[Birds chirping] [Typewriter keys] [piano music begins] (Narrator 1) In 1934 the New York Times wrote [Typewriter keys] Piano music builds [Typewriter keys] [Typewriter keys] [piano music tempo slows] [Typewriter keys] [Violins quicken the pace] [Music crescendos] [Typewriter keys] [Music builds to cymbal strike] [Typewriter keys] [Typewriter keys] (Narrator 1) The changes to the bay have been rapid.

We arrived and we stayed [Music ends] [Ragtime music begins] (Narrator 1) Barnegat.

[music begins] The word has weight.

What she lacks in depth she make up for in distance.

42 miles of beautiful brackish water Stretching from Bayhead in the north to Little Egg Harbor in the south.

Millions cross over in hopes of reaching Seaside Beach Haven, the ocean.

But those in the know, choose to stop at her mucky shores (Willy) It makes me think of a place (Willy) that involves a lot of people in a lot of different ways Motor boaters, and fishing, and crabbing, and sailing (Willy) But it also means people back in the pines enjoying (Willy) The source of the water in Barnegat Bay Valuing the streams that feed the bay.

The bay is a report card on what's going on on the land around it.

(Willy) And if the bay is in good clean shape, then, that tends to mean that the people around the bay are in harmony with nature.

[music ends and birds chirp] [frogs croaking] [birds chirping] (Narrator 1) Hidden away down a gravel road (Narrator 1) Nestled in a cove of marsh near Swan Point (Narrator 1) Stands a multi-generational family owned business (Narrator 1) For nearly a century, names such as David Lolly Tom and Mark have become entwined with the local community (Mark) It's pretty unique.

It's pretty different.

[quirky music begins] (Russ) Beaton's is timeless (Paul) It's not too much different than boatyards used to be years ago.

(Russ) The wood shop has been there since the late 30's early 40's (Russ) But it kinda smells the same.

You walk in the shop and you smell the scent of cedar and oak (Paul) Everything's not clean and spic and span Some things are never thrown away.

We'll find a use for that.

(Mark) It's still rickety.

(Mark) It is a special place.

(Paul) The stove, it's got a place burning through (Paul laughing) from over use.

(Paul) That adds to the ambience shall we say.

[music ends abruptly] (Narrator 1) What started out as a home for wooden creations has evolved over the years to include the craft of sail making [Scottish violin music begins] (Mark) I think my grandfather always thought there could be a sail loft up here For years this place was storage and rigging And painting boats My dad at the time was running the boatyard along with my uncle I spent probably two and half months, three months cleaning it out.

Opened the doors up that used to be at the east end of the building And just started throwing stuff out Making my pit for my sewing machines Buying my machines and getting set up.

And then started making sails.

[sound of sewing machine] (Mark) We do a panel layout.

Develop a shape.

and we export it to a machine that will cut the fabric and you're left with all these pieces which then you assemble.

We use double faced tape to stick one seam to the next seam we take it to the sewing machine sew the seams up put the reinforcing on and then sew the edges and put it in a sail bag and deliver it.

I call it a little artsy When you look at a whole sail after it's been built and if you've put some thought into designing the reinforcements in the corner and how the window's are shaped and placed You know you want something at the end of it that is pleasing to look at.

And then it's also factory work You have to be able to do all of it.

If I could find a really enthusiastic young person who wanted to do this I'd be very happy to show them the ropes and hopefully pass it on.

I'm not sure what's going to happen I think that the small custom private label is pretty much a thing of the past.

It's been a long time though I've been doing this since the early 80's But on the other hand, I get to go to a really nice place everyday and I get to look out a window here that has a pretty darn great view.

It's a good place to come everyday.

[Scottish music ends] (Paul) I've just completed my 58th year being here.

[sound of sanding wood] That's a long time.

[laughs] [Southern guitar riff begins] (Paul) You know, I have friends that say you should retire you could start a shop in your backyard.

I can do that now and get paid for it.

[chuckle] Well my five mile commute is very nice.

[laughs] That's a plus!

(Narrator 1) The boatyard known as Beaton's has built many of the great wooden boats of Barnegat Bay (Paul) Over the years they started to change to build small racing sailboats they were made with wood that was local to the area white oak, red oak white cedar We built four of the A-class Cat boats which are rather majestic especially when they are sailing.

You know 50 foot mast.

Most people that work on boats particularly wooden boats... it's something they just love.

But some people get into boat building and they find [chuckle] day after day, you're just doing hard, grueling work (Paul ambient) Start pulling...just a little slowly When it's done it looks like Wow!

those lines flow and everything is wonderful but somebody had to do it.

If you have enough opportunities to do things that are creative and you take some pride in what you do even if it's just sanding and varnishing and doing three or four coats on a beautiful piece of wood if you take pride in that, the owner loves it.

That has to be important too.

To keep a business going, for the most part, in this area you have to do repairs, painting, fiberglass work rigging and spar work.

