Project 1:

Ocean County Sites

Unconfined Disposal Site

247 – Gunners Ditch

Gunners Ditch is a federally-owned unconfined disposal site (UDS) in Brick Township. The site consists of several side cast piles of dredge material that cover approximately 9.0 acres of salt marsh. It is located on the eastern most side of Metedeconk Neck, 0.25 mile north of Mantoloking Road. The placement sites are adjacent to two small lagoon channels that most likely were dredged for potential development and represent the sediment once occupying the marsh previously present at the site of these small lagoons. It was a very common practice to use the dredge to excavate boating channels for future home sites and use the excavated material to fill in the marsh, raising the elevation sufficiently to build the houses. The shores of the site are a common place for seasonal boating and recreation today. There was no purpose related to past or continuing use of the site for dredge material storage, so no surveying or sampling was done.