20 Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 21 May '86

8IF I v Maurrrn Covlr TOO MUCH? — Tom Snyder, who has suggested the city deyise a plan to limit memorials and plaques on the Washington Street Mall, examines the one that commemorates the mall's founder. Roland E. White.

Meet You in the Mall By the 3rd Tombstone?

By JACK SMYTH CAPE MAY — Is it the Washington Street Mall, or the Washington Street Cemetery? Is a temple of commerce mysteriously changing into a pantheon for fallen heroes'' This city's Washington Street Mall is an acknowledged economic miracle. By closing off a section of one of the main streets in town and converting it to a pedestrian mall in the early 70s. the city's business district took a giant step toward new vitality. DESPITE CRITICS who said it would never work, stores which were barely profitable. prospered. And scores of new merchants were lured to open shops. Today, the mall is the heart of a thriving commercial district. But the mall has also become a focus of civic pride, and historic and political commemoration. In its three block length, there are six stone memorials, a ship's bell, and two bronze plaques. AFTER YOU HAVE BOUGHT an ice cream cone or looked at a pair of shoes, you can read about Ronald E White, hardly a household name, who is identified as "Father of the Mall." Or about Dutch sea captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey who. just about everyone knows, reportedly was the first European to discover the tip of New Jersey that has been named after him. Several of the memorials are about legitimately interesting individuals who have been associated with the city. There .is one about Edgar A. Draper, one of the area's first balck physicians; and another about Henry W. Sawyer, a Civil War hero; and Edwin J. Hill, a World War I hero and Congressional Medal of Honor winner. THE SHIP whose bell is displayed was named after the city, but has limited significance beyond that. On the wall of the new City Center building are two plaques. One celebrates the dedication of the mall, and the other the city's designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 At the far end of the mall on Perry Street stands the most recent, and most imposing piece of stonework. Called the Carlyle J. Dennis Citizenship Award, it was erected by Cape May Men's Republican Club. It is named after a man who was a prominent Republican and school truant officer The GOP Club proposes to engrave on the stone the names of individuals who meet club criteria for such memorialization. YET ANOTHER PLAQUE, a carved wooden one memorializing Cape May area fishermen who have been lost at sea. is proposed for location on the mall. At the May 12 work session of City Council, Tom Snyder, a guest house operator, said he has gotten "comments aboulflhk plaques and tombstones on the mall."^® Snyder said the comments came from V «f

persons who thought the monuments were "distracting and estheticaily displeasing." Snyder qualified his remarks by saying he realized there were "strong and good reasons" for some of them THE FISHERMEN'S plaque. Snyder said, "will probably be very positive and distinctive " But too many memorials, he said, "would begin to litter the area." Snyder suggested the city auopt "some kind of plan for placing them on the mall. " "That makes sense," replied Mayor Arthur Blomkvest. "We have to take a look at it. and not let it get out of hand." The mayor noted that last summer he was annoyed by a craft show on the beachfront promenade "that I thought was too cluttered." City Manager Coldren agreed, too. "In time, we could get carried away." he said "But we'd be hurting some feelings by taking things away." The Vote Delays Funds VILLAS - Ordinance 86-13, for $938,500 worth of Capital Improvements, went down on a tie vote of Lower Township Council Monday. Deputy Mayor M.M. "Peggie" Bieberbach and Councilman Joseph Lonergan voted against the ordinance, saying the newly-elected council members should have a chance to vote on it. Councilman David F. Brand and Robert Conroy supported passage The tie came when Mayor Robert Fothergill abstained. It can be brought up again at the June 1 meeting. The new council members take office in July. Grant Hearing Set VILLAS — Lower Township Council will hold a public hearing May 29 at 10 a.m. in Township Hall on a proposal to apply for a $300,000 state Department of Community Affairs Small Cities grant to build a "basic" water system in Villas. Township Manager James R. Stump told council it.should consider building some major trunk lines there to alleviate water problems along the bay. "The $300,000 will not cover the entire cost of the system," Stump said in a letter to council, "but it will at least make the system more affordable." Early Deadlines COURT HOUSE — This newspaper will be closed Monday to observe Memorial Day. Today's the deadline for news for next week's issue. Tomorrow's the deadline for advertising.

