By DON STINE
The Deal Lake Commission is requesting $470,000 from county or state coffers to pay for much-needed water-quality and flooding projects for the lake the largest in Monmouth County.
At any point in time this is the most important one for the seven participating towns to remain fully supportive of the commission, said Commission President John Everson.
In a letter to state Senator Sean Kean (R-11th District) the commission wrote it wants him to push for $470,000 in funding from the state or Monmouth County to pay for three vital projects:
- $44,000 to electrify the flood gates and install a new grate at the lakes flume into the Atlantic Ocean. The flume, which controls the water level in the lake, is located between Asbury Park and Loch Arbour and runs under Ocean Avenue.
- $25,000 to identify sources of human fecal bacteria entering the lake through the old storm water system.
- $400,000 to remove an accumulation of weeds and leaves over 14-acre areas that are choking western sections of the lake.
These items are all high priority and need to be done, Everson said.
Everson said that although Deal Lake is equal in size to all of the other coastal lakes (those that feed into the ocean) in Monmouth County combined Deal Lake receives less funding than given for projects at other coastal lakes.
The 158-acre lake has more than 20 miles of coastline.
The amount of money per acre is a lot less than whats given to other lakes, Everson said.
The Deal Lake Commission is funded by annual contributions by seven municipalities with borders on the lake: Allenhurst, Asbury Park, Deal, Interlaken, Loch Arbour, Neptune and Ocean Township.
The irony… is that the state Department of Environmental Protection tells us the state owns the lake but it is the commission and municipalities, along with local groups, that have to beg the state for permission to care for and find funding to proceed for the lakes care, the commission wrote in a March 13 letter to Kean.
The letter also requests a county or state agency provide matching annual funding for yearly repairs and maintenance. It also requests a county-wide Joint Lakes Commission be created to find disposal sites for dredge spoils from the lakes
Properly run the site should be self-funding by selling compost made from the spoils, Everson said.
In addition, Everson said there are many long-range projects that need to be done to improve Deal Lake.
The areas surrounding the lake are in dire need of updated and improved storm water infrastructure and controls. The lake also needs about a million cubic yards of sediment removed to fully restore its vitality.
We also need to begin identifying and building large-scale regional storm-water basins in the lakes watershed. Its really is the only way to control flooding and the flow of silt into the lake. Until these basins are in place we cant do effective dredging because the rapid storm-water runoff is scouring silt right back into the lake, he said.
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