OCEAN CITY- With a few minor tweaks and changes, the Mayor and Council this week approved the Ocean City Surf Club’s “Adopt Your Beach” program.
In January, the Coastal Resources Legislative Committee, or “Green Team,” began cursory discussions about an initiative aimed at keeping the resort’s beaches clean. The “Adopt Your Beach” program is being explored by the Ocean City Surf Club, a grassroots organization that advocates for clean beaches, increased awareness and outreach, among other things.
Last week, Ocean City Surf Club representative Effie Cox presented some additional information about the proposed “Adopt Your Beach” program to the Green Team in advance of a formal proposal to the Mayor and Council, which got their first look at the program on Tuesday.
The club’s Adopt Your Beach program will solicit volunteers, from schools to businesses to church groups and condo associations and other organizations to take ownership, or perhaps more appropriately stewardship, of “their beach.” Under the program, a group or organization would literally adopt a section of beach in Ocean City, maybe a single block or a group of two or three blocks.
The organizations or individuals would be required to cleanup and monitor their adopted beaches with at least four organized beach cleanups from April to November, although year-round monitoring would be encouraged. The volunteers would document the types of trash and debris collected and ultimately hauled away by the town’s Public Works department and that information could be used to identify certain problem areas.
Councilman and Green Team liaison Tony DeLuca said the town’s long-term comprehensive plan encouraged programs such as the Adopt Your Beach program.
“It reads ‘Ocean City is to be a vibrant coastal community with a world-class beach’,” he said. “This program certainly makes our beaches cleaner, cleaner and cleaner.”
For her part, Cox said the program would encourage residents and visitors to become involved in the clean-up of the beaches they frequent and the end result would be a cleaner beach from one end of the resort to the other. Cox said before the program was even presented to the Council, the response was strong with as many as 50 groups and organizations showing interest out of the 146 blocks.
“We think it’s a win-win for all of us,” she said. “We think it will get people vested in their beach. There has been a lot of early response and the response has been unbelievable.”
The program requires adoptees to do an organized beach clean-up at least four times a year, but Cox said all groups and organizations would be allowed to participate regardless of their level of commitment.
“We’re not going to tell anybody they can’t do it,” she said. “If they can only do one block, that’s great. If they are only here three months out of the year, that’s fine too.”
Councilman Wayne Hartman suggested the Adopt Your Beach program be extended to areas that generate a considerable amount of trash and pollution.
“The town and the beachgoers already do a good job on the beach,” he said. “A lot of the trash comes from the ocean block, so maybe we should include them as well.”
The program includes a website data base that would publish information about what was collected, how much and from where. Hartman voiced concern publicizing the data could detract for the concept of a clean beach in the first place.
“I think we already have a world-class beach,” he said. “If somebody goes out there and collects three broken chairs and two broken umbrellas, do we really need to put the data out on the website so people can say ‘wow, look what’s happened to our beach?’ It seems like we might be airing our dirty laundry when we don’t have to.”
However, Surf Club representative Wyatt Harrison said the data would only be used to direct clean-up activities and not to publicize the amount of trash picked up.
“That spread sheet can have a lot of depth to it and let us know how it’s working and what the trouble spots are,” he said. “I don’t know the one isolated event is going to throw off the data and paint a bad picture.”
The Council also had some issues with the signs, which would be placed at the street ends signifying what groups had adopted certain beaches. However, there is some uncertainty as to the cost of the signs.
“That’s a question we need an answer to,” said Councilmember Mary Knight. “We need to know the cost of the signs because everything comes with a cost. There might be some grant money out there.”
Although he had some reservations about the signs, Councilman Dennis Dare praised the program, which was approved unanimously.
“I think it’s a great concept and can piggyback with the dune patrol program we’ve had for 25 years,” he said. “It can augment what the town is able to do. We have three or four tractors up and down the beach every night in the summer, but the beach clean-up is important all year.”