Water Monitoring: A Sensitive Issue t

(From page 1) Forty-eight ocean water sites will be sampled Monday with results out of the lab j in 24 hours — Tuesday. But if there is a I problem, the location will be retested ' Wednesday with results Thursday. If no problem, great. If a problem deemed "significant," (and that does not mean one beach), the mayors of the municipalities will be told first, then the public If the water's fine, the results will go to the municipalities on Friday and be made availaible to the news media the following Monday. That's the information that will appear in our weekly chart, a week after the sampling. The backbay testing in 92 locations will be the same, except the initial sampling will take place Monday and Tuesday. Lamanna said "spot" closings in small locations will simply be posted as closed "If we come up with an unsatisfactory situation... then we have to immediately notify everyone that there is a problem," Lamanna told this newspaper. "We'll have to distinguish between a major closing and a spot closing, which usually clears up in about a day. "WE'RE NOT GOING to notify the news media if there's just one sign to post on one street," he added. Lamanna. Environmental Program Administrator Clay Sutton Jr. ; Gerald Thornton, freeholder director of the Health Department; Senior Environmental Planner Dolores Eckert-La Riviere; and Dave Rosenblatt, principal environmental specialist with the DEP, met with about 20 municipal officials last Thursday to discuss the Cooperative Coastal Minitoring Program CCMP, which was revised and updated by the DEP this year. According to George McCann, acting director of the DEP's minitoring program, last year's beach closings throughout the state highlighted jurisdictional differences in monitoring, reporting and anaylsing. The DEP, along with the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state Health Department developed uniform regulations for monitoring, reporting and regulating public bathing areas and incorporated them in the DEP's cooperative monitoring agreements under the county Environmental Health Act. ACCORDING TO the regulations; •County and local agencies will sample all ocean sites Monday and resample when necessary by Wednesday. All bay sites will be sampled on Monday or Tuesday and resampled by Thursday if associated with a bathing area. The feaeral EPA will sample selected ocean sites on Wednesdays, as part of a study of "green tide" algae blooms. The county will sample 48 ocean sites from Ocean City, around Cape May Point and north to Villas weekly from now until October. It will sample 92 back bay sites and several fresh water sites, such as Dennisville Lake and Tuckahoe River, that are considered to be recreational areas. , •Any Agency detecting a fecal coliform concentration above 200 MPN (Most Probable dumber) will report the result within/two hours to the DEP CCMP coordinator. Resampling of the site and adjacent to define the problem area will be performed in conjuction with a sanitary survey of the area. •The'Rj^al or county agency closes the bathing ar^when two successive samples exceed the standard or when there is "a known relationship between an event and concentrations which exceed the standard." The CCMP coordinator is notified before closing and opening a bathing area, and a bathing area is considered safe when one sample within the standard is received. •When the CCMP coordinator is notified of an unsafe sample, he will notify the state Health Department, the EPA, health departments in adjacent counties and enforcement inspectors irf regional offices. •The DEP will inspect primary sewage treatment plants weekly and secondary plants biweekly. It will inspect plants with ocean discharges or those that will have potential effects on ocean water qu&lity. THE COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT has recommended that areas surrounding all treatment plant outfalls be posted, with permanent signs, as noswimming areas to warn unenlightened vacationers. It has also recommended a catch-basin clean-out and chlorination program. According to Lamanna. "heavy rainfall can and will cause the most serious problem in our waters." Sutton said that "fully one-half of pollution comes from run-off from the land. " He

said the main problems in this county are e from dog waste, fertilizers and leaky 3 sewage pipes. The fecal count detects i waste from all warm-blooded animals. 1 "Catch-basin programs can go a long way toward solving this rainwater problem," Sutton said. i Municipal officials from the Wildwoods » reported that they have cleaned their ; catch basins, and are implementing regular chlorination schedules, j PERHAPS THE BIGGEST area of con- » cern during the two-hour meeting was the ; role of the media. 1 "If one square foot of beach is dosed, in - the eyes of < Philadelphia television) channels 3. 6 and 10, the whole beach is closed." I said Wildwood Mayor Victor DiSylvester. ; "Someone wMoliVes 100 miles away from here doesn't understand that there's I five different communities here," agreed Wildwood Crest Mayor Frank McCaU. "We're not going to handle it as a major issue unless there is a serious health problem," Thornton said. "Believe me, we've : discussed this. 1 "I'm going to assure you this won't be a i media event in the case of a spot closure," he added. "I'm not going to have the news media interpret our technical information. We will make sure it is accurate and detailed enough that they can't misinterpret it, unless they're just plain being irresponsible. "WE'RE GOING TO BE sensitive to the economy of the county, and at the same time, protect the public health," he said. Also discussed was the "look" of a closed beach. Lamanna told the officials it is the municipalities' responsibility to post the beach and notify the public. "I also suggest you remove your guard from the area so it is clear it'& not an official beach," he said. "But I had 60 to 65,000 people on the beaches, even during the closures, last year," McCall said. "Frank. I suggest you do what you did last year," Thornton said. "Leave your lifeguard on the beach to specifically inform people not to enter the water." "I think you have some latitude," Lamanna said, "wheter you want to pull your guard or leave them there to make sure people don't go into the water. That's - up to you." McCall said the major overlooked area in the county is houses and boats that dispose of sewage in the back bays Lamanna said homes that have direct sewer lines to Grassy Sound will be posted this week against occupancy. The problem with boats, he said, is one of jurisdiction. "THERE IS A LEGAL PROBLEM; you can't go on boats and inspect their sewerage system," Lamanna said. "The Coast Guard has jurisdiction." Thornton said. "They have to have just cause or a warrant to go on board." Rosenblatt said the DEP is doing a marina survey that looks at the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy metals, bottom paint, sewage, etc and its effects on shellfish in back bays. "There is work on a grand scale to limit, or see if you should limit, this houseboat phenomena," Rosenblatt said. "You could have a local ordinance that would address this," Thornton said. He referred to existing ordinances in Sea Isle City. This is the 14th year the county has monitored water quality, the first with 24-hour results. Previously, it took three days to get test results. •THIS YEAR, Rosenblatt said, may be the last for fecal coliform testing. Next year, he said, the EPA is thinking about testing for enterococcus "Fecal is an indicator of fecal matter," Rosenblatt said. "The problem is that fecal itself doesn't caioe disease. "We're concerned with bacteria associated with fecal," he added. "Enterococcus closely mimics things we're concerned about the persists longer than fecal. It's more useful in anticipating when diseases may occur." All participants seemed convinced that problems associated with local sewage treatment plants have been solved by the amount of improvements done this winter. Thornton said the Wildwood have spent close to $5 million on repairs. "I just hope that the press and the public recognize the effort they have made in wintertime toward cleaning up the problem," Thornton said. "They put in a lot of money, effort and staff time. Considering the amount of work, staff time and employe time, it was much more than $5 million. "They should be recognized for this," he said.