It's just changed Recreationally, people don't want to be thinking all Spring about, I gotta work on the boat I gotta work on the boat Solid wood is getting to be more of a problem to obtain.

prices skyrocketing.

If somebody come in thinking about buying something out of teak and they say I need a plank.

Hey that looks like just the size I need.

How much is that?

Oh that's about $400.

[laugh] There's not very many like it left in New Jersey.

There's a few other places but very few.

I can probably think of 30 in Massachusetts and double that in Maine.

We're kinds the last of the Mohicans [Music ends] [Rain and thunder] (Narrator 1) On October 29, 2012, (Narrator 1) a storm unlike any other sliced the barrier island across from Beaton's (Narrator 1) merging the Atlantic with the Barnegat (Narrator 1) Homes, cars, really everything was swept into the cove.

[piano music builds] (Narrator 1) It took the crew days to know if all had been lost.

(Mark) We were just like, this is going to be really bad!

(Mark) I looked at my wife and said, there's a 50/50 chance that I'm not going to have a shop.

[wind and water blowing] (Mark) We got hit really, really hard here.

The ocean broke through right here at the base of the bridge.

Pretty much all those houses in Mantoloking that got knocked down, ended up here in the yard.

(Paul) We were surprised that all of the buildings were still here.

(Mark) Just a carpet of debris And the yard itself was still flooded.

It was up to our knees in the parking lot.

(Paul) When we finally got in here there was between two and five inches of mud on the floor.

oil from miscellaneous tanks.

and sewage from the systems across the bay that broke.

It just seemed like it would never end.

(Mark) We had no electricity It was just one thing after another.

Seventy percent of the boats that were stored ended up out in the marsh, across Mantoloking road Boats were sunk in the slips.

The docks were wrecked.

(Paul) There was piles of boats all over the place.

Big boats just stacked up against some of the buildings Boats that drifted out of here, back into the woods.

(Mark) I don't think we've ever really come back to the number of boats we had stored (Paul) There was a good percentage of boats that were lost.

(Paul) A lot of the people that have boats here, have homes on the water.

Obviously, if your multimillion dollar house collapses, you're not thinking too much about your 20 foot boat.

[melancholy piano music] (Russ) My boat Sojin was in the same slip that she's in now.

She's about 65 years old and in retrospect I should have hauled her but it seemed like the storm was gonna go north and not make its left turn like it did.

and as expected she sank.

She was lifted up and she was impaled for a while on a piling.

and there was a large hole in her bow which I didn't see until I came down.

(Russ) [choking up] It probably took maybe two minutes to decide to do what I could to bring her back and she's been great ever since.

(Mark) It was probably three months of work.

To clean the place up.

Bring the boats back up.

We had incredible people.

The guys that worked here were amazing.

We were tromping around out in the marsh for days Hooking up boats and dragging them back across the marsh.

It was pretty crazy!

(Paul) You just put your mind to, well I'm gonna go in and spend another day and do what you have to do.

(Mark) It was devastating, devastating for us.

I think we're recovering pretty well but it's been a tough one.

I think Sandy was a big shake up for this area and we're still working our way out of it.

[crickets chirping] [piano music fades] [rain.

Thunder.]

(Russ) Nature always want to seek it point of least resistance.

It taught a lesson about the fragility of where we live you know life at sea level.

(Mark) I think our water levels have risen for sure on the bay.

[drone sound begins] seems more so since Sandy.

I see our point out here, Swan Point eroding pretty badly.

[woodwind instrument plays] I think if you look at old maps Swan Point was like at least half way across the bay I'd say in the last ten years it's probably cut back 600 feet.

(Paul) Coastline is always changing Always has and always will.

There's obviously an increase in tide level [woodwind instrument] (Paul) In 1970, we might have half a dozen high tides where it came up over the parking lot.

Now, we probably average about 30 or 40 a year.

and they come up much higher.

In the last year, we've had it come in the shop three or four times.

Half an inch.

An inch.

Two inches.

That's a sign, it's definitely coming up.

[woodwind instrument louder] [drone fades] [melancholy violin begins] (Narrator 1) Generations of sailors and lovers of wooden boats find a nostalgic comfort in the buildings and business that is Beaton's (Russ) I'll never forget Lolly was still alive and we were looking out standing in the shop door and he said "It's just great the way people feel so comfortable here."

(Russ) On my blog is a page called Beaton's and every once in a while someone will write Something about their wonderful memories about how their family had a boat or how they came to this place and bought a boat here and the yard helped them (Paul) Some of it is the continuity of the family.

(Paul) 3 generations have been part of the business.

The Beatons always treated people fairly They did good work and didn't play games with customers.

Pretty much what you saw is what you got.

(Mark) We go back to the times when people helped my grandfather get this place started.

And those are customers and their kids are customers and their grandkids are still customers.

