Human waste has been leaking into the Shark River from Belmar's sewer system, prompting the borough to consider closing the L Street river beach until the problem can be permanently fixed.

Raw sewage has been emanating from sanitary sewers in the area of K Street and Route 35, according to a violation notice from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

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During periods of heavy rain, the wastewater will mix with stormwater and rise up from the sewers and into the street, with the effluent eventually secreting into the nearby Shark River.

“Their pipes are like Swiss cheese," said Jimmy McNamara, president of the Shark River Cleanup Coalition. "We’re talking about sanitary sewer lines. The pipes that are supposed to carry what you flush down the toilet to the treatment plant.”

How long this particular problem has been going on and how much wastewater has ended up in the Shark River are unanswerable questions, according to correspondence between the borough and the NJDEP obtained by the Asbury Park Press through the state's public records law.

But the revelation is another indication of failed stewardship of the Shark River, where the water quality has forced regulators to place restrictions on how people can safely use the river.

Belmar's business administrator, Ed Kirschenbaum, said the borough has been meeting with state and county officials and "we're taking active steps to fix this problem" but he declined to elaborate.

"We’re going step by step. We're doing our due diligence," Kirschenbaum told the Press earlier this week.

During a routine compliance check for sewer operations in December, NJDEP staff found numerous violations, including:

Failure to address and eliminate "extraneous and excessive" sanitary sewer overflows into the Shark River;

Not reporting sewage overflows to the DEP;

Pump stations not built to standards or with the proper approvals;

No scheduled routine maintenance of the sewer system;

Inspections not performed or logged.

"Belmar is cooperating with the department," said DEP spokeswoman Caryn Shinske. "The DEP met with Belmar last week and Belmar has proposed closing the L Street Shark River beach to bathers until repairs to the system can be identified and corrected to prevent future discharges."

"Aging infrastructure issues are not unique to Belmar," she continued. "By correcting these violations, however, Belmar should be able to prevent future sanitary sewer discharges to the Shark River."

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What's next?

The borough told the DEP that it was preparing a plan to more fully explore and document the deficiencies in their sewer system, according to a letter responding to the list of violations.

Fixing aging infrastructure is never cheap, not when it's a road or a bridge, and not when it's a sewer that needs to be dug up and repaired or replaced.

Kirschenbaum said the borough has not developed any cost estimate for the work that the DEP is demanding.

That price tag would be separate from any punitive measures the state places on Belmar for the illegal discharges that have already taken place.

When asked about penalties for the violations of water pollution rules, Shinske told the Press that the DEP was still "assessing the financial liability."

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A river impaired

The Shark River runs for about 10 miles before pooling into a crescent-shaped tidal basin that covers about 800 acres. The bay section of the river is surrounded by Avon, Neptune City, Neptune, Wall and Belmar.

State-listed endangered species, including the great blue heron, osprey and bald eagle, have been spotted from the shores of the river.

Parks, restaurants and marinas dot the Shark River's perimeter. On the water itself, you'll find people boating, fishing and paddle boarding during the summer.

Decades of pollution and degradation, however, have eliminated other activities in the river because they are no longer safe for humans.

“Clamming was a big thing back in the day, you can’t clam any more. You can't use the beach, you shouldn’t go in the water. Wildlife has taken a big hit,” McNamara said.

The state suspended shellfishing in the river in 2016 after repeated testing showed fecal coliform — bacteria found in the guts of warm-blooded animals — was present at dangerous levels for the human consumption of filter feeders, such as clams.

The L Street beach has tested beyond the safe limits of the bacteria enterococcus for swimmers 37 times — about 1 in every 7 or 8 tests — since 2005, according to state water testing data. Only nine of the state's 217 beach water monitoring stations had a worse record in that time frame.

The 350-foot-long beach was closed for four straight days at the beginning of the 2018 summer after a sewage overflow — thought at the time to be an isolated incident — accompanied a heavy rainstorm.

A half-million pounds of dead bunker were collected from the shores of the Shark River in May 2014. The fish kill was attributed to an extreme concentration of fish in a small area, but test samples show the river's dissolved oxygen levels — while not low enough to be responsible for the mass die-off — were below optimal levels.

Much of river's problems can be traced to the systemic stormwater issue that plagues much of New Jersey. With less and less green, undeveloped space, rain tends to roll off roofs and curbs before being funneled into the sewer system — along with whatever contaminants that water contacted or collected on its journey.

The latest statewide water quality assessment, released in 2017, found the Shark River tormented by nutrient pollution associated with stormwater runoff. Mercury and pesticides were found in the flesh of fish pulled from the river.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com, @russzimmer