Natural Resources Inventory
Borough of Belmar, County of Monmouth, State of New Jersey
By Charles Doyle, naturalist and BEC member
Introduction
In his classic ecological work, The Vegetation of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Dr. John W. Harshberger describes “the area from the ocean end of Lake Como inland the prevailing vegetation is coniferous.” From the dunes complex at the back of the beach, he explains, there lies a transitional pine forest which gives rise to typical pine barrens vegetation. In other words, in 1916, Belmar, along with other nearby communities, was part of that vast south Jersey forested region known as the “pine barrens”. Dr. Witmer Stone, another early New Jersey natural scientist described the pine barrens as “always sandy and thickly covered with more or less scrubby vegetation, interspersed with swamps and infested by hordes of mosquitoes.”
Today, Belmar, NJ, is a far cry from that pinelands description as the entire region has been altered and developed. Only in a couple of backyards and lots near Lake Como can any remnants or that early forest be found.
Belmar lies within that area of south Jersey called the Outer Coastal Plain, an area with little topography and draining into the Atlantic Ocean. In Vegetation of New Jersey, Buell and Robichaud describe the geologic conditions in this outer coastal plain as differing from the hard rock material of north Jersey. “Instead south Jersey coastal plains consist mostly of sand, silt, gravel, and clays that are not cemented together.” Belmar, along with the rest of South Jersey can trace much of its geologic history to underwater eras, thus explaining the sedimentary nature of the materials underlying surface soils.
Click here to learn about Belmar’s Soils.
Like its botanical past, the soils history of the Belmar area is also hard to recognize due to development, perhaps over-development, which has left the community with a “built” environment. Even water resources within and bounding the community, alterations at Lake Como, Shark River, Shark River Inlet, Silver Lake, as well as watercourses and wetlands make it difficult to determine the natural pre-existing conditions.
As a result, the Natural Resources Inventory of Belmar is an inventory of existing conditions regarding flora, fauna, soils, and water. However, Belmar’s natural history must also be remembered as it has given rise to and plays an important role in today’s environment.
Zones
For practical purposes, the borough has been divided into seven distinct areas or zones that make the natural resources inventory a more practical and usable document. Three of the zones are land areas while the other four differ in that they are located along bodies of water.
Zone 1: the beach area east of ocean Avenue.
Zone 2: the residential area extending from Ocean Avenue west to Main Street.
Zone 3: the commercial area along Main Street and adjacent to Belmar Marine Basin.
Zone 4: the residential area west of the railroad tracks.
Zone 5: the edge of Shark River and Shark River Inlet.
Zone 6: the edge of Silver Lake.
Zone 7: that portion of Belmar along the edge of Lake Como.
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