Grants Offered for Barnegat Bay (NJ) Projects

Morristown, New Jersey: The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national land conservation organization, today announced that for the seventh consecutive year, grants will be offered to non-profit groups proposing local and regional projects directly benefiting the Barnegat Bay and its watershed.

Eligible nonprofit groups can apply for funding for projects that encompass environmental education, planning, monitoring, research, and/or stewardship. The grants will range from $500 to $5,000 each.

For 2001, TPL’s Barnegat Bay Environmental Grant Fund will award a total of $25,000.

The grants are generated from a fund established by a $2.5 million donation to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from the Ciba-Geigy Corporation. Under contract with the DEP, TPL was designated as the administrator of the fund, because of its long-term protection effort on behalf of the bay. This arrangement is the largest of its type ever made with a nonprofit land conservation organization in New Jersey.

Proposals for 2001 grants must be received by March 2, and awards will be announced the first week in April. While schools and government entities, such as municipalities, and environmental commissions, are not eligible, they are encouraged to partner with a qualifying nonprofit organization if they have a project that would benefit the Bay.

Grants in 2000 supported such organizations as the Barnegat Garden Club, Save Barnegat Bay and the League of Women Voters of Ocean County. The latter printed and disseminated 7,300 copies of the publication “What YOU Can Do to Prevent NonPoint Source Pollution in the Barnegat Bay Watershed.” Free copies of the publication are available at twenty libraries, Cattus Island Environmental Center, Wells Mills Nature Center, Alliance for a Living Ocean, American Littoral Society, Clean Ocean Action, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, Barnegat Bay Estuary Program as well as the thirty-seven municipalities in the watershed.

Interested parties should contact Carol Saggese at the Trust for Public Land, 1095 Mount Kemble Avenue, Morristown, New Jersey, 07960, (973) 425-0360 to request a copy of the application and guidelines or receive additional information.

The Barnegat Bay Environmental Grant Fund is one element of TPL’s Barnegat Bay Initiative—a long-term strategic approach to land preservation that includes land acquisition of critical properties, public education, scientific research, land planning, and stewardship.

The Trust for Public Land, with a state office in Morristown, is a national nonprofit land conservation organization dedicated to preserving land for public use. TPL works with local, state, and federal agencies, and grassroots land trusts using its real estate, legal and public financing expertise to protect land. TPL has protected more than one million acres nationwide, including more than 6,100 acres in Barnegat Bay.