Two NJ beaches are among the cleanest in America — we’ve come a long way
"Hypodermics on the shore."
If you guessed Billy Joel's 1989 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire," you would be correct. Unfortunately.
I remember that period in the 1980s when medical waste was washing up on New Jersey beaches. Dolphins dying. A Shore that felt, for a moment, like something we might actually lose. It was one of those summers that makes the list for entirely the wrong reasons.
Fortunately, we have come a very long way since then.
From the 1990s through today, the water along the Jersey Shore has been noticeably cleaner than it was in those dark years before the crisis forced a reckoning. Yes, every now and then we hear about bacteria levels running high at some beaches — this spring it was some of our bay beaches, mostly from rain runoff. But by and large the water along the Jersey Shore has been spectacular. And now we have the data to prove it.
SEE ALSO: The quieter side of the Jersey Shore — no boardwalk, all beach
Two Jersey Shore beaches named among the cleanest in the country
A new study by Islands magazine named two New Jersey beaches among the cleanest in the entire United States. Point Pleasant Beach and Stone Harbor both made the list, which was built using bacteria testing data from multiple sources including Swim Guide, the Beach Report Card, and the United Nations Blue Flag program. The researchers focused on Enterococcus, the bacteria most commonly associated with water quality concerns at ocean beaches.
According to Swim Guide, Point Pleasant Beach met New Jersey's water quality standards at least 95 percent of the time during the 2025 testing season, with Enterococcus levels remaining below the state's threshold of 104 units per 100 mL of water. Stone Harbor earned the same 95 percent rating.
Two New Jersey beaches in the top nine in the country. On a list that includes Siesta Key in Florida, Wailea in Hawaii, and Coronado Beach in California. Jersey holds its own.
And it did not stop there. Travel + Leisure separately named 96th Street Beach in Stone Harbor the clearest and cleanest beach in New Jersey. Stone Harbor showing up twice, in two different national publications, is not a coincidence. That beach is doing something right.
Two very different towns, one common thread
Point Pleasant Beach and Stone Harbor represent two very different Jersey Shore experiences, which makes this double recognition all the more satisfying.
Point Pleasant Beach is an Ocean County beach town — boardwalk, rides, Jenkinson's, funnel cake, the whole experience. It is the Shore that families from Central Jersey and beyond have been coming to for generations. The water quality data says that despite the crowds and the activity, the ocean there is among the cleanest in America.
Stone Harbor is in Cape May County — quieter, more residential, the kind of town where the same families have been renting the same house for forty years. It bills itself as "The Seashore at its Best" and has a Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary open year-round, with saltwater wetlands, a freshwater pond, and maritime forest. The water is clear enough to see your feet.
I have spent my life watching New Jersey get knocked for everything — the cost, the traffic, the politics, the taxes. The Jersey Shore gets knocked too, by people who have never actually been here or who remember the wrong decade.
Billy Joel was writing about 1989. The data is from 2025. We are not that Shore anymore.
CHECK OUT: All the free beaches in New Jersey
EJ takes a walk in Atlantic City
Gallery Credit: Eric "EJ" Johnson
