Chiropractor in Cliffwood Beach, NJ

Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A small study suggests that mosquitoes should get some of the blame for childhood obesity.

The Rutgers University report is one of a few that quantify just how much misery mosquitoes cause — especially the Asian tiger mosquito, a particularly vicious species that has colonized more than half the states since 1985.

At times these mosquitoes are so numerous that the pests keep too many kids indoors and passive during the summer, a new Rutgers report claims. Furthermore, people in Cliffwood Beach and nearby Union Beach, N.J., two of the areas studied, shell out an average of almost $90 a year to rid their yards of mosquitoes, and they lose nearly two hours a week of outdoor time because of the bugs.

"We're looking at the costs, not of controlling the mosquitoes, but what's the cost of not controlling them?" said Dina Fonseca, a population geneticist and associate professor with the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology.

Now in its home stretch, the five-year, $3.8 million investigation into tiger mosquito invasions of the two areas and the state capital of Trenton shows that the pests affect the quality of life in urban and suburban neighborhoods.

Asian tiger mosquitoes — so called for their distinctive black-and-white-striped coloration — are an exotic species that invaded 30 states since first showing up in in the continental U.S. in 1985. Experts believe they arrived in shipments of used automobile tires from Japan in the early 1980s. The first big breeding population was discovered at a Houston tire dump.

They are not known yet as major disease carriers in North America in the way native mosquitoes can carry West Nile virus.

But in other parts of the world, the Asian tiger mosquito transmits serious illnesses such as dengue fever. In Southeast Asia, the mosquitoes have spread dengue and chikungunya, a virus that causes a debilitating, arthritis-like inflammatory disease.

With a changing climate, the new mosquito makes American public health planners worry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving most of the money for the Rutgers study because it wants to find the best way to fight the insects before they become a disease carriers.

The main focus of the project was to find the best ways to control mosquitoes in urban landscapes. The Asian tiger mosquito is particularly challenging because it lays eggs in tiny amounts of standing water such as mop buckets or flowerpots. Mosquito-control workers say they even find the larvae in bottle caps on the ground.

"Mosquito control in urban settings came first, and the children's physical activity idea was birthed from that," said professor Randy Gaugler, the director of the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology and a project organizer.

The project's goal is a virtual manual for fighting the Asian tiger mosquito with both suppression from public agencies and an education campaign to get communities involved.

What makes the Asian tiger mosquito worse than some others: It likes to bite all day long. Most other species are active at dawn and dusk.

The study is among a handful trying to quantify exactly how miserable mosquitoes make people feel. Researchers from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., led a survey of adults in Cliffwood and Union Beach.

That part of the study found that three-quarters of the population said mosquitoes limited their outdoor activity, and that households spent an average of $86 a year on their own controls: bug sprays, screens, electronic traps and the like. Researchers even averaged out how much more time people spent outdoors when the mosquitoes were kept under control: 113 minutes a week, nearly two hours.

The study also showed that 41% of residents are willing to pay more to be rid of mosquitoes, $9.54 on average. Not much, compared with homeowners buying those $200 electric traps, which Fonseca says do not work. But if that amount were applied across two northern New Jersey counties, it would add up to $9.6 million a year — more than three times the current annual budgets of the counties' mosquito-control agencies, researchers reported.

In 2009, researchers recruited 12 children from Cliffwood Beach and Union Beach and 26 during 2011 to log their time spent outdoors. During those seasons, treatment to kill mosquitoes was alternated between the two places to see the difference between controlled and uncontrolled areas.

In a paper published in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, lead author John Worobey of Rutgers' nutritional sciences department and his colleagues acknowledge that the children's playtime study, the first of its kind, was limited because of the small number who participated and the fact the scientists had to rely on the kids' self-reporting.

Still, the results were clear: "Children residing in the community where effective abatement took place spent more time outdoors in play," the authors wrote.

Genetics are a big part of childhood obesity risk, but environment also is a factor, and now mosquitoes can be added to that list, the paper concludes.

"Because obesity is difficult to treat, public health efforts need to be directed toward prevention, which could include mosquito abatement since physical activity protects against obesity," the researchers wrote.

