Barnegat Bay - Plan 9 Research

On December 9, 2010, the administration of NJ Governor Chris Christie announced a plan to address the health of Barnegat Bay. As part of that plan, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Science, working with the NJDEP Science Advisory Board, state universities, U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Barnegat Bay (National Estuary Program) Partnership, developed and funded ten research projects designed to fill in data gaps, address the improvement of water quality, and advance habitat restoration on the bay. These studies were designed to collect data for three years in order to address year-to-year natural variability in the bay’s ecosystem (e.g., Superstorm Sandy came ashore at Barnegat Bay in the fall of 2012 between year 1 and 2 data collections). The studies were also designed to address the multiple stressors impacting the bay for the development of targeted and appropriate regulatory management strategies. The ten projects started in January of 2012 and continued in 2013 and 2014.