(Connie) I have a passion for sailing I started out at 6 years old.

Crewed for my sister first in a Sneakbox And our comet was built at Beaton's.

It's a passion and it's a fun thing for me.

(Russ) So a lot of people have many, many memories.

And it's not just a boatyard it is a focal point for the community.

I just hope it's here long enough for me to pass the bar.

(Mark) We're not just some corporation It's real people.

We do have generations of people that have been here We just keep helping them every time we can.

We care about our customers and we definitely care about what's gonna happen here ten years from now.

I hope it keeps going.

[music fades] [crickets] [water lapping] (Narrator 1) The boatyard falls quiet [insects and frogs] (Narrator 1) The headwaters awaken with a tree frog serenade.

[wind blows] [birds chirping] (Terry) The watershed is a wonderful place to explore.

[frogs croaking] (Terry) The Barnegat Bay watershed is all the land that when it rains, it drains into Barnegat Bay.

There are 19 creeks and rivers that drain into Barnegat Bay They start out in the headwaters near the middle of New Jersey, it's called a divide.

Water on the other side goes into the Delaware River.

All this water drains into Barnegat Bay.

(Narrator 2) Some areas west of the bay are challenged by increased development Forest and fields are rapidly being ousted by homes, roadways, and businesses.

[ambient music fades out] [quirky old time music begins] [quirky piano music ends] [techno music] (Narrator 2) Barnegat Bay watershed encompasses eleven sub watersheds Tributaries and rivers pump like capillaries into the heart of the bay.

[ambient music] (Terry) All of what happens in the Barnegat Bay watershed affects the bay.

All the road construction.

All the debris.

People littering.

We think nothing of roofs of hundreds of houses and driveways, and sidewalks, and curbs.

So, all of that water can't go into the ground.

(Narrator 2) These impervious surfaces limit the filtration of water and runoff pushes pollutants into nearby storm drains and they are transported unfiltered directly into the bay.

(Terry) Lawns are a big problem.

Pesticides are a problem.

Oils from highways.

Pet waste.

If you get an inch of rain, you'll have the river rise a foot.

All of that is runoff And all of that carries with it any contaminants that could come into it.

(Narrator 2) Runoff, filled with nitrogen and phosphorus creates algae blooms in the bay.

These blooms suck up life supporting oxygen Stressing and even killing fish and shellfish.

(Willy) Ocean County originally was one giant water filter.

There was literally no such thing as storm water runoff.

in Ocean County.

A raindrop would fall it would hit the ground and it would keep on falling Because Ocean County didn't have glaciation It's all just sandy soil.

That sand purified every drop of rain.

[crickets chirping and rain] (Narrator 2) The natural state of the watershed is for creeks and rivers to be lined with forest.

such as Atlantic White Cedar.

These trees provide a multitude of service.

They protect the land from flooding, filter out pollutants and provide habitats for insects, birds, and plants.

Unfortunately these forests are disappearing due to overpopulation of deer, rampant wildfires and overdevelopment.

White cedar can't live in salty conditions so rising sea levels moving brackish water further upstream means the demise of these great trees.

(Terry) Atlantic White Cedar is just about the most valuable tree in New Jersey It's straight grained.

It's light.

It grows in the swamp so it doesn't rot.

And the trees were logged out.

There's almost no pristine forest.

This is second or third growth.

[insect sounds] (Narrator 2) Two of the sub watersheds provide an eye opening comparison of the difference in water quality and the health of the system when human activity is present.

[banjo music begins] (Terry) Cedar Creek, the headwaters are forested.

It's usually lined with mostly Atlantic white cedar with some pitch pines.

The land is publicly owned There are no homes or houses along the stream.

You have Double Trouble State Park.

You have Ocean County natural lands.

You have county parks and you have municipal parks all along the stream.

So the quality is much better than it would be on some of the other streams.

But it's a beautiful trip.

You can spend all day without seeing another soul.

(Narrator 2) Cedar Creek, called Clear Creek to early settlers.

The water quality was impressive enough to be kegged and placed on sailing ships.

Cedar roots lining its shores dictate it beautiful amber color.

Even today, ninety percent of the creek is forested.

The creek provides us with every type of wet land: Atlantic White Cedar swamps, Cranberry bogs rich in accumulated vegetation And salt marshes stretching out to the coast This nearly fifty five mile sub watershed is home to many unique animal and plant species.

Cedar Creek is truly a wonder of the watershed [banjo music ends] (Narrator 2) At a whopping 124 square miles the Toms River sub watershed is the largest of the Barnegat Bay system.

[fast paced banjo plays] (Narrator 2) Unlike Cedar Creek, early settlers populated the shores of the Toms River.

At the time, a large inlet called Cranberry Inlet located in the area now known as Ortley Beach served as a gateway for ships to enter promoting industry and recreation.

While the headwaters are forested they're mostly hardwood swamps The native Atlantic White Cedar disappearing years ago due to over-harvesting.

