One man’s mission to clean up Cape May County’s back bays and wetlands

A great blue heron makes a landward loop overhead as John Kauterman steers his modest white skiff toward an island about a mile out from Wildwood. But it’s not what is in those waters that Kauterman, a fisherman by trade, is after as he cuts the engine, jumps out of the little boat, and heads to shore.

“You got dock debris over here,” he calls out, heaving big hunks of Styrofoam into a pile that will grow and grow.

Over the next hour, Kauterman will pull all manner of trash from the island’s reeds, mulberry bushes, and tall grasses: a 1952 Lord Calvert whiskey bottle, kids’ beach toys, a busted municipal trash can, the head of