Project 1:

Atlantic & Burlington County Sites

229 - Boot Island

Boot Island site is located on the east side of “Great Thorofare”, formerly the main tidal channel for Absecon Inlet.  Today it is a minor navigation channel behind Brigantine Island.  An unconfined small site, this location is a legacy site with about 4 feet of sand covering the salt marsh.  The material is relatively clean sand, but too small a volume and presently used by many species of wildlife for breeding purposes.  There appears to be no data on the origin of this and other similar sites along the intracoastal waterway, but they probably date to the era prior to any dredging or filling of tidal wetlands regulations, so the dredging operator simply moved down the channel discharging material wherever it was convenient.  Great Thorofare was cut off by filling the causeway to Brigantine Island in 1927, so the four sites (Stake, Boot Island, Eagle Bay and Broad Creek) along this channel may be that old.