State Preserving Scout Camp Near Barnegat Bay

New Jersey is spending $1 million to preserve a Boy Scout camp near Barnegat Bay.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday its Green Acres program will buy the development rights to the 436-acre Joseph A. Citta camp from the scouts, ensuring that it will remain in its natural state forever. The announcement came on the one-year anniversary of the DEP's 10-point plan to improve the health of the struggling bay.

The Barnegat Bay plan includes the early closure, in 2019, of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant and the nation's toughest limits on the amount of pollution-causing nitrogen that fertilizer can contain.

Barnegat Bay is one of the nation's most ecologically fragile waterways.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)