"Cleanup and restoration of the site are key to improving conditions for natural resources and allowing public access to this valuable resource." Lisa Rosman, NOAA's regional resource coordinator for the Raritan Bay Slag site, said that about the south shore of the bay. Her sentence names two things that people in Laurence Harbor tend to treat as one. Cleanup is the job of removing what is under the seawall. Restoration is the job of deciding what the shoreline offers afterward. They run on separate money, under separate agencies, on separate clocks. In October 2026 the restoration clock is further along than the cleanup clock. The shape of the waterfront you will eventually walk is being settled while the fence is still up.
The Money Is Already in the Bank
For most of the past decade, the fair question about the fenced section of Old Bridge Waterfront Park was who would pay. That question is answered.
On February 10, 2025, a federal court signed a consent decree. It requires NL Industries, former NL customers, Old Bridge Township, the State of New Jersey and several federal agencies to pay a combined $151.1 million. The EPA received $132.4 million of it, earmarked for the Seawall Sector cleanup, the design and cleanup of the Jetty Sector, and other site work. The federal and state natural resource trustees received the remaining $18.7 million.
That split explains why two agencies are involved. The EPA's share pays to remove the contamination. An estimated $17.6 million of the trustees' share is meant to make up for what the public lost, including the beach closures and restrictions that cut into recreation in Laurence Harbor.
The problem dates back decades. Slag from NL Industries' metal processing in Perth Amboy was used to build a seawall along Raritan Bay and to reinforce the federal navigational jetty at the Cheesequake Creek Inlet. The EPA named the area a Superfund site in 2009 and chose a cleanup plan in 2013. The settlement closed the funding gap that had stood between that 2013 plan and actual work.
The Cleanup Clock Is Waiting on One Contract
The EPA's site profile describes the current step plainly. The agency is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a contract for the Seawall Sector cleanup. The federal procurement record shows the steps so far:
- May 2025. The Corps posted a sources-sought notice for the Seawall Sector work. It gave a preliminary estimate that construction would be finished within two years of the contract award. That early scope also included an upland portion of Margaret's Creek Area 9, and the notice warned that the details could change.
- November 6, 2025. The Corps' Kansas City District posted a presolicitation for a single, stand-alone contract for the Seawall Sector remedial action, open to full and open competition.
- November 21, 2025, through February 2026. A solicitation was posted, with offers due February 25, 2026.
- July 14, 2026. The procurement record was updated, still labeled "Presolicitation (Updated)."
None of the public notices posted so far announces a contract award or a start date for construction. The government's contract system also warned that award data posted around October 1, 2026 could be delayed. So the lack of an award notice does not prove that no award has been made. What can be said is that no published start date exists yet.
The Seawall contract covers digging out and dredging pieces of slag mixed with crushed battery casings, plus contaminated soil and sediment. It also covers removing the riprap, the armored stone and debris along the Seawall Sector. The earlier planning notice adds sheet piling, dewatering, water treatment, site restoration and rebuilding the seawall itself. In effect, the seawall comes out and goes back in.
The order matters too. The EPA's 2024 announcement said the Jetty Sector cleanup would follow completion of the Seawall work. That puts the jetty at the Cheesequake Creek Inlet second in line. The Corps' two-year figure was an early estimate for a broader scope, and no current schedule for the Seawall contract has been published. The Jetty work comes after the Seawall phase, and it has no published schedule either.
The Restoration Clock Is Already Past Its First Deadline
The second process moves faster, and most of the decisions that will shape the waterfront after the cleanup are being made in it.
The NOAA-led trustees opened a public portal for restoration ideas, and it closed on June 1, 2026. NOAA has said a draft restoration plan would go out for public review in 2026. The trustees named three kinds of injury the money is supposed to address. One is damage to nearshore sediments, which support fish and birds. One is lost recreation from the Laurence Harbor beach closures. The third is woodland lost to cleanup work near Margaret's Creek.
