Seine Net Offers Health of Raritan & Sandy Hook Bays

Is water quality good today where you live? How do you know? 

If you live near or visit the waters of Raritan Bay or Sandy Hook Bay, two southern corners of Lower New York Bay located between New York and New Jersey, water quality always seems to be a mystery. It's difficult to find anything on-line about current conditions at popular swimming beaches in Union Beach, Keansburg, Atlantic Highlands, Cliffwood Beach in Aberdeen Township, or at Raritan Bay Waterfront Park in South Amboy, just to name a few.

Sure, weekly chemical tests during the summer are conducted along many ocean beaches with tests results provided by NJ DEP at  http://www.state.nj.us/dep/beaches/index.html. Yet, only a handful of estuarine beaches in Raritan Bay or Sandy Hook Bay are tested. Many others are often overlooked or ignored.

Even helicopter surveillance flights conducted by NJ DEP several days a week during the summer don't provide enough information to determine if poor water quality poses a daily health risk for people and ecosystems. The flights look for noticeable events, such as large floatable debris, widespread fish kills, or extensive algal blooms. The information is lacking when it comes to more detailed indicators at specific sites including the amount of salt (or salinity), the amount of material suspended in the water (turbidity), and quantities of pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, and other contaminants.

To be fair, NJ DEP is limited due to a persistent lack of funding and constant budget cuts over the last several years. The lack of funding has caused a number of programs to shrink in size and scope, to be eliminated, or to be out-sourced.

The determination of water quality, unfortunately, is then frequently left to other organizations and individual people. Albeit without proper tools and resources it's often a guessing game.

For the past three years, the all-volunteer Bayshore Watershed Council has been conducting a seining survey of Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay at the start of the summer season. On Sunday, June 2 from 10am to 4pm, the fourth annual Start-of-the-Summer seining event took place.

As usual, surveys were conducted at four locations: Cliffwood Beach in Aberdeen Township, the public beach along Front Street in Union Beach, the public beach in Port Monmouth, and the beach near the mouth of Many Mind Creek in Atlantic Highlands.

With help from local kids and adults, a 50-foot-long net, with buoys on top and weights on the bottom, was hauled by watershed volunteers through the water and pulled towards the shore, catching what lived along the shallow edge of the bay. The catch included many common estuarine creatures including Bay Anchovies, Mud Snails, Pipe Fish, Hermit Crabs, and Blue-Claw Crabs. There were also a few surprises: YOY (young-of-the-year or born this year) river herring, fat Kingfish and Sea Robins, and masses of Salps, an unusual clear gelatinous looking creature, about the size of a dime, that does not sting and eats plankton.

Turbidity was poor at all sites, the color of tea. In fact, bay water was so cloudy and hazy that people knee-high in the water couldn't see their feet. Perhaps the combination of abundant Salps and the muddled water was an indicator of an plankton bloom. 

Another surprise was the lack of shrimp to be found. Last year, each site had 50 or more shrimp, but this time there were only a handful to be found mostly in the eastern part of the bay. Local species of small bay shrimp, including the Common Shore Shrimp, Grass Shrimp, and Sand Shrimp, frequently inhabit the intertidal zone and are an important food source for many fish and coastal birds. The scarcity of shrimp was a mystery, but might have been caused by turbidity or fluctuations in salinity.

There is no doubt the more the watershed council conducts these public seining events, the better picture people get of the bay. Seining is a method of taking the pulse of a local ecosystem. It's a way to gain an insight into the health of the near shore environment where many people swim and enjoy the bay.

The presence, condition and numbers of types of fish, crabs, shrimps, plants, and other organisms provides important information about the health of the estuary. Studying biodiversity is a way of evaluating the health of a body of water. Biodiversity surveys are often undertaken by schools and volunteer groups to find out what organisms exist in a given area, especially since identification of many species is already known by large numbers of people.

All fishes, crabs, and other aquatic creatures were identified, cataloged, and returned to the water. In addition to seining, water temperature and turbidity information were documented by volunteers at each site. 

People on hand not only had a fun time seeing what interesting life lived in the bay, but many people had a good time holding different species of fish, such as flounders, Hermit Crabs, Pipefish and more before releasing them into the estuary. Each haul of the seine net brought something new to discover.

Below are the details of the event. Species found and data collected are listed beneath each seine location. The weather was mostly sunny to partly cloudy with air temperatures in the upper 80ss. Winds were breezy out of the southeast 10-15 mph.

Thanks and appreciation goes to Gene and Panse, Charlie O, Christine B, Frank H, Casey R, and Rebecca M, and Jeff D for all their wonderful help.

10am - Aberdeen Township/Cliffwood Beach
Low Tide. Water temperature 72 degrees F.
Visibility was cloudy six inches and less .

300+ Salps
200+ Spearing or Atlantic Silversides
200+ Bay Anchovies
100+ Mud Snails
25 Oyster Drills
20 juvenile River Herring,
1 Red Beard Sponge

12 Noon - Union Beach/Conaskonck Point
Incoming  Water temperature 73.5 degrees F.
Visibility was cloudy a foot or less .

300+ Salps
200+ Bay Anchovies
30+ Spearing or Atlantic Silversides
25+ Hermit Crabs
5 Shore Shrimp
2 adult Sea Robins two feet or more in length
1 juvenile Windowpane Flounder
1 adult Pipefish

2:00pm: Middletown Township/Port Monmouth - Pews Creek
Incoming Tide. Water temperature 74 degrees F.
Visibility was less than 6 inches.

100+ Salps
40+ juvenile River Herring
20+ Hermit Crabs
10 Bay Anchovies
4 Sand Shrimp
1 Kingfish, about 28 inches in length
1 adult female Blue-claw Crab
Masses of Mud Snail eggs attached to debris

3:30pm: Atlantic Highlands/Mouth of Many Mind Creek
High Tide. Water temperature 72 degrees F.
Visibility less than 6 inches . Lots of seaweed located along the edge of the water.

50+ Hermit Crabs
50+ Comb jellies
50+ Mud Snails
5 Sand Shrimp
1 Bay Anchovy
1 Northern Quahog
1 juvenile Summer Flounder
1 juvenile River Herring
1 Mating pair of Horseshoe Crabs spotted on beach

For more information, pictures and year-round sightings of wildlife in or near Sandy Hook Bay, please check out my blog entitled, Nature on the Edge of New York City at http://www.natureontheedgenyc.com