OCEAN COUNTY - Environmental groups Friday expressed frustration at Gov. Chris Christie's effort to clean up Barnegat Bay, whose problems they said have been studied for nearly three decades but never fully addressed.

At the last of three public meetings to gather information about the ills of the bay, many environmentalists said the state is wasting valuable time by writing yet another report instead of taking immediate action.

"This bay has been studied unfortunately while we're all standing around watching it die," said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society. ‘‘People recognized the crisis in this bay 25 years ago. We either act to save this bay now or watch it die.''

BYRAM - "Stop the Lines is not done yet," says Dave Slapeurd, a trustee of the local activist group fighting the PSE&G' Susquahanna-Roseland project. The utility company plans to run approximately 45 miles of high tension power lines through four counties, build a transfer station in Hopatcong and a switching station in Roseland.

Stop the Lines, along with other environmental groups including the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club, NJ Highland Coalition, the New Jersey Environmental Federation and Environment New Jersey appealed the Board of Public Utilities' (BPU) decision to allow PSE&G to move forward.

A public meeting in Toms River Township played out Friday like an unfinished game of Clue.

But in this whodunit, state officials, environmental groups and business owners debated who was killing the Barnegat Bay and what could stop the killer.

About 100 people participated in the last of three "stakeholder" meetings about the declining ecology of this waterway.

The bay and its vast watershed are home to 500,000 people in 38 towns between mile markers 53 and 92 of the Garden State Parkway. Many other rivers and bays in New Jersey are under similar development pressure. Environmentalists said as goes the Barnegat, so goes the rest of New Jersey's sensitive waterways.

A two-year research project led by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and made public Friday shows there would be minimal environmental impact at sites proposed for several wind energy projects off the New Jersey coast.

Designed by DEP scientists during the Corzine administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the $7 million study will help identify optimum sites off the state's Atlantic coast for wind energy projects that would have the least impact on the environment.

Offshore wind turbines would have negligible impacts on birds, fish and marine mammals in a swath of the ocean off the Jersey Shore, according to a state statement released today.

The state Department of Environmental Protection released the draft final report on "Ocean/Wind Power Ecological Baseline Studies" launched more than two years ago.

The studies focused on birds and marine life 3 to 20 nautical miles offshore, from Seaside Heights to North Wildwood.

Several companies want to build wind turbine farms off the Jersey Shore, ranging from about 8 to 20 miles off Atlantic or Cape May counties.

Developing wind turbines off New Jersey's coast would have a "negligible" impact on the environment, according to preliminary results of a two-year study released Friday by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"We now have the science and data needed to take the first steps toward making wind energy projects a reality for New Jersey," Commissioner Bob Martin said in a written statement.

Officials said the $7 million study, meant to provide a scientific baseline for direct planning for the turbines, should serve as a model for other states. The final report is expected early next month.

The Delaware Bay, Delaware Estuary and their environs are in trouble, according to a report released today.

But it's believed that the trend can be reversed if our impacts on the vast ecosystem are managed as a whole, not site-by-site, the report says.

Ten nonprofit environmental groups endorsed the report.

They are the American Littoral Society, Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, Environmental Defense Fund, Environment New Jersey, Sierra Club's New Jersey Chapter, New Jersey Environmental Federation, New Jersey Environmental Lobby, New Jersey Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, NY/NJ Baykeeper and Surfrider Foundation.

Here are some of the report's points:

The New Jersey state Department of Environmental Protection is creating new rules that would give New Jersey cities and towns a greater role in setting the standards for public access to the ocean and river tidal waters within their borders.

DEP Commissioner Bob Martin Tuesday said the proposed changes would end what he called unreasonable mandates for cities and towns, and some commercial establishments and private property owners who now must provide parking, restroom facilities and, in some cases, 24/7 access to beaches and waterways. He said those rules would be replaced by access requirements that recognize local conditions and costs.

The state is trying to promote alternative technologies to help meet New Jersey's energy needs. But the effort is being criticized by some environmentalists who object to classifying certain new electric-generating stations-especially co-generation facilities-as a renewable resource.

The issue arose after the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee approved a bill that would expand the definition of renewable energy sources. These technologies are eligible to receive funds from the state's clean energy program and qualify for renewable energy certificates, which earn money for each megawatt of electricity produced.

The state should not have allowed PSEG Power to avoid paying a surcharge on gas it purchased from an affiliate, an action which critics argue saved the independent power supplier hundreds of millions of dollars over most of the last decade, according to a legal opinion from the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services.

The opinion, requested by Sen. Robert Smith (D-Middlesex), deals with an issue arising out of a rate case involving Public Service Electric & Gas during which it was disclosed that PSEG Power had not paid a societal benefits charge (SBC) on gas it purchased from the Newark utility since the state deregulated the energy industry in 1999.