The idea list NOAA posted shows 42 projects. Ten of them come from the Raritan Bay Community Advisory Group, which formed with EPA help in June 2010. Its members include residents directly affected by the site, local public-interest groups and government units. Taken together, the group's ten submissions describe a different shoreline from the one that exists now:
- Expanding Old Bridge Waterfront Park to take in the Margaret's Creek area
- Habitat restoration at Margaret's Creek with public access, including parking, trails and a boardwalk connecting to Laurence Harbor Waterfront Park
- Restoring habitat at Paul's Beach, with new dunes and beach stabilization
- Two offshore breakwater and engineered dune proposals. One covers Paul's Beach and the Shoreland Circle area, from the Cheesequake Creek Inlet to offshore of Roosevelt Drive. The other covers the full Laurence Harbor shoreline from the inlet to Margaret's Creek.
- Culvert expansion across the Margaret's Creek access road to restore tidal flow, along with saltwater estuary restoration
- Planting native woodland and salt-tolerant vegetation to stabilize slopes at Old Bridge Waterfront Park
- Permanent protection for Margaret's Creek, either through a Green Acres deed restriction or through acquisition or annexation by Cheesequake State Park
Other Middlesex County submissions on the list include "Restoration and Recreational Improvements at Cheesequake Creek" and "Mitigation of lost recreational opportunities."
Laurence Harbor's Ideas Are Competing With the Rest of the Bay
The list also includes ideas from outside Old Bridge, which is easy to miss. Several Monmouth County submissions are competing for the same $17.6 million. They include a Keyport Bayfront Living Shoreline, Dune Restoration at Ideal Beach, the Conover Beacon Beach Living Shoreline, a coastal habitat testbed in Atlantic Highlands and a salt marsh project at Conaskonk Point in Union Beach.
NOAA is clear that being on the list only means an idea met the posting guidelines and will be evaluated. None of the projects above has been selected or funded. The pool is fixed, and the ideas range from a culvert to breakwaters along a whole shoreline. The draft plan is the document that will show how much of the money stays on the Laurence Harbor waterfront, where most of the lost beach access happened. When that draft comes out, it opens the next public comment window. Unlike the cleanup contract, that window is a step where people in Old Bridge get a formal say.
What Is Open to Use Right Now
The waterfront that already exists is bigger than the fenced part suggests. Old Bridge Waterfront Park is a partnership between Middlesex County and Old Bridge Township that dates to 1999. The county built and maintains a park and boardwalk on 71 acres of township-owned waterfront. The Paul's Beach section was dedicated in 2002 and the Laurence Harbor section in 2005. After Superstorm Sandy damaged the park in October 2012, the county added two new playgrounds, restored the beach and dunes, and put new railings on the fishing piers.
The park has three entrances: Paul's Beach on Route 35 North, Laurence Harbor, and Pirate's Cove in Cliffwood Beach. Paul's Beach is the start of 1.3 miles of boardwalk and walkways that run to Margaret's Creek near Laurence Harbor, and it has a comfort station and parking. The county also lists a kayak and canoe launch at Whale Creek and an environmental education trail.
The county's amenity list includes fishing. NOAA, however, notes that fencing around the contaminated areas still limits swimming, fishing, sunbathing and other recreation there. Read the posted signs at each entrance before relying on a general amenity list. As recently as July 2024, local reporting described part of the Laurence Harbor beachfront as closed for years. NOAA's April 2026 update still describes parts of the waterfront as closed until the Seawall and Jetty cleanups are done.
Getting to the water is slower this month. NJDOT is milling and repaving Route 35 northbound in Old Bridge between Whale Creek and Cheesequake Creek, which is the stretch that serves Paul's Beach. The work started the week of September 28 and runs at night through the end of October 2026, weather permitting. Middlesex County is also resurfacing Laurence Parkway and Matawan Road between the Garden State Parkway overpass and the NJ Transit railroad overpass. That work runs two nights starting October 5, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.
To follow either clock as it moves, the EPA names Olivia Cappo as the site's Community Involvement Coordinator and the contact for anyone who wants to get involved with the Raritan Bay CAG. NOAA's draft restoration plan is the next public document due, and its comment period is when the Margaret's Creek boardwalk, the Paul's Beach dunes and the breakwater ideas will either stay in the running or drop out.
Own a home near the bay and wondering how the cleanup and restoration timeline fits into your plans? The team at DeVizio Home Selling Alliance tracks Old Bridge, Laurence Harbor and Cliffwood Beach street by street. Ask us "What's My Home Worth?" and we'll give you a clear local answer.