As you head southeast, human activity has diminished fresh and saltwater marshes.

This sub watershed is better suited for human activity on the surface than immersion below.

(Terry) Toms River is the largest stream that empties into Barnegat bay.

It's huge.

It has twelve or thirteen tributaries that go into it.

and there's all kinds of different land uses in that watershed There's a military base.

There's Colliers Mills which is a fish and wildlife area.

There's chicken farms.

They're a number of cranberry farms gravel mines There are a whole number of senior developments with lawns, sprinklers hotels nursing homes, You have golf courses, shopping centers Then you're gonna come to marinas, to places where the stream has been dredged out bulkheaded channelized and then once you get to the bay you have bridges across the bay, people on jet skis sailboats powerboats The river is really used for recreation and in some cases transportation.

[lively banjo music ends] (Narrator 2) Unlike Cedar Creek, the Toms River watershed has seen growing development for centuries.

The cost of which has been a decline in water quality [upeat music briefly] (Terry) Don't want to see the development pressure It has come.

They wanted to build a jetport And they said we can pave right over the pine trees and build a jetport out here.

North of here is the Forked River mountain wilderness area It's the largest, roadless area left in New Jersey.

They were gonna build houses out there.

Now it's bought by the county and it's a wilderness area Those kinds of things are important.

Not only buy the land but manage it.

If you let it go, I mean all the cedars could be wiped out in a forest fire and nobody's replanting them, no more cedars!

You have off road vehicles and dirt bikes everywhere How do you control them?

Now the Ocean County Sheriff's office is involved in helping to control that So there's been a lot more protection in place There's been way more than I ever thought in the way of acquired land.

I think we are well over fifteen thousand acres that we protected.

[peaceful guitar riff begins] (Narrator 2) More development, more impervious surfaces means greater challenges to maintaining water quality.

We can't erase the development that has come before but we can protect the watershed moving forward.

(Terry) We want to make people aware of impacts of their activities and just to use best management practices in everything that you do in the watershed Just live that lifestyle.

(Narrator 2) Although only a few miles apart these two sub watersheds give us a clear picture of the effects of human activity on water quality in Barnegat Bay.

(Terry) Well the mouth of the stream or the estuary where the fresh water meets the salt in Cedar creek the quality is very good.

In Toms River you have a tributary right there Long Swamp Creek that's the worst tributary of any stream that goes into Barnegat Bay so that needs to get remedied fast!

Trying to work on the golf course that's in the very headwaters.

How can we protect the headwaters with a golf course?!

I don't know.

We do have them putting a buffer around the pond that starts the stream.

It's a start!

A start.

not necessarily a finish But the Toms River's got it's issues [guitar riff stops] [wind blowing] [lively piano begins] (Terry) You are in the watershed.

Everything you do does affect the bay.

You can't say, "I don't live in the watershed because wherever you live, you're in a watershed.

[piano music ends] [Sounds of nature] (Narrator 1) The creeks dissolve into the mist.

[More nature sounds] (Narrator 1) While in nearby lagoons, something sinister is at work beneath the surface.

[Foreboding music begins] (Narrator 2) In the 1970s, the tagline made us hesitate.

(Narrator 2) While it's been decades since the film Jaws was released, a new menace has emerged in the water.

The jellyfish.

(Paul) You know I was working in the bay 90s through the 2000s I would see them but it wasn't like that they were on my radar.

And then all of a sudden we start to see them in incredible numbers.

For most invasive species, this is what happens.

They fly under the radar for a long time until all of a sudden you open your eyes and you are like, "They're everywhere!"

How did we miss this?

(Paul) We've seen big changes in the bay, in particular loss of habitat, changes in water flow.

Certainly Hurricane Sandy in 2012 really radically changed what the bay looks like.

We've started to see a lot of exotic species showing up.

(Narrator 2) Several types of jellyfish have called Barnegat bay home for millennium.

Others, are recent intruders.

There are comb jelly, sea nettles, bay nettles, and clinging jellyfish.

(Paul) The clinging jellyfish, which is a relatively new arrival, from the Pacific Ocean, It's called the clinging jellyfish because it holds on to things algae and sea grass.

This little individual is maybe the size of a quarter that's about the maximum size.

However, they have these incredible paralysis venoms that they inject into people.

Typically most jellyfish stings, you get sort of a very high intense pain, and then it begins to sort of go down.

And with the clinging jellies, you can tell that you've been stung, but it's not that painful.

But over time, it just keeps rising and rising and rising until three, four, five hours later people are just in incredible pain as these paralysis toxins sort of work their way through the body and cause muscles to tighten and clench and then they won't release.

(Narrator 2) The sea nettle has been a familiar face in the bay for generations.

Recently, however, the bay nettle, hailing from the Chesapeake, has appeared and has used the past few decades to grow in numbers, now calling the Barnegat bay its home as well.

