New Jersey DEP Spends Labor Day Cleaning Up Waste
The closure of several New Jersey beaches this weekend due to waste washing on shore generated a few headlines, including a mention on CNN.
The story you didn’t hear was about members of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection sacrificing their Labor Day weekend plans to dig through all the refuse looking for evidence of an actual dumping.
Earth 911 talked with Virginia Loftin of the New Jersey DEP, who had this to say:
“The DEP had boats out checking the water and our plane was out flying this area of the coast over and over to look for more trash that might have washed in on Monday. The bulk of the trash washed in on Sunday afternoon’s high tide at about 2:00 p.m. and then again Monday morning. It was all cleaned up by the municipalities and the beaches were reopened at about 10:00 a.m. on Monday.
“So far, there is no good evidence that this was a medical waste dumping event, just a good slug of trash. What one man told us was a ‘sharps’ container turned out to be a Tide detergent bottle with a couple of tampon applicators inside. We are still going through all the trash looking for addresses or ID to see if we can find out if it might be a dumping event. We are responding to this one very aggressively.”
For more information on the status of New Jersey’s beaches, visit http://www.NJbeaches.org. Earth 911′s sister site Beaches 911 provides beach and water quality updates nationwide.
