Barnegat Bay Blitz begins Friday in Lakewood

Environmentalists and volunteers launch the next assault on debris in the Barnegat Bay watershed Friday morning at Ocean County Park in Lakewood.

The seventh Barnegat Bay Blitz brings stakeholders and residents from kids through adults together to tidy up trash trapping spots throughout the broad expanse in Ocean County.

Team captains are ready to assemble their groups in more than 40 communities, state parks and state forests from the shoreline out to Millstone, and from Wall Township to Tuckerton.

It will have a festive kickoff at 9:30 AM, when Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Bob Martin presents the 2016 Rain Barrel Challenge award to Lakewood Middle Schoolers.

DEP says that since the onset of the initiative in 2011, more than 20,000 people have filled dumpsters and trucks with thousands of bags of refuse. Learn more about it here.