(Paul) So we actually have what we call "true sea nettles" which occur sort of offshore and then we have what is referred to as the "true bay nettle" and they are different species.

Originally we had worked with the assumption that it is the same one.

But in fact our bay nettle is identical to the Chesapeake bay nettle.

In the work that was done around 1900 to 1960.

There's no evidence of that bay nettle in Barnegat bay.

Somewhere between 1960 and probably 1980, they got into the bay.

Now did they come in because the workers were at the nuclear powerplant and they were bringing things in there?

Were people down in the Chesapeake and they sailed their boats up and they brought the polyps that got released?

Nobody knows the specific origins of them and now in lagoons, you know you drop in and there are hundreds of them just all over the place.

You know you can't possibly swim without being stung.

[Funky music plays] (Narrator 2) No matter the type of jelly, these animals are evolutionary miracles.

(Paul) Very, very simple design, incredible in terms of their capacities to grow and reproduce sexually, asexually, clone themselves, they've all different pathways of survival.

They have two different parts of their life history, so one of which is called the polyp.

Its really small, it lives on docks or bulkheads or on rocks and in some places we don't even know where they are.

And that's when they're really sort of cloning themselves.

And then they release really tiny what you call ephyra, sort of the first budding stage.

And then when they're ready, they produce what we consider a jellyfish which is the medusa stage, and thats the sexual reproduction.

So then that's what we see when we think about a jellyfish sort of swimming around.

You can kill every jelly that's in the water, and there'll be just as many next year because its that polyp stage that regenerates every year to make the new batch.

(Narrator 2) Typically present in the northern bay over-development, the introduction of lagoon communities, bulkheads, and low oxygen in the water, have pushed the nettles to the south.

(Paul) We create permanent structures and it interferes with what Mother Nature really wants to do, revitalizing.

So if you created static, and that's what a lagoon community is, lots of bulkheads, its less marsh and more lagoons.

Means more jellyfish cause those lagoons, lower oxygen, jellyfish really aren't affected by it.

Things that need more oxygen that are good competitors, barnacles, things like that, they lose, they die and the jellyfish win by default.

They're like "Okay, you can't live here, I will and I'll clone myself and I'll make lots of myselves all over the place".

And in fact in 2012, we actually started them showing up in some of the lagoon systems near Beach Haven, so just south of the route 72 bridge.

And those are the same types of habitat that the jellyfish thrive in the northern part of the bay.

Once their populations get up to high numbers, then that tidal force is going to put those into the lower part, into Little Lake Harbor.

And then its a jump from there into the Tuckerton region.

[Guitar music] (Narrator 2) Nestled along the western shore of central Barnegat bay, quietly stands the Oyster Creak Nuclear Powerplant Opened in 1969, the plant was a source of pride and employment for neighboring communities.

At the same time, it devastated water quality and nearby species.

For decades, the plant's antiquated cooling system sucked over a billion gallons of water and all living things nearby into the plant.

The water was then heated at high temperatures and propelled back into the bay.

The closing of the bay in 2018 has resulted in a shock to the system as nature attempts to rebalance.

(Paul) With the closure of Osyter Creek, one of the oldest operating nuclear facilities in the United States, we expect some very positive things to come out of there because it was a water-cooled plant, it sucked up an incredible amount of water.

And in that water were fish, larva, fish eggs, crab larva, and essentially those were killed in that process.

Theres an expectation that we ought to start to see A recovery in many of those species.

At the same point, it also sucked up a lot of jellyfish.

Those jellyfish populations now that they are not going to be destroyed by the plant are subsequently going to increase in that region of the bay.

[Guitar music ends] [Hum from boat engine] Music starts A lot of our sampling, specifically for Oyster Creek to look at how that might cause changes in the jellyfish population is sampling near and far from the plant.

So we do plankton tows.

So we literally take nets, tow them behind the boat And then we're really looking for early stages So the ephyral stage of sea nettles in particular is of great interest because we know then are polyps around, what are those kinds of densities?

Because that's what turns into those adults.

(Student) For the depth we have 4.10 meters.

(Paul) We go out there about every other week during the summer take these samples and then how does that compare to other places within the bay?

That allows us to get a better understanding What did the jellyfish populations look like before the closure of the plant?

Now after it's been closed for several years, how is that recovery?

Those areas that are far away from the plant really shouldn't see a big difference.

because they weren't really impacted by the plant to begin with We did see some differences between 2018 and 2019 but it was minor.

Now we've go several years post closure What do the systems look like?

How have they shifted and changed?

What are we seeing in terms of the types of organisms that are out in the bay?

But it really won't be until we can analyze the data that we collect this year that we're really going to be able to have a better understanding as to what were the impacts of the closure of the plant and the response of the organisms in the bay?

[music ends] (Paul) We do have this love hate.

You know we don't want to get stung but we love seeing them.

