Ocean County College has been selected to receive two federal grants totaling over $210,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency, to support its regional coastal wetlands assessment.

“I am pleased to announce federal support for this comprehensive wetlands assessment of the Barnegat Bay Partnership at Ocean County College, that promotes coastal resiliency and contributes to proper resource management decision-making,” Smith stated. “This assessment is critical to measuring the resiliency of our coastal wetlands to flooding, and their importance to our local environment.”

The funding is a part of the EPA’s Regional Wetlands Program Development Grants.

One grant totaling $185,237 is for “Coastal Wetland Impacts and Services in NJ Coastal Communities,” and is to “examine the relationship of nutrients and tidal wetland condition in coastal marshes in New Jersey” and to “conduct experiments on the effects of nutrients, sediments and hydrology to endemic tidal marsh plants.”

Another grant for $25,000 is for “Evaluating Coastal Marsh Restoration Performance,” and is for the recipient to “develop a method to collect data on the condition of wetlands at marsh restoration sites to evaluate progress in restoration projects in coastal wetlands in New Jersey. The recipient will evaluate restoration progress relative to ongoing tidal marsh condition assessments being conducted in similar tidal marshes in New Jersey and will use these data to improve its restoration programs and practices to improve wetland restoration success.”

The Barnegat Bay Partnership, at Ocean County College, has been working with the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary on the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Wetlands Assessment (MACWA), measuring the resiliency of coastal wetlands in the Delaware Bay and Barnegat Bay Estuaries as well as variables that are adversely affecting the wetlands.