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BY ANDREW WILLNER

COMMENTARY

The recent pronouncement by Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, that may end more than a decade's worth of oyster research, restoration, education and community involvement in most of New Jersey's northern estuaries is untenable given the DEP's previous support of NY/NJ Baykeeper's oyster restoration program.

It is also disturbing, but not surprising, that New Jersey's inexperienced commissioner has caved in to a minority of special interests within the department and issued a misguided and scientifically indefensible rule-like directive to attempt to stymie research, habitat restoration and oyster gardening that specifically targets Baykeeper.

I understand the department's reluctance to allow edible seafood to be grown in marginally polluted waters. However, those waters remain polluted in significant part because of lack of action by the DEP to bring the targeted bays and tributaries — and the entities polluting those waters — into compliance with the fishable/swimmable standard of the Clean Water Act.

Oysters and Baykeeper did not pollute those waters, and the program to restore oysters there should not suffer as a result of DEP's inability or unwillingness to bring legal and regulatory action necessary to stop pollution and restore the water quality and habitats in the state's northern and urban estuaries.

Particularly troubling is the apparent lack of initiative on the part of the department to address permitting of private docks in shellfish harvest areas, its ineffectiveness in addressing toxic site cleanup in the Raritan River, Raritan Bay and Arthur Kill, and the permitting of residential projects under CAFRA along the Bayshore of Raritan Bay that would never be permitted anywhere else in the coastal zone.

Additionally, allowing polluters like the Middlesex County Utilities Authority to close almost one-third of the bay to shell fishing as a result of its gigantic and loosely regulated discharge pipe is unacceptable. The DEP must begin to evaluate its priorities and its willingness to serve the public good.

Should a reckless discharger get more deference than a popular, scientifically verified, community-supported restoration project? Should a developer be issued a CAFRA permit that does not conform to the rules? Should a deep-pocket polluter get a pass on paying for clean-up and compensation for natural resource damages while the department spends time obsessing about Baykeeper's economically and environmentally positive research efforts?

Why is it that at every forum in the NY/NJ harbor estuary, the DEP is the only federal or state agency actively opposed to large-scale restoration of oysters? Why is it that Delaware Bay, an equally urban estuary, has a subsidized oyster restoration program? Why is it that southern New Jersey shell fishing interests appear to have the support of the department while northern fishermen rarely, if ever, get support?

Why is it that at a time when both the governor and the president are calling for green jobs and green infrastructure projects, the one "shovel-ready" project in the state — Baykeeper's oyster restoration project — is being targeted in such a mean-spirited way?

Any politically astute person knows the answer: The DEP is fearful its lack of enforcement of clean water standards, its flaccid CAFRA permitting program, its subpar toxic site cleanup program, its apparent disinterest in extracting natural resource damages from polluters of the Raritan River like National Lead, and its shellfish program's bias will be exposed.

The commissioner should redirect the efforts of the department to address urban river and estuary pollution, to be aggressive in addressing permit violations at sewage treatment plants, to reconfigure the department's contaminated site clean-up program so that sites actually get cleaned up, and to stop issuing permits for development in wetlands and flood plains.

The DEP also should develop incentives and penalties to address non-point source pollution and combined sewer overflows by mandating, rather than suggesting, that municipalities adopt low-impact development plans to manage stormwater runoff.

Let's put the resources of the department behind pollution abatement and habitat restoration initiatives like Baykeeper's oyster research, education and restoration project that create jobs and bring money into the state, rather than wasting taxpayer-funded time in a tough budget period figuring out ways to kill it.

Andrew Willner, of Keyport, is baykeeper emeritus and a trustee of NY/NJ Baykeeper, a nonprofit group dedicated to the protection of the Raritan-Hudson estuary.

THIS COLUMN FIRST APPEARED IN THE ASBURY PARK PRESS