Debate Flares Over Avalon’s Plan to Restore Armacost Park

AVALON — Should Armacost Park be left alone for birds and other creatures or enhanced to allow more humans to wander its 11 acres?
Some residents and property owners believe nothing should be done. They believe the herons, egrets and other wading birds will depart and never return if man encroaches into the 11-acre parcel, bought in part with state Green Acres and Cape May County Open Space funds.
Nestled between 71st and 74th streets, north and south, and between Dune and Ocean drives, east and west, the park memorializes Marion P. Armacost, wife of the borough’s late Mayor Ellsworth Armacost. It features a playground area and a viewing platform, provided by the Avalon Home and Landowners Association. Fenced on all sides, with signs warning not to trespass due to wading birds, the park is a microcosm of what barrier islands, such as Seven Mile Beach, we before development.
Some residents told the Herald they fear any move into the park will be done merely to increase its value as real estate, something unlikely to happen since those two governmental agencies have used public funds to acquire the parcel.
Time has taken its toll on the park, although the borough meticulously maintains the public areas. Tidal flow is slim to non-existent. Because a 1973 upgrade created a freshwater wetland, which attracted ducks and other waterfowl, phragmites grow rampant in many sections. Saltwater flow would eradicate that vegetation, which some believe attracts birds, but which nearly eliminates the public seeing the fauna.
In mid-2010, enter the borough government, its Environmental Commission and Clifton-based Windward Consulting LLC., an environmental firm.
Once some concerned citizens learned of the plan, they, too, hired a separate firm to search on their behalf what needs to be done at Armacost Park.
According to Windward’s Paul Schroeck, the borough and firm began discussing “the potential of enhancing and restoring the natural resources and facilities available in Armacost Park.”
Thus was hatched some goals and objectives for Armacost Park Natural Resource and Enhancement Project.
The “scoping process” included public hearings as well as inclusion of the local Environmental Commission and Cape May County Department of Mosquito Control. Since there is no tidal flow, apparently by a non-functioning drainpipe under Ocean Drive, mosquitoes thrive in the fresh water.
In July, Windward submitted its conceptual design report for the project citing its early findings.
Schroeck said that the “stakeholder process to date indicates wide support for the focus of the recommended restoration efforts…”
Marge Griffin who, with her husband Dan built their house across from the park in 1969, does not concur.
Since the couple has lived in Avalon, she estimated they had conflicts with Borough Council plans “every four years,” she said.
“We do have birds there, not just pretty little birds; we have herons and night herons all the time. They are still there,” she told the Herald in a telephone interview.
Griffin said at one time that there were 180 herons in the park. “It was filled with herons,” she said.
Then, students from Richard Stockton College of N.J. were allowed into the park for environmental studies in October, thinking the birds had flown, but they had not.
“The birds got wise. They did not come back for four or five years,” Griffin said. She fears a reoccurrence of bird flight if studies are made invading the jungle-like undergrowth.
Last year, Griffin said, “We fought two bathrooms at 74th and Ocean Drive. We stopped that,” she said.ctuary as a refuge,” she added.
Don Pfanstiel, who lives in a house surrounded by the park, a house his grandparents built in 1927, is another who opposes any movement to study the park.
“I am told they want to go in and tear out invasive vines, like poison ivy and Virginia creeper and wild grape. All three of those provide food for birds,” said Pfanstiel.
Pfanstiel, a year-round resident since 1982, as told the study will use five-foot-square test plots to see what grows.
He termed as an “impossibility” taking out those invasive vines, since their roots are deep and placed throughout the delicate maritime forest.
Another concern Pfanstiel aired, in 1998 there was a “tremendous number of shore birds” perhaps 1,000 or more. Nesting birds included egrets, black-crown night herons and ibis.
“They (borough) probably want something like that back, for birdwatchers and people in general,” said Pfanstiel.
After any study, Pfanstiel fears bird may not return.
If that should happen, he believes the park could become four square blocks of “very valuable” real estate like every other block in Avalon.”
“Everybody denies that,” he added, and admitted, “Maybe I’m a little paranoid, but it is real estate, shore real estate and there are realty people on borough council,” Pfanstiel said.
“I’ve been coming here since the very early 1950s,” Pfanstiel recollecting walking a path from Dune Drive, and burying a flashlight in oil cloth to see when they returned from the movies, since there were no electric street lights.
He fears any clearing of undergrowth of thick vines would allow free roaming of cats, skunks, and foxes. What the birds find a safe haven would disappear, he fears.
If a boardwalk is placed into the park, Pfanstiel fears the intrusion will chase the wading birds. The present walkway is closed, overgrown by vines, deemed unsafe to support strollers.
“Everything to me points to this real estate issue. This little haven will be out for sale to be bulldozed,” he said.
Pfanstiel professed no scientific basis for his beliefs, “It’s based on years of observation and growing up as a kid here,” he said.
To the casual observer, Armacost Park seems to be suffering from an overgrowth of vines and lack of water into its pond areas. In short, the ecosystem is failing due to many reasons.
According to Scott Wahl, borough spokesperson, the borough wants to make the park healthy and vibrant once again in order to attract shorebirds, native wildlife, and healthier plant life.
It also wants to eradicate the places where mosquitoes breed.
“Some in the community assumed that the borough would be interested in cutting things down, placing fixed structures, etc. and that could not be further from the truth,” Wahl told the Herald.
“Some residents in the community even hired their own environmental expert (Wayne R. Ferren Jr., of Maser Consulting P.A.) to take a look at the park and many of the aspects of remediation from the borough plan, and their plan matched up perfectly,” Wahl added.
He said the county has agreed to collaborate with the borough for part of the project that “will result in more natural irrigation/tidal flow.”
Schroeck said focus of the restoration efforts would include:
* Wetland habitat restoration to a self-sustaining and functional tidal salt marsh.
* Restoration of upland/transitional habitat to a natural structure via non-native vegetation removal, control of extensive growth of invasive native plants, and thinning and restoring areas inundated with vine.
* Park access, viewing and the general visitor education and experience should be provide from the periphery of the natural resource.
First, a “discovery phase” must be done, he said.
That would include:
* Multi-season baseline inventories of plant and animal species.
* Inventory of special status species and habitat.
* Detailed topographic survey of the park.
* Delineate wetlands and secure a Letter of Intent from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
* Do water studies
* Complete pre-restoration experimentation.
Schroeck said because of the above, the study would have to last several years, during which nothing would be done at the park.
He also stressed that care would be taken to avoid especially sensitive areas.