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The Most Delightful Spot
by Phil Broder
The Wetlands Institute
It started, one could argue, with a classified advertisement
more than two centuries ago. This winter, as Stone Harbor
looks for a place to leave its dredge spoil, as the bridge
over Great Channel remains closed for repairs, as Route
47 is still lined with the orange barrels of ongoing highway
expansion, as a West Cape May ballot measure to authorize
a new open space preservation tax ends deadlocked, as
all this happens within spitting distance of the shore,
we can look back to 1801 and point a finger right at Cape
May Postmaster Ellis Hughes and his classified ad.
But first, let's look back even farther. New Jersey's
barrier islands, stretching from the mouth of the Hudson
River to Delaware Bay, have a longer history of human
interaction than any other set of North American islands.
Natives used the islands as their warm-weather base for
catching fish and shellfish, but when the weather turned
cold they retreated to the woodland shelter of the mainland.
In the 1600s, a handful of hardy pioneers settled on the
barrier islands, but in an ironic reversal of modern days,
mainland property sold for much higher prices than land
near the shore. In fact, historian Craig Koedel points
out that most of Wildwood Island was purchased for nine
pounds in 1700. The seller used the money to buy his wife
a new dress. (At today's exchange rates, nine pounds barely
buys two hot dogs and a soda in Wildwood, let alone the
entire island.)
As we reach the 1700s, small towns started dotting the
islands. Their residents grazed cattle and harvested timber.
The beach became a place to fish, and to launch boats
to chase nearshore whales. Recreational swimming wasn't
even on the horizon. And then, in 1801, Postmaster Hughes
changed everything.
The ad, in the Philadelphia Daily Aurora, is
credited with igniting America's rush to the shore. It
read:
The subscriber has prepared himself for entertaining
company who use sea bathing, and he is accommodated with
extensive house room, with fish, oysters, crabs and good
liquors. Care will be taken of gentlemen's horses. Carriages
may be driven along the margin of the ocean for miles,
and the wheels will scarcely make an impression upon the
sand. The slope of the shore is so regular that persons
may wade a great distance. It is the most delightful spot
that the citizens may retire to in the hot season.
In 2004, you'd find it impossible to drive a carriage
for even the shortest distance along the Jersey Shore.
About half the state's shoreline is lined with man-made
structures, mostly seawalls. Scientists use the term "NewJerseyization"
to describe lengthy stretches of wrecked beach, littered
with the debris of wave-damaged and crumbling seawalls
and groins. The New Jersey coast has been imprisoned behind
walls far longer than any other in America, and so provides
an ideal place to witness the long-term impact of engineered
structures on a sandy shore.
Coastal expert Orrin Pilkey, in his book A Celebration
of the World's Barrier Islands, describes the New
Jersey coast as starting with Sandy Hook, a still-growing
Holocene spit extending into the mouth of the Hudson.
South of the spit is a long headland, which — before
it was completely seawalled — eroded to provide sand
to Sandy Hook. Today, Sandy Hook still receives sand from
the south, but it comes from eroding artificial beaches
rather than an eroding bluff. Below the headland are nine
barrier islands, ending at Cape May. Beach sand is transported
from south to north along the northernmost 45 miles of
the Jersey coast, and in the opposite direction for the
remainder of the state. The same configuration exists
south of the Delaware Bay, with a spit (Cape Henlopen),
then mainland, followed by barrier islands.
Storms like Hurricane Isabel are a certainty for barrier
islands. So is a rising sea level. And so are increased
pressures to develop the land, more dams on the rivers
that supply sand, deeper navigation channels between the
islands, and more seawalls to lock up the sand. Barrier
islands are perhaps the most dynamic geologic features
on the planet's surface. Sea level rise moves the shoreline
back. Storms raise the elevation and overwash widens the
island. Inlets come and go, storing and releasing sand.
Longshore currents lengthen islands.
It may not have occurred to Postmaster Hughes two centuries
ago, but we now must recognize barrier islands as a precious
and irreplaceable resource. We have to sense and accept
the sacrifices that must be made if we're to save them
for posterity. We must exist with them, not on them. And
we have to do so in a way that does not kill them or halt
their evolution. Because at the shoreline, nature bats
last.
For more information on global warming's effect on the
barrier islands, read this report by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) : "Greenhouse
Effect, Sea Level Rise, and Barrier Islands: Case Study
of Long Beach Island, New Jersey"
To learn more about one of the many diverse wildlife species
native to the barrier islands, read: "Diamondback
Terrapin a back-bay sort of critter".
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