U.S. distribution of Asian tiger mosquito

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention most recently mapped Asian tiger mosquito infestations in 2000. Since then, the pest has spread to additional counties.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

By the numbers

• 229. Average minutes of daily outdoor playtime for children where mosquitoes were controlled.

• 113. Increase minutes people spent outdoors each week where mosquitoes were controlled.

• 99. Average minutes of daily outdoor playtime for children where mosquitoes were not controlled.

• 88. Percentage of adults who reported being bitten at least once a week.

• 74. Percentage who reported spending less time in infested neighborhoods.

• 66. Percentage who say they use insect repellent all or most of the time.

Sources: Rutgers and Brandeis universities research papers in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, 2012-13

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Central Jersey Comprehensive Treatment Center (CTC) in Cliffwood, New Jersey, is one of the leading providers of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in the state. At our clinic, we help adults age 18 and older of all genders pursue lasting recovery from addictions to heroin, prescription painkillers, and other opioids. MAT is an evidence-based type of opioid addiction treatment that incorporates prescription medications and therapy to address both the physical and emotional aspects of opioid addiction. The medications patients can receive at our opioid addiction treatment center include Suboxone, buprenorphine, and methadone. These work to prevent painful withdrawal symptoms and curb further opioid cravings. While these medications are effective in helping people stop opioid use, medication alone is not enough to address the complex social and psychological aspects of addiction. This is why MAT includes counseling, as these sessions can help you understand how opioid addiction affects your health, behaviors, and relationships.

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Asbury Park Press

It’s a story worthy of Hollywood. Blackbeard, the notorious pirate, brings his hungry crew ashore to round up some livestock. Local farmers, incensed, engage them in a pitched battle and chase off the marauders, who barely escape (but do make off with the goods).

Legend has it this incident took place in what is now Middletown and Holmdel the early 1700s. And it’s not the only piece of pirate lore at the Bayshore. Tales of Captain William Kidd sailing into Raritan Bay and leaving his mark from Cliffwood Beach to Shrewsbury abound, so much so that they’ve spawned a litany of Kidd talks, walks and treasure hunts.

“There’s no doubt in my mind Captain Kidd was here,” Matawan historian Kurtis Roinestad said.

Not everyone agrees.

“There’s never really been any proof that those pirates were here,” said Peter VanNortwick, vice president of the Middletown Township Historical Society.

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Like Halloween, a cultural touchstone whose very real roots are shrouded in myth, could there be a kernel of truth at the genesis of Monmouth County’s buccaneer folklore?

Blood money and stolen hogs

An often-cited source for these stories is “The Story of Middletown,” a 1927 book written by Ernest Mandeville, rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Middletown. Among its assertions:

Local historian John Barrows says Mandeville “invents the William Leeds connection out of whole cloth.”

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But if untrue, why would Mandeville malign someone who helped found his church? Barrows believes locals were suspicious of Leeds because he was baptized as an adult, and on a weekday (as opposed to a Sunday) — both highly unusual for the time — less than two years after Kidd was hanged. Was he distancing himself from the notorious pirate? Also, Leeds was powerful and wealthy, and he might have made enemies who passed down an unfavorable oral history.

“The facts that we can piece together these many years later don’t really indicate that Leeds and Kidd ever met or worked together,” said Rick Burton, a Syracuse University professor who researched the subject and gave a presentation on it for the Middletown Historical Society last year.

The forward to Mandeville's book, which mysteriously disappeared from later editions, raises a red flag.

“The writer of this story does not claim originality,” Mandeville wrote. “He does not claim over-diligent research, but he covered as much ground as was possible in the press of time for publication and the limitations of expense imposed upon him.”

Mandeville does credit several historians by name as the resources for his book, but he does not provide a bibliography.

“He is really apologizing for this piece of work, and when you look at it, it’s not hard to understand why,” Barrows said. “It’s near hearsay.”

'It hasn't been entirely dismissed'

If there’s no tangible proof that Kidd set foot on the Bayshore, there are plausible reasons he might have. He lived for a time in New York City, and he would have viewed Raritan Bay as a place to duck into during storms.

