TPL Awards 2009 Barnegat Bay Environmental Grants

Ocean County, NJ, 4/8/2009: The Trust for Public Land (TPL) announced today the recipients of awards from the fourteenth annual Barnegat Bay Environmental Grant Fund. Five projects that will benefit the Barnegat Bay watershed were awarded a total of $21,183 from a New Jersey state fund administered by TPL, a nonprofit organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, and natural areas.

Grantees and awards for 2009:

• American Littoral Society ($5000) will educate the public about how watersheds work, how human behavior on land contributes to non-point source, and what individuals can do to reverse this problem.
• Association of NJ Environmental Commissions ($3,700) will inform environmental commissions, other local officials and staff in the Barnegat Bay Watershed about the need for state water protection regulations and their requirements.
• Island Heights Cultural and Heritage Association ($2,983) will plant a waterfront buffer using native species plants to mitigate polluted and nutrient rich stormwater run-off into Barnegat Bay.
• Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences ($5,000) will expand the educational programming in order to have a positive impact on the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor estuary system
• Save Barnegat Bay ($4,500) will implement another year of the Barnegat Bay Student Scholarship Program to assist deserving and qualified Ocean County students who need financial aid in order to seek education in natural resource management.

“We are so happy to be able to provide the Barnegat Bay Environmental grants to these local organizations,” said Kathy Haake, project manager for The Trust for Public Land. “The organizations we fund bring an awareness of the watershed to people locally, which helps them to understand their impact on the Barnegat Bay.”

Funds for the Barnegat Bay Environmental Grant program are part of a $2.5 million contribution by the Ciba-Geigy Corporation (now Ciba Corporation) to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Since 1994, 97 grants have been awarded.

The Trust for Public Land conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come. Since its founding in 1972, TPL has protected more than 2.5 million acres of land nationwide. With a state office in Morristown, TPL has protected more than 23,000 acres in New Jersey, including over 11,000 acres in the Barnegat Bay watershed. The Barnegat Bay Environmental Grant Fund is one component of TPL’s Barnegat Bay Initiative-a long-term protection strategy for the bay, including public education, scientific research, land planning, and acquisition of critical properties. TPL’s scientific framework for prioritizing sites for protection grew from The Century Plan, published in 1995 and its sequel, Beyond the Century Plan (1997). The Century Plan and TPL’s most recent study of the Bay watershed, Barnegat Bay 2020, are now available on the web here.