RED BANK: SINKING BOAT PULLED FROM RIVER
A boat that was sinking in the horsehoe-shaped municipal marina in Red Bank’s Marine Park was pulled from the water Tuesday night.
RED BANK: WORKER EXTRICATED FROM BOAT
[SEE UPDATE BELOW]
A worker at Red Bank Marina was extricated from a boat after becoming stuck in its engine well Monday afternoon.
MIDDLETOWN: RIVERFRONT PARK TO OPEN
In the works for more than eight years, Swimming River Park in the River Plaza section of Middletown is set to make its official debut Monday.
RED BANK: 139-YEAR-OLD MARINA SOLD
Riverview Medical Center looms over one of two Irwin Marine properties flanking Marine Park. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Irwin Marine, a boating business with pilings sunk deep into the red clay waterfront that gave Red Bank its name, has been sold by the family that’s owned it throughout its 139-year existence.
RED BANK: ICELESS WINTER FOILS ICEBOATERS
In decades past, members of Red Bank’s North Shrewsbury Ice Boat & Yacht Club, the oldest organization of its kind in America, could count on winters packed with racing and casual sailing.
No more. What’s now called the Navesink River has not frozen well enough for iceboating for five years straight, sending the club’s members, including Mark Petersen and Steve Foster, right, north in search of ice elsewhere. And even that hunt is often futile, as borough resident Brian Donohue reports in his latest ‘Positively Jersey’ video essay for News12. Watch the short video here.
There’s no hope of ice crystals forming Thursday, when local daytime temperatures are expected to crack 60 degrees again (following Wednesday’s peak of 69), according to the National Weather Service. Check out the extended forecast below.
RED BANK: SUNSETS ON AGENDA
Mayor Pasquale Menna and Councilwoman Kathy Horgan are slated to attend their final session as elected officials. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank may inch closer to turning its onetime landfill on the Swimming River into an eight-acre park under a proposed action on the agenda Wednesday night.
The session, which marks the sunset of Mayor Pasquale Menna‘s 16-year tenure, also includes potential action on short-term rentals.
RED BANK: RIVER DREDGINGS PLANNED
An eastward view of the Navesink River from Red Bank earlier this week. (Reader photo. Click to enlarge.)
The Army Corps of Engineers plans to dredge the Navesink River from Red Bank to Sandy Hook in 2023, according to an announcement by sixth-district Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.
RED BANK: FUNDRAISER FLOATS RESCUE BOAT
Red Bank Marine 1 in transit recently for installation of a new motor. (RBFD photo. Click to enlarge.)
Press release from the Red Bank Volunteer Fire Department
Thanks to the generous support of over 20 local businesses and nearly 80 individual contributors, the Red Bank Fire Department Marine 1 Fundraiser is a success. While contributions are still needed for the installation of the new fire pump, a new motor has already been installed, the GPS unit is ordered, and wiring is underway. The membership of the department continue to go above the call of duty in terms of contributing their time and are grateful for the public support – every contribution was noticed and appreciated.
RED BANK: FIRE RESCUE VESSEL NEARLY READY
Red Bank’s volunteer fire department is nearing completion on an overhaul of a multi-use boat it recently obtained for free. But it needs a hand from the public.
RED BANK: CENTER FIXES OK’D, RE-ARGUED
Angela Mirandi, in second pane from left in the top row, attended her first session as a council member. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See CORRECTION below
By JOHN T. WARD
Three years after a fire suppression system leak forced a shutdown of Red Bank’s Senior Center, the borough council approved nearly $2 million in financing for repairs Wednesday.
As in the past, members clashed over the reasons for the time elapsed and cost. Added to the acrimony was a new element: blame for failure to identify money recently found sitting idle in old accounts and now earmarked for repairs.
Unmentioned during the virtual meeting was a lawsuit, announced hours earlier, that seeks to remove Angela Mirandi, who attended for the first time as a council member.
RED BANK: ‘BOAT RAMP’ TO FUND CENTER FIX
A municipal boat ramp on the Navesink River was once envisioned for the north end of Maple Avenue, now a nature area called Maple Cove. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials boasted earlier this month that they’d “cobbled together” about $1 million from idle accounts to soften the impact on taxpayers of repairing the long-shuttered Senior Center.
It turns out a big chunk of that sum has been stuck in the borough’s sofa cushions for 30 years, designated for a never-built boat ramp, redbankgreen has learned.