“Kidd starts as a privateer and marries a respected socialite from New York City,” Burton said. “There’s reason to believe he could have had a non-criminal reputation and been able to deal with the local townspeople.”

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Of course, that reputation changed after he was hanged in London in 1701.

“Now we swing around and do revisionist history,” Burton said, “and now he’s come here as a pirate.”

It’s factual that Kidd donated heavily to the building of Trinity Church in Manhattan. Perhaps he would have inspired the same action in Middletown?

“Of course it’s legend, but it hasn’t been entirely dismissed,” said the Rev. Michael Way, a priest at Christ Church in Middletown.

A pamphlet published by Christ Church to mark its 300th anniversary casts doubt on Leeds’ association with Kidd, but adds: “A cross which is visible on the wall plaster over the pulpit in the Old Church in Middletown, attributed to the handiwork of Captain Kidd’s sword, lends further romantic, yet unsupported, credence to this local legend.”

Jamie Green, parish historian of Christ Church in Shrewsbury, said Leeds’ donation of 400-plus acres was “crucial” to the growth of the congregation, but local researchers never have found proof of a link to Kidd. Still, visitors regularly ask about it.

Justin Dapolito, a Matawan resident who leads an annual Captain Kidd tour in the Cliffwood Beach section of Aberdeen, makes a good point: Rather than inventing the Kidd-Leeds connection outright, Mandeville might have been drawing on long-established oral history. In an era of intervillage raids and violence, Leeds’ contemporaries would have good reason to risk associating with pirates — or at least to claim they did.

“The story goes into pretty good depth,” Dapolito said. “The town might have used the story as protection. Would you go into a town that has pirate crews who built the church there?”

Roinestad, who chairs Matawan’s Historic Sites Commission, says there are mentions of Kidd in the borough’s archives.

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“Rose Hill Cemetery used to be Fox Hill, one of the highest peaks in the area,” he said. “Captain Kidd used Fox Hill as a reference point when he was in Raritan Bay. It was leveled in the 1800s.”

The Blackbeard story as told by Mandeville has less historical backing. Blackbeard was known have ventured into the Delaware Bay, but is mostly associated with piracy off the coast of the Carolinas and points south.

“A careful look at Blackbeard's known whereabouts provides very limited windows for his having possibly been in this region,” Barrows said.

The lure of buried treasure

Each fall, Roinestad and Dapolito conduct a popular tour of Cliffwood Beach, touching on the neighborhood’s history as a resort town and, farther back, a possible pirates’ cove. It includes a stop at Treasure Lake, so named because of a reputed visit from Kidd (as Roinestad explains, the lake used to be a cove before a hurricane enclosed it).

Dapolito, a professional diver who has salvaged silver coins from an 18th-century shipwreck in the Caribbean, has scoured Bayshore waters but found nothing earlier than the 1800s. The truth is, there is only one recorded instance of a pirate burying treasure, but since that was Kidd (whose loot was left on Gardiners Island, on the east end of Long Island), the allure of buried booty from his travels remains strong. More than 100 people turned out for Dapolito’s tour in 2021, and attendance grows each year.

“We all love a buried treasure story,” Burton said. “All you need is for a pirate ship to have stopped to resupply, and there is always going to be that belief that, ‘Someday I am going to come over a sand dune and the edge of a wooden chest is going to be sticking out.’”

Weird NJ:Hunting for Captain Kidd's buried treasure

Don’t count on it to pay the mortgage. But if you want to dream a little about Captain Kidd dropping anchor at Cliffwood Beach, or one of his henchmen founding a Middletown church, or angry Holmdel farmers chasing Blackbeard and his scallywags off their land, we’ll give the last word to the Rev. Way.

“It’s a legend, which means the details are blurry, but there had to be some truth for the legend to be activated,” he said. “It’s maybe been embellished, but on some level, there may be truth in the connection.”

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Neighbor News

Aberdeen has awarded a contract to Precise Construction for an extensive renovation of Veterans Memorial Park in Cliffwood Beach.