They're fascinating.

They're beautiful.

In some cases they can be deadly, buy they're around.

And we have to respect it and we have to understand it.

But we can also mitigate when they become problems.

[strange synth music starts] (Paul) If we want to think about how do we get rid of jellyfish?

Any step to improving water quality So, anytime that you can reduce fertilizers, reduce what goes into the bay, those are all positive steps.

If you have a floating dock at the end of the season if you could pull it to let it dry to kinda kill those polyps underneath it.

Permanently removing those docks also minimizes the habitat that they can use for those polyp stages.

[drum beat] When we think about the bay and we think about water quality, we recognize that in changing environments in degraded water quality species like jellyfish actually thrive.

They do better.

So, they kinda win by default.

We're at a crossroads.

The state of New Jersey implemented actually some really amazing nutrient and fertilizer bans and very strong restrictions.

The question is, have we reached a tipping point?

Where the system is really going to be massively degraded?

I don't think that that's the situation yet.

I think that we see some very positive signs With the closure of Oyster Creek Nuclear Power generating station all of a sudden we don't have these huge thermal inputs that are also adding stress to the bay.

So, hopefully we're going to start to see some recovery from the shut down of that plant.

Those are really important components to the overall improvement of water quality and the health of the bay.

So I don't know that we're ever Gonna see what it look like fifty years ago.

Can it get better?

Can it improve?

And the answer is absolutely!

But it takes effort.

[foreboding drone] I'm a little bit of a cynic With ever increasing global populations and more harvesting of natural resources If that's how we measure progress, then it's just an ever increasing amount of stuff being taken from the planet.

And the planet only has so much to give.

I would always put my money on jellies Jellyfish have made it 500 million years.

I give them another five hundred!

[baritone music ends] (Narrator 1) The southern bay holds her secrets close.

[birds and insects] (Narrator 1) There is a stillness.

(Narrator 1) Then the willets whisper for the break of day.

[Willets cry] (Narrator 1) One of the country's greatest environmental stewards chose Barnegat Bay as his muse.

Spending a lifetime conserving land protecting species and mentoring young scientists and researchers.

[Osprey Call][lively music begins] (Jim) One day as I was driving a pontoon boat with a group of students on it I look off in the distance and there's this boat flying toward me!

Wow!

It looks like an old Garvey and there was a black dog standing up in the front of it.

And he stops just before he hits the boat!

He goes, "Hey, what do you think the salinity of the bay is today?

And I go... ah ah I... He goes, "Ah it doesn't matter you wouldn't know anyway!"

And he turns around and roars away!

Guess that's how I met Pete McLain.

(Jason) So, first time I met Pete it was after hearing about him for a number of years.

Very energetic guy.

I knew he had done a lot With bringing back Osprey and Peregrine Falcon and Bald Eagle to the state.

I also asked him about Pelicans because I knew their numbers were down as well Did you do anything with Pelicans at all?

He just kind of looked at me and he was like "Pelican's got no character" and just kind of moved on from there (laughing) And I was like, compared to an Osprey, I thought, yeah that makes sense.

I agree (laughing) (Ben) Back in 2004 after I got out of college I started working for the state and that's when I would see a camper parked in the parking lot at the office I'd be like who's that or whose truck is that and it was Pete McLain's Where he would be staying down there in his camper at our office going down and working on the bayshore even though he'd been retired for almost twenty years.

(Lisa) So we were out on a marsh platform at the time my title was watershed coordinator I think he thought I was the perfect partner in crime.

Both of us had cameras Pete had a much better camera He was known for very good photography Like any healthy salt marsh, there were muskrat holes.

Pete fell in one.

One leg in.

One leg out.

Camera up in the air!

Protecting the camera!

And he said to me, "Come get my camera!"

And after I saved his camera he had me pull him out of the muskrat hole.

But protecting the camera and saving our footage from the day was most important to him.

[camera clicking noise] [bongo drums and music comes in] [bongos end] [sea birds crying] [guitar music begins] (Jim) He was a major player.

He was actually the Associate director of the New Jersey division of Fish and Wildlife He probably knew more about Barnegat Bay than anybody else at the time and maybe still today.

He really, really knew the marsh.

He knew the plants.

He knew the animals.

He knew the people.

A real bayman in the true sense of the word.

(Jason) I kinda always described him in that generation as a cowboy ecologist There's a problem and just do whatever they need to do to fix it.

Deal with the apologies later.

(Jim) I mean so many people he took under his wing and and mentored.

(Lisa) He saw that ability in a twenty three year old recent grad student that I had a role in protecting the bay.

(Narrator 1) A prolific communicator, Pete could be heard on WOBM radio read in newspapers and outdoor magazines and seen in popular environmental films on the New Jersey Network (VO Pete McLain) Work is presently being done on all endangered species from the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon to the little pine barren tree frog and the secretive tiger salamander [music comes back in] (Lisa) I think the thing that Pete had was a genuine passion.

