Barnegat Bay “Clean Water, Beautiful Bay” Green Infrastructure Projects

This award-winning project was a collaboration between the Littoral Society, Princeton Hydro, and key partners that involved implementing a variety of green infrastructure stormwater management projects in order to decrease the volume of runoff and associated pollutants flowing into and damaging Barnegat Bay. The green infrastructure projects were designed to treat stormwater at its source while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits to the Bay. 

According to the Barnegat Bay Partnership, over 33% of the Barnegat Bay watershed has been altered to urban land cover. The construction of communities, roads, and businesses has greatly increased the total amount of impervious surfaces in the watershed. With the added impervious cover has come a steady increase in the amount of nutrients, sediment, pathogens, and other contaminants transported into the Bay by runoff. This accelerated the degradation of the Bay’s water quality and triggered changes to the Bay’s ecology.

Completed projects include:

• Conversion of standard, grassed detention basins into naturalized bioretention basins, as exemplified by the Laurel Commons Carnation Circle Basin, which now serves as a paradigm for the cost-effective retrofitting of aged, traditional detention basins
• At Toms River High School North, the installation of tree boxes
• At the Toms River Board of Education offices, the replacement of conventional paving with permeable pavement
• At multiple sites, the construction of rain gardens
• At Toms River High School North, the construction/installation of stormwater management Manufactured Treatment Devices (MTDs)
• At the Toms River Community Medical Center (RWJ Barnabas Health), the construction of a bioretention/infiltration basin