Community Contributor

|Updated Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 12:25 pm ET

Aberdeen Township has awarded a contract to Precise Construction of Freehold, N.J. for an extensive renovation of Veterans Memorial Park that will transform the Cliffwood Beach site into a recreational facility offering a variety of new amenities for all ages.

According to Don Norbut, special project engineer with T&M Associates, Precise Construction submitted the winning bid of just under $1.90 million, 20% below the original estimated $2.38 million construction cost. Including approximately $120,000 for tot lot equipment that Aberdeen will purchase directly under the State Purchase Contract, the total project will cost approximately $2.02 million, 19% below the original total estimate of $2.5 million. Plans call for work to begin in mid-December, with a grand opening scheduled for July 2017.

“We are very pleased to report that construction on this transformative project will begin this month at a cost well below the original estimate,” said Aberdeen Mayor Fred Tagliarini.

Under the plans--which will ultimately be accompanied by a separate reconstruction of the nearby Cliffwood Beach seawall that was damaged during Superstorm Sandy--the park will be turned into a multi-dimensional active and passive recreation area. Major new features will include pirate and tall ship themed playground areas for ages 2-5 and 5-12; a pirate ship themed water park (spray pad) for all ages; a picnic grove with shade structures; a multi-purpose field for little league, softball, and soccer; a kayak and small water craft launch; a gazebo/band shell; a flagpole and War Veteran’s Memorial Monument; and a restroom/equipment storage building.

Additionally, trees, shrubbery and gardens will be added to create an attractive landscaped park setting; existing basketball courts will be upgraded; the parking lot will be resurfaced and additional parking created on the site of the former skate rink; and security lighting and video surveillance will be added. The site will be raised using clean fill in selected locations in an effort to reduce nuisance flooding that has plagued the beachfront.

Find out what's happening in Matawan-Aberdeenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A portion of the construction costs is being funded through a grant of $250,000 from the Monmouth County Municipal Open Space Grant Program.

The park, which is located at Ocean Blvd. and Lakeshore Dr., currently contains a roller hockey rink, basketball courts, shuffle board courts, volleyball court, and swings.

“This is a very exciting project for Cliffwood Beach and all of Aberdeen,” said Councilman Robert Swindle. “The new park and rebuilt seawall will give residents of all ages multiple reasons to take advantage of this tremendous under-utilized resource on our waterfront. With the bandshell/gazebo, we also look for Veterans Memorial Park to become a site for concerts and other special events.”

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

A new online mapping tool published by Rutgers University to help local officials plan for coastal flooding in coming decades.

NJ Spotlight, Neighbor

At Point Pleasant Coast Guard Station, the rising ocean laps just below the quayside where cars are parked. At Avalon Dunes, it’s shown advancing along a bayside street lined with expensive homes. And at Double Creek Bridge south of Toms River, the waters of the Atlantic creep toward a beachfront house that’s already just yards from the regular high-tide line.

All three scenarios are depicted in photographs simulating the effects of a foot rise in sea-level on the Jersey Shore. These simulations -- and others -- can be seen thanks to a new online mapping tool published by Rutgers University to help local officials plan for coastal flooding in coming decades.

Some four months after Hurricane Sandy dramatically raised public concern about the power of the ocean, Rutgers officials are alerting government officials, businesses, and individuals to the likely effects of rising seas on their roads, bridges, beaches, docks, homes, and communities.

As ocean volume increase in response to rising global temperatures and melting polar ice caps, the average high-tide level around New Jersey’s coast is likely to be one foot higher than at present by 2050, according to a consensus of national and regional forecasts compiled by Rutgers.

That’s about twice as high as the global average because the mid-Atlantic coast is sinking at the same time that waters are rising, creating an especially urgent problem for low-lying areas of coastal Jersey and Delaware -- where state officials have forecast up to 11 percent of the land mass could be inundated by three feet of water by 2100.

Find out what's happening in Matawan-Aberdeenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In an attempt to illustrate the practical effects of a phenomenon that may seem like a long-term abstraction, the mapping tool shows users how some locations would be affected at high tide by specific levels of sea-level rise.

Continue reading on NJSpotlight.com.

NJ Spotlight is an issue-driven news website that provides critical insight to New Jersey’s communities and businesses. It is non-partisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded.