a straw’s buoyancy—in contrast to plastic bags, another common cleanup site item, which sink.
In addition to cleaning large debris buildup in the wetlands, Kauterman began providing 55-gallon trash containers near county bridges where boaters launch. “It’s interesting how the presence of trash cans makes people think twice,” he explained. “It’s almost like the parking-lot etiquette of returning shopping carts to their corrals.”
The cans seem to be helping. Nobody wants to keep trash in their car, but instead of dumping trash on the ground, they utilize the trash cans placed around high-use areas. Says Kauterman, “It’s something of a social experiment, to try to nudge people into action. Attending council meetings to advocate for help—there’s only so far that politicians are able to push cleanup initiatives.” This way, a small step is still a step in the right direction.
As for raising awareness, Kauterman is pleased with the exposure that Tidelands Initiative has given his efforts. A donor to the foundation gifted a boat and trailer to assist in cleanup efforts, and Kauterman is steadily developing a volunteer roster. Speaking of, I recently signed up via the website, TidelandsInitiative.org. Will I see you at a cleanup site this winter? I hope so!
