I am a 3rd generation resident at Reeds Beach, NJ.  My grandfather and grandmother were one of original families to break ground on the north beach side.  My grandfather build our beach home with his own hands.  When my father and uncle came along, they enjoyed the wonders Reeds Beach had to offer as children.  When they had children of their own, we enjoyed those benefits as well.   Now my brother brings his children to our summertime home.  Four generations of McConaghy’s. Sadly, my niece and nephew don’t have the benefit of experiencing the awe and wonder we experienced. 

Ecotourism is now defined as "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education.  Even prior to Hurricane Sandy, our beach has been exploited for profit and scientific research.  Our horseshoe crabs have been harvested for their blood, vastly depleting their numbers.  Our beach properties, which are owned, not rented, are restricted to us for 6 weeks due to Red Knot migration. We can’t go on our beaches.  When I say “our,” I mean that with a sense of pride in ownership.  Every one of us on Reeds Beach is family.  My neighbors, the Stapleford’s, may not be blood, but they are family.  I’ve attended graduations, birthdays, weddings; I know just about everyone on the beach.  We all know each other.  We look out for one another.  When Sandy decimated our beach, we all banded together to put our homes to right.  Some of us lost family homes, some lost part of our homes.  We all lost a little bit of ourselves when that storm hit.  My family home was lucky.  We lost part of our porch and our front bulkhead and about 3 feet of sand encompassed our property.

My neighbors all had much of the same.  The Stapleford’s lost their grandmother’s home a little ways down the road.  Ralph and Sid Cobert, across the street, their home was condemned.  Regardless of the destruction, we came together as a family and dug each other out.  For 3 weekends in the cold, blistering wind, we moved sand off our property.  All of us.  Some pregnant. One even with a broken foot. Do you know how much sand that is?  It’s a lot…a back-breaking lot.

Why do I tell you this?  These proposed plans were never mentioned to the residents of Reeds Beach.  What’s the big deal you ask?  We don’t appreciate tourists or the trash and hazards they create.  Out of town bird watchers, for instance.  Much like the greenhead fly, we find them to be a nuisance.  They flip our horseshoe crabs on their back to feed the seagulls. All of us have seen them do it.  We then go on the beach and flip them back over.  Since 2007 it’s been illegal to fish the horseshoe crab.  We’ve actually gotten involved with conservation groups and learned more about horseshoe crabs last year.  Bird watchers don’t care.  They like their birds.  They have no regard for anyone or anything else, other than their birds. They either speed down the road, which is 25mph in some spots and 15mph in others, or they slow to a crawl they may as well be stopped.  This blocks traffic.  They have no regard for the residents.  When they do speed down the road, this puts our children at jeopardy. Regardless of our signs to slow down, that children are playing, our warnings go unheeded. This increase in traffic will be detrimental to the wellbeing of our property and the safety of our children! Also, many times we’ve come down on the weekend to have these bird watchers using our patio furniture sitting on our back patio watching birds across the marsh. Trespassing on my property, and they have no qualms about it. We’ve had bird watchers call the police on us, on our own property, because our dog was “disturbing” the birds at the waterline.  Our dog was on a leash and the police actually came.  A bird watcher, who doesn’t pay my taxes, tells me what I can and can’t do with my property and if I bother their birds, they do not hesitate to use the police to harass us. So let’s add a raised platform by the jetty. Let’s increase the already steady flow of traffic down our narrow road.  Please, put our children in harm's way. Our beach, it’s not much in the winter months, but in the summer, it’s magical.  The sunsets are things you can only dream of, just picture it.  Now, imagine a rambling, smokey tour bus filled with bird watchers fly down the road while you try to enjoy the quiet of the tide lapping on the sand.  Did that ruin your imagery?  Mine, too! Oh, and the diamond back terrapins.  We take pride in saving these turtles. We don’t just have a hand painted sign.  We scour the roads every day to find hatchlings and bring them to the bay to safety.  My highest count was 37 hatchlings in one hour. These terrapins are protected under the Lacey Act, but we still have people, tourists, who think they are cute and take them home.  This is illegal.  Not to mention, the increase in bird watching traffic will increase the amount of hatchlings that are run over.  In the summer, take a walk down the road.  Hundreds of baby turtles are run over on our road. Hundreds!  We even protect the mothers.  In the months of May and August, during the full moon, we keep an eye on the mothers as they cross the road to lay their eggs.  Oncoming traffic is stopped until they finish crossing.  Sometimes, after a clutch is laid, a bucket is placed over the sand to prevent the raccoons from eating the freshly laid eggs.  Yet, despite our efforts, their numbers continue to fall. It's not to say we hate bird watchers. In fact we have serveral that live on our beach and we get along just fine.  They are respectful.  They help with the crabs and the turtles.  We need to focus on the traffic and pollution the out of town bird watchers/tourist bring.

 Let’s talk about the gazebo and additional parking and resurfacing of the jetty.  Just, no.  We get people who park down the jetty to either fornicate, do drugs, or fish.  Obviously, you can see the issue the first two, but what’s wrong with fishing?  We’ve seldom had surf fishers on our beach in prior years.  Since Sandy, we’ve had a copious amount of surf fishers flock to our beach.  They leave refuse: tangled fishing line (which we had to rescue an entangled seagull last year), dirty diapers, food wrappers, (my favorite) bottles of urine, broken chairs, rotten bait, hooks, beer bottles, etc.   The urine and excrement are beyond disgusting. Who even does that? The beer bottles generally are broken, so aside from the hooks, the residents are picking up glass as well.  Until we complained, there were no trash cans.  The township has now supplied TWO whole trash cans that I didn’t see emptied once last summer.  In fact, the residents emptied the trash cans. Oh and how about since all these new bird watchers and surf fishers have come, how about the home robberies.  Those have increased, too.  In fact, while we were watching a surf fisher litter last year, a police car pulled up and asked if we saw anyone at a house further down the road.  They were burglarized.  In broad daylight.  Our burglaries on the boats at the marina have increased, too.  No one will clean up this new proposed parking.  No one will clean up the beaches.  They kayaking idea is ludicrous.    It’s generally for the bird watchers. The surf is not gentle down at the jetty.  Will the township provide lifeguards? What impact will that have on our boaters, as well?  Is it going to cause more beach erosion? We are already in dire need of having the bay dredged again to replenish the beach sand.  All these concerns and I can guarantee you our taxes will increase…again!  As if Sandy wasn’t enough of a financial burden, our taxes have steadily increased each year.

As soon as word of these improvements were known, it spread through the residents like wild fire.  Not one of us can think of any positive outcomes to these “eco-tourism” improvements, other than financial municipal or personal gain for those looking to sell their property.  If anything, it will destroy our solitude and increase the pollution.  Eco-tourism is to be non-intrusive to the local environment including that of the local residents.  I don’t see how it won’t be intrusive.  We, the residents of Reeds Beach, are  against these changes.  You would think the residents would have received some input to these “improvements.”  We do a lot to live in harmony with mother nature at our beach.  We won’t be sharing our home with those who will inadvertently destroy it.  You can also bet many of us will be at that meeting on the 24th.  As much as we appreciate the Red Knots that bird watchers love so much, we appreciate our bay, our turtles, our horseshoe crabs, our solitude, and hopefully memories we can pass on to our children. 

I just wanted to give you a perspective what we, the residents, will face given these new “improvements.”