It's been more than a year since owners of a handful of rural marsh cabins perched along the waterways of Lower Alloways Creek Township reached out for help.

The eight cabins, the remainder of what once were scores of the tiny, mostly one-room structures accessible only by boat, have been deemed illegal by state regulators.

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection officials had given the go-ahead to demolish some of them, but put that action on hold earlier this year, and are still mulling the cabins' fate.

"The matter remains under review," a spokesperson for the DEP said Monday.

What will happen to the structures scattered over thousands of acres in the Mad Horse Creek Wildlife Management Area and surrounding private lands has the owners of cabins on edge. Some are afraid to go back to visit or even perform needed maintenance until a ruling comes from the state.

"I'd like to get some settlement and, obviously, have a favorable settlement," said Chuck Liber, whose cabin has been in his family for generations. "But we haven't heard a thing."

Four of the eight structures are on state land along Hope Creek in the vast wildlife management area which borders the Delaware River and Bay in Salem County.

The others, including Liber's, are on private property standing along both Hope and Alloways creeks. At least one of those cabins, a floating cabin, has since been removed, according to Liber.

Their owners have used them -- some for generations -- as their base for hunting, fishing or boating. The cabins, too, provide others plying the waters of the marshes as a place to rest or seek refuge from fast-approaching storms. Their doors are never locked.

Liber said during each of his recent visits to his cabin, the log books there contained four of five new entries from visitors who stopped by. The visitors expressed thanks for a place to stop and added their hope the cabins would be there for the future, he said.

Although it owns some of the property, the DEP claimed it did not know the eight remaining cabins existed until the agency received an anonymous tip in early 2017 from someone in the area.

In an email to a DEP official dated Jan. 16, 2017, the person reporting the cabins said "If they (the cabin owners) have permits, please let me know what they are so I can get one too."

The records of the report were obtained by NJ Advance Media via the Open Public Records Act request.

The DEP has said the person providing the tip told him a hunter familiar with the area told them about the structures. The person reporting the cabins reached out to a specific DEP official because they were aware the official was "the Land Use Enforcement inspector assigned to cover that area of the state."

The name of the person who reported the cabins was redacted by the state. Cabin owners have long wondered who reported them and why.

It was that tip that set off a dramatic chain of events.

In March 2017, state inspectors visited the eight cabins. Later, signs were posted on the structures on state land saying they were illegal and no one was to use them. Other cabin owners were told they were in violation of environmental laws.

The cabin owners began a campaign to seek public support for their cause, reaching out to local, county and state lawmakers.

In January 2018, heavy equipment was in place to tear down the four cabins on state land when the incoming DEP commissioner, Catherine McCabe, ordered a temporary halt to the demolition literally at the eleventh hour.

McCabe, accompanied by state Senate president Stephen Sweeney (D-3rd District) and Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-3rd District), took a boat tour on a raw, rainy day in April to see the cabins for herself.

Legislation was also introduced in Trenton by Sweeney, Burzichelli and Assemblyman Adam Taliaferro (D-3rd District) to save the cabins. At last check, those measures still remained in committee.

Through this past summer, many of the owners of cabins on state land stayed away, awaiting a final decision.

Liber believes environmental issues cited by the state can be remedied by the cabin owners.

He's focused on the bigger picture, just hoping these remaining pieces of rural history can be saved.

"I really wish that the ones that are there, would be grandfathered in...," said Liber. "Some of these cabins have been there since before DEP was formed."

Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips