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The short and sweet of it is that our State government is selling out to the special interests and rewording state law as to how beach access is dealt with.
They're going to let each individual town write and enforce their own rules. This includes many towns that have historically tried to limit beach access.
All reference to the Public Trust Doctrine is being removed from State law (if you're not familiar with the Public Trust Doctrine, you should be, it affects everyone that wants to access tidal waters and dates back 1,500 years)
There's even wording that will give towns the ability to make fishing off the rocks and jetties illegal - saying it's too dangerous
They are taking responsibility for enforcement of public access rules away from the DEP. The DEP has always been the hammer we've counted on to reopen access when it has been illegally taken away.
Many of you might remember the battle with the Coast Guard when they fenced off the Rip at Sandy Hook. That was a huge fight. If not for the DEP the single most famous surf fishing location in all of NJ would be lost to us. If this passes, the Coast Guard could rebuild that fence and now there is nothing that we could do about it.
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