By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Boy Scout Aaron Morton said he was happy to do his part to help keep the community clean while he picked up trash Saturday morning along Sea Isle City’s main entryway.
But there was something else that made him happy, too.
“Whoa, look at this,” Morton told his fellow Boy Scouts while holding up a $5 bill he found mixed in with the litter on Sea Isle Boulevard.
The old bill was dirty and weather-beaten, but it was still worth $5 nonetheless.
It was a nice surprise for the 14-year-old Morton while he and other Boy Scouts from Sea Isle’s Troop 76 and some of their parents volunteered their time to remove trash from the nearly two-mile roadway.
“We are making the road look better. This is good because we are making it cleaner for Sea Isle,” said Morton, who lives in Somers Point and is a freshman at Mainland Regional High School.
Sea Isle Boulevard, the primary artery in and out of the resort town, offers panoramic views of the surrounding bays and marshlands teeming with wildlife. But that vista can be spoiled if unsightly litter is allowed to accumulate along the road.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio accepted Troop 76’s offer to clean up the boulevard to help keep it as inviting and trash-free as possible. Expressing his thanks, he treated the Scouts and their parents to sandwiches afterward.
“It was a fabulous day. I want to thank them,” Desiderio said. “It was really, really nice of them.”
During a socially distanced lunch at the Sea Isle municipal marina, Desiderio mixed in a few jokes while speaking with the Scouts.
“You’re now in a higher tax bracket with that $5 bill,” he cracked to Morton.
The trash that had accumulated on the boulevard, however, was no laughing matter. Desiderio noted in an interview that it had bothered Sea Isle’s residents.
“It affects many of our residents to see it like that,” he said. “We take pride in our community and want to keep it the best we can.”
Desiderio suspects that much of the litter has been blowing out of the back of trash trucks or construction vehicles heading out of Sea Isle en route to the county landfill.
While some trash has been swirling around on the road and shoulders, other litter has gotten trapped underneath the guardrails in metal fencing that was installed to prevent turtles from crawling across the boulevard and being struck by cars.
The turtle fencing was required by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as part of the regulatory permits issued for the road’s $12.7 million reconstruction project. Both sides of the boulevard have been raised by 4.5 feet to protect it from flooding during coastal storms. The multiyear project was completed in 2019.
The turtle fence, though, acts as an unintended litter trap, marring the appearance of the road. But it also prevents trash from being blown into the environmentally sensitive bays that surround Sea Isle Boulevard.
Despite its Sea Isle name, the boulevard is a Cape May County road. In the past, the county would have inmates from the county jail pick up litter one or twice a month to maintain the boulevard’s normally inviting appearance.
But the inmates are not being let out of the jail for roadside cleanup duty during the coronavirus pandemic, Desiderio explained. In the process, the litter had become worse.
In stepped the Boy Scouts to help out. Altogether, a group of about 20 Scouts and their parents methodically walked along the side of the road for more than two hours Saturday to remove litter.
The Scouts were accompanied by a trash truck. A Cape May County Sheriff’s Office patrol car, with its lights flashing, closely trailed behind them on the shoulder of the road to protect them from traffic.
The Scouts filled their trash bags with common litter such as paper, cardboard and plastic. But there were some unusual things, too.
In addition to the money found by Aaron Morton, fellow Boy Scout Josh Reade stumbled upon 16 completely full beer bottles and two dead birds.
“We did not expect to find that,” Reade said of the beer bottles. “We just tossed them in the trash.”
Reade, 17, who lives in Upper Township and is a senior at Ocean City High School, said he will receive credit toward his Eagle Scout project by volunteering to pick up trash.
But he also acknowledged there was another reason why he was out on the cleanup patrol.
“It got me out of bed,” he said, laughing. “I like to sleep later on the weekends.”
Brian Maund, one of the Boy Scouts’ adult leaders, said Troop 76 has participated in trash cleanups in other communities and plans to come back to Sea Isle Boulevard again to help keep it clean.
“It’s just part of our service to the community. That’s what the Boy Scouts of America is all about,” Maund said.