Avid fisherman.

Birder.

Scientist.

He traversed all people.

So whether your value was bringing back an endangered species or catching the largest striped bass Pete could appreciate that and wanted to experience it with you and teach you something about it.

[Reggae music begins] (Jim) Now Pete was a guide he worked for the Hensler family.

Now the Hensler family originally owned all the islands in the Sedge Island Natural Resource area gradually they sold off pieces of that land to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Guess who negotiated that contract?

Pete McLain All the houses on the islands were called shacks.

They were the neatest shacks in the world.

Back in the day, the duck hunter's towed barges across from the main land Put them on these islands and the lived in them during duck season.

They didn't have plumbing.

They didn't have running water.

Pete named his shack Clam Ranch And he put the Peregrine Falcon hacking tower where he could see it from his porch.

And he could have the interns feeding the falcons pieces of chicken and he could make sure they were doing their job.

That was classic Pete McLain.

Pete recognized that these were really important ecosystems.

How marshes were the nurseries for the bay [sound of cylinder dropping into water] (Jason) The Conservation Zone out by Sedge is I think one of the most important parts of Barnegat bay It's a safe haven for a lot of the things that people like to harvest from the bay.

So like crabs and fish.

It is a nursery for those organisms.

But it's also a sheltered area for people to come and experience the resource as well.

Resources are meant to be used but used in a way that is going to allow them to exist for many generations after that.

He was critical in the establishment of that.

Without him, there likely would not have been a Conservation Zone.

[birds and water lapping] [reggae music begins] (Jim) Pete when he was in his older years I would pick him up at his house in Toms River and we'd go for a little cruise around Which always ended up at Allen's Clam Bar by the way!

But we would travel around and he would go, "let's go to the Pygmy forest today."

"Yeah I got all this land" I go Pete there's a lot of land here.

"Yeah it's fifteen thousand seven hundred and thirty three acres!"

I'm like holy mackerel!

"Let's go down to Great Bay Boulevard.

I got all this land!"

(Lisa) Where I work is on a road known locally as Seven Bridges road It's actually called Great Bay Boulevard And it's called Seven Bridges because originally the plan was that the remaining two bridges would help connect a thruway over to Brigantine If it had happened you could imagine, just like we have lagoon communities all up and down Barnegat bay now we would have that same thing along Great Bay Boulevard.

And instead we have one of the most iconic salt marsh birding habits in all of the bay.

[bird squawks] [guitar plucking] (Lisa) It was actually due to Pete that that land became protected and preserved as a wildlife management area.

I thank Pete every time for protecting that for all of us.

For helping to protect the communities behind it because that salt marsh provides such important natural protection.

(Jim) Pete McLain negotiated a lot of contracts all over the state of New Jersey because he had the charisma he had the ability to work with people and get them to think "Oh yeah this is a good idea, I'll give up my land."

But Pete was a hunter so he could go to a deer hunting camp and he could walk in and he could have a drink of scotch Or a beer, whatever it didn't matter and he could sit down with those guys and he could say... "You know, you guys really ought to donate this."

(Hunters) Oh we're not donating this land!

We're not giving this up!

(Pete McLain) Well if you don't, somebody's going to develop it.

(Pete Mclain) "So what you love is gonna be gone" (Jim) I wish he were here today because he'd be knocking houses down today [laughing] Taking out the bulkheads.

[clicking music] [music ends] [waltzing music begins] (Ben) The biggest issues surrounding the bay are development and the continued development in the Barnegat Bay watershed It's a really fragile environment.

(Jim) The parkway was the detriment to Barnegat Bay, I think.

It just brought so many people in.

Me included!

I get it!

We shouldn't be here.

There shouldn't be so many of us.

From the northern gate of Island Beach State Park to Point Pleasant is completely development.

You find a vacant lot nothing wants to live in that vacant lot A barrier island is a sand bar.

And a sand bar, like all sand bars, gets washed over, it gets washed away.

It's constantly, or it should be, constantly moving westward So Barnegat Bay should be shifting to the left and it should be flooding out those marshes but it can't because people have built their homes there.

they've bulkheaded that and so that can't shift So we're in a real conundrum there.

The only pieces of open space are marshlands that the state or the federal government has acquired.

Almost everything else that's privately held, has been bought up and developed Pete saw that!

I don't why he saw that or how he saw that.

I don't think anybody taught him that I think he just had an instinct for that.

[piano music ends] (Narrator 1) Pete's charisma helped him acquire over eighteen thousand acres of land for protection from the Delaware bay to Barnegat Bay [atmospheric music plays] Great Bay Boulevard meadows and Sedge Island are still natural wonders precisely because of Pete (Lisa) The southern part of the bay is very different in terms of development patterns than the northern part.

