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'Adopt a Beach' seeks volunteer help

Looking for something to adopt this summer? Why not get yourself a fine strip of New Jersey beach? That's the hope of a new "Adopt a Beach" partnership between the state and a nonprofit organization aiming to keep Jersey beaches, bays, and rivers clean in these tough economic times.

Looking for something to adopt this summer? Why not get yourself a fine strip of New Jersey beach? That's the hope of a new "Adopt a Beach" partnership between the state and a nonprofit organization aiming to keep Jersey beaches, bays, and rivers clean in these tough economic times.

"So many places are not in a position to pay more people to keep our beaches clean, so we need to take personal responsibility," said Sandy Huber, executive director of the New Jersey Clean Communities Council (NJCC), which will spearhead the program.

The goal is to coordinate the state's struggling annual beach cleanup events into a year-round effort involving more municipalities, community organizations, businesses, students, and volunteers, Huber said.

For nearly two decades, the state Department of Environmental Protection sponsored statewide beach cleanups, one in the spring and another in the fall. Almost 3,000 people attended last spring's cleanup, combing more than 100 miles of beach and dunes and bagging 22,000 pounds of trash, said Lawrence Hajna, a DEP spokesman.

But last fall's sweep had to be scrapped because of a lack of funding. The small budget for the cleanups - about $5,000, Hajna said - was maintained through sales of "Shore to Please" license plates, but they haven't been selling too much lately.

"We were short on resources," Hajna said. The DEP has lost more than 200 employees through attrition in the last few years, he noted.

Wanting to continue and expand the cleanups, the DEP announced last week that it had turned to NJCC, which focuses on statewide grant-funded antilitter efforts.

"It's a natural fit," Hajna said.

Getting started, the NJCC hopes to build off successful Adopt a Beach programs such as the one in Margate.

Four years ago, the Atlantic County town developed a program in which a family can adopt a strip of beach for $250 for two summers. For their money, volunteers get a metal sign with their name on it bolted into the bulkhead of the beach. In turn, the volunteers are asked to participate in seasonal cleanups and serve as sort of monitors, pleasantly reminding neighbors to abide by littering ordinances.

"We call them environmental stewards. It's a nice name," said Franz Adler, who coordinates Margate's Adopt a Beach program.

The Margate program has about 100 volunteers, and the revenue is helping to buy new beach recycling bins and signs. The program has raised beach-cleaning awareness and drawn residents together, Adler said.

The new partnership won't charge participants.

There's also Clean Ocean Action, a nonprofit agency that has been holding spring and fall beach cleanups for 25 years.

Its beach sweeps started with just a handful of volunteers at Sandy Hook. Now, more than 5,550 attend the annual events, removing 59,000 pounds of garbage from North Jersey to Cape May, executive director Cindy Zipf said.

Moreover, the group issues annual reports itemizing every piece of collected trash. For example, more than 200,000 pieces of plastic refuse were bagged in 2009, Zipf said, and more than 30,000 cigarette butts were picked up.

Collecting data on beach trash is vital, Huber said.

"It helps us track the sources and combat the problem to keep our beaches cleaner," she said.