JERSEY SHORE – Five Ocean County beaches were closed to swimming today due to the wash up of medical waste, according to state officials.
According to information posted to the website of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, there were closures in Point Pleasant Beach, Mantoloking, the Normandy Beach section of Brick and in the Ocean Beach 2 section of Toms River. Each were included on a beach closure and water quality website which described the material as a “floatables washup.”
Members of the Normandy Beach Improvement Association informed its members thru e-mail that the closure was due to medical waste according to Jersey Shore Hurricane News.
The website NJbeaches.org reported the Maryland Avenue beach in Point Pleasant Beach, Princeton Avenue and Lyman Street beaches in Mantoloking, 7th Avenue in the Normandy Beach section of Brick and East Tuna Way in the Ocean Beach II area of Toms River were closed.
Similar closures were reported earlier in the week in Long Branch, a Monmouth County community. The closure at Oceanfront Park, Long Branch was also blamed on the washup of medical waste that included syringes.
The NJDEP said Monday that the Monmouth County washups were a result of sewer overflows from heavy rain during thunderstorms ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa and the additional impact of Elsa.
Floatables were directed by the wind and tides and the overflows onto the beaches from Pavilion Beach in Monmouth Beach to Joline in Long Branch, according to a statement by the NJDEP.
The agency said the situation resulted from sewer systems which share piping systems that carry both sewage and stormwater to a central treatment system before discharging it into a waterway. During heavy rainfall, these systems overflow, discharging a mix of sewage and stormwater to the waterway.
Further information from the NJDEP is expected to determine whether the Monmouth and Ocean counties closures share the same cause.