It has been through icons like Pete and like the very brave members of the Pinelands Commission who had the foresight to protect this corridor of land that now is considered one of the most pristine areas in the whole east coast of the US When you come down to the bay, especially the southern part of the bay, and you do birding or you get in a kayak, you feel like you in another planet.

It's through people like Pete that we have these beautiful protected important areas.

Not only to the wildlife but to us as humans!

[atmospheric music] (Ben) To be able to foresee the future Of a changing coast in New Jersey is really one of Pete's biggest legacies For coastal one of the biggest needs is habitat.

He played the biggest role in preserving that habitat (Jim) As we've filled in our marshes as we've developed houses along places there's a lot less habitat, a lot less place to live for these animals so they move out of the area.

If they can't survive in the area, they die off.

That's the pressure that's being built But it's human caused and it's by us moving into these areas.

[old time static sound] (Ben) We're doing a good job of protecting our environment for Ospreys.

We're going to continue to see the population grow We have plenty of areas for them to nest.

They nest in many areas where we live and on many structures that we've built.

They've adapted very well to our human dominated landscape in coastal New Jersey (VO Pete McLain) The Osprey, locally called Fish Hawk is one of New Jersey's largest birds of prey.

(Jim) Pete, I think, was one of the first people to recognize the importance of habitat most people didn't think about that Oh, we're gonna bring back the Osprey all we have to do is get a bunch of eggs and put them in a nest and that will do it.

Pete said no, no, no.

We have to put more nests in.

We have to build up this Osprey colony so we've got to provide habitat.

(Ben) We're seeing Osprey's, they're populations growing They're taking back they're native habitat in dead trees, in snags, even on the ground and over water.

They're one of the only raptors really almost found worldwide that nest in such close proximity to people.

Where you can put a nest box or platform in your backyard if you live on the salt marsh and attract this giant raptor with a five foot wing span and then you're watching these birds raise their young and carry on their life cycle.

[music builds] [Osprey chirping] (Lisa) The things Pete taught me; to appreciate what's there, make sure other people appreciate what's there and why it's important.

You can't just look at a map to do that (Jason) If you're talking about a resource, or a place, or a habitat, then be out in it (Ben) Pete was all about sharing his work and these magnificent birds with people through photography.

Now in this digital age, having a camera on a nest where you can watch it 24/7 is just something that is truly fascinating and it even helps biologists like me to be able to learn more life history about these birds.

(Jason) So much of it is just awareness.

How to identify local species of plants and animals birds, fish.

Hopefully just knowing about something kinda leads to caring about it.

When we see an eagle or an osprey pluck a fish out of the water or a falcon come down and knock a bird out of the sky That is so cool!

My students can attest how excited that I get!

I hope that that translates.

I hope that that carries through to them and to their personal bubbles.

(Lisa) One thing Pete instilled in me is that, although salt marshes may be protected, that can change!

Because we are in such a constant changing environment both naturally, politically culturally, we're never gonna get to the point where we can just say, we're done.

Like we've done it!

We don't have to protect it anymore.

Our work is never done.

[boat motor] (Narrator 1) As the founder of the Barnegat Bay student grant program he knew that the fate of the bay lay in the hands of future generations.

[water sounds] (Jason) Pete started this Barnegat Bay student grant program The whole purpose of that was to teach undergraduates how to do research.

How to experience Barnegat Bay In the hopes that these best and brightest students will come back to Barnegat Bay and kinda give back.

(Student) 3,2,1 [sound of device penetrating water] (Jim) That was his idea to get young people to buy into the resources And he said they've gotta buy into it though we're not just going to give them money.

We're not just going to give them a scholarship They're going to have to work for it.

So they're going to have to have a project And that project is going to be something on the bay So they're going to have to get their hands dirty.

They're going to have to be out mucking around in the mud.

[violin plucking music ends] (Narrator 1) It has been nearly a decade but we can all channel a little bit of Pete.

in the efforts to maintain the health of the bay.

[guitar music softly] (Jim) The problems here are overwhelming and they are overwhelming!

But one person can make a difference And Pete was the kind of person He truly made a difference.

(Lisa) He lived his life making a difference I think we need to believe that one person can make a difference on the bay and I think it's gonna take everyone!

(Jason) Pete spent a lot of his life building something from nothing and I hope that it never gets to the point where there's nothing again.

(Jim) I love that man.

And I think about him so much.

Just because of what he did for the Sedge Islands and also for the state of New Jersey.

(Lisa) Pete is around us Every time I drive down Great Bay Boulevard, Pete's there.

I mean he has become part of the system and whether people realize it or not, he's part of everybody that experiences the bay.

[guitar and hand clapping music builds] [guitar music ends] [driving techno music plays ] (Narrator 1) The bay has been patient.

She has provided her resource and refuge.

Meanwhile, for over 50 years we have engineered Erected Extracted There is a balance.

We are teetering.

Nature will have her reckoning.

(Narrator 2) This program was made possible in part by