For Immediate Release:

December 5, 2011

 

    Sediment removal work resumes at Wreck Pond

County receives OK from Army Corps of Engineers

 

WALL, NJ – County workers resumed sediment removal activities at Wreck Pond today. The project was delayed soon after preparations were begun on Nov. 1 due to an unexpected requirement by the Army Corps of Engineers because the waterway is considered tidal.

 

The work, begun on the west side of Route 71, is serving as a pilot project for future sediment control operations in other areas of Wreck Pond and elsewhere in the county. The project is still expected to be completed in the original 72-day time-frame, depending on the weather conditions.

 

“The county is performing this project on an inland pond and waterway, and the delay should not overshadow the fact that it is important work that until now other government agencies and surrounding municipalities did not have the resources required to complete,” said Freeholder Deputy Director John P. Curley, liaison to the county Department of Public Works and Engineering.

 

The Wreck Pond Watershed begins with headwaters on Route 34 and ends at the Atlantic Ocean. It touches the municipalities of Wall Township, Sea Girt, Spring Lake and Spring Lake Heights. It is home to many wildlife species, including a large Purple Martin colony, and the habitat is vital to a number of endangered species, including the Piping Plover and Least Terns, plus plants and fish.

 

“The project aims to improve the health of the pond by trapping the sediment before it reaches the main portion of Wreck Pond on the east side of Route 71,” Curley said.

 

Plans are to remove 4,250 cubic yards of sediment. The need to remove it was first identified in the 2008 Wreck Pond Watershed Regional Stormwater Management Plan. Recommendations in that plan include the installation of sediment traps, or manufactured stormscepters, to improve the water quality of Wreck Pond and remove sediment upstream from the main portion of Wreck Pond.

 

Using state funding, the county has already installed 14 manufactured storm scepters at strategic locations around Wreck Pond and its feeder streams to collect sediment before it reached the pond. That project was completed last year. A second project identified in the 2008 plan is to remove existing  sediment and build a sediment trap.

 

The area where the work is being performed is considered an ideal place to not only remove sediment but to build the sediment trap to collect material generated upstream, minimizing the amount of sediment to reach the main portion of Wreck Pond.  

 

The sediment removal project is being performed as a pilot project in conjunction with state Department of Environmental Protection.

 

Officials will be using this project to demonstrate different means and methods of removing the sediment. Due to the tests results and quality of the material that will be removed from the pond, it will be transported to the Monmouth County Reclamation Center in Tinton Falls, where it will have a beneficial re-use as landfill cover.

 

“The county will be performing all of the work in-house, which will expedite and reduce the cost of the project,” Curley said. “It will result in a tremendous savings to the residents of Wall Township, Sea Girt, Spring Lake and Spring Lake Heights and, in fact, all residents of Monmouth County.”

 

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