RED BANK: NO INJURIES IN YACHT BLAZE
Volunteer firefighters battled the blaze in close quarters on a dock and ramp. Below, onlookers at Riverview Medical Center. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
No one was injured in the dramatic waterfront blaze that destroyed and sank a yacht docked at a Navesink River marina Thursday night, Red Bank Fire Chief Nick Ferraro told redbankgreen.
RED BANK: HOSPITAL ENVELOPED IN SMOKE
A dockside boat fire blanketed Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center in smoke Thursday evening.
RED BANK: FIRE DESTROYS BOAT IN MARINA
(See UPDATE below)
Fire destroyed at least one boat and damaged another in a predawn blaze at the Molly Pitcher Inn marina in Red Bank Saturday.
FAIR HAVEN: MARINA, TOWN SETTLE LAWSUIT
Fair Haven Yacht Works owner Jim Cerruti in November, 2019, with the disputed dock visible in the distance. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A six-year battle between Fair Haven’s government and one of the town’s oldest businesses has been settled, the two sides announced late Thursday.
The pact requires Fair Haven Yacht Works to relocate boat slips from a thin slice of the Navesink River it had used without challenge for 90 years.
FAIR HAVEN: BOROUGH EYES RIVER PARCEL
The property, comprising nearly an acre on the Navesink River, adjoins the municipal dock, (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven hopes to add to its inventory of small waterfront parks.
RED BANK: DEP SAYS RIVERS SAFE FOR HUMANS
A cluster of dead bunker in the Red Bank borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive die-off of bunker fish in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers this spring poses no health threat to recreational users of those waters, environmental scientists said Thursday night.
Meantime, experts are still trying to determine what environmental “stressors” might have turned a bacteria that’s common to the species into a mass killer that has littered shores with tons of dead, putrid carcasses.
RED BANK: FORUM ON FISH KILL SLATED
A cluster of dead bunker in the borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Clean Ocean Action and local officials, including Red Bank’s, will get the virtual town hall with New Jersey environmental officials they’ve been seeking to address the recent “severe” fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, the organization announced Friday.
RED BANK: TOWN HALL ON FISH KILL SOUGHT
Fish carcasses on the shoreline at Maple Cove in Red Bank Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials this week called on the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to host a virtual town hall meeting to address concerns about a fish kill the agency has called the “most severe” in recent memory.
FAIR HAVEN: THREE RIVER PROJECTS SLATED
The municipal boat ramp at Battin Road. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Upgrades to Fair Haven’s public boat launch and two pocket parks overlooking the Navesink River may be set in motion by the borough council Monday night.
RED BANK: FISH KILL ‘MOST SEVERE’ OF LATE
Dead menhaden cluster at a Navesink River dock in Fair Haven last week. (Photo by Bernie McSherry. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers in recent weeks is “the most severe mortality event in recent memory,” but New Jersey environmental officials still don’t know why it’s targeting only one species, Clean Ocean Action reported Thursday.
The environmental advocacy group also pressed the state to remove at least some of the dead fish from Red Bank-area waters.
RED BANK: MENHADEN DIE-OFF IN SPOTLIGHT
Dead fish littered the Fair Haven boat launch on Battin Avenue last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Clean Ocean Action has called on New Jersey environmental and health officials to hold a virtual town hall to provide updates and guidance for towns along the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, where massive menhaden die-offs have occurred recently.
“The cause, extent, and magnitude of the die-off is deeply concerning and raising alarm throughout the region,” COA executive director Cindy Zipf and staff scientist Swarna Muthukrishnan wrote Friday. “Feeding the concern is the lack of answers, conflicting answers, and lack of proactive response to the ever-increasing dead fish.”
FAIR HAVEN: KAYAKER FOUND DEAD
The body of a missing kayaker was found Friday evening, Fair Haven police Chief Joe McGovern said Saturday.
FAIR HAVEN: SEARCH LAUNCHED FOR KAYAKER
Choppy waters on the wind-driven Navesink as seen from Grange Avenue in Fair Haven Friday afternoon. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Local emergency personnel were out on the choppy, wind-driven Navesink River following a report of a missing kayaker Friday, according to Fair Haven police Chief Joe McGovern.
SANDY HOOK: PROPOSED FEE HIKE RETURNS
The per-car fee would jump to $20, from $15, under the proposed hike. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Four years after a planned entry fee increase was scrapped, Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook will try again.
Under a proposed fee hike announced Wednesday, visitors would pay $20 per day per vehicle, or $100 per season, starting in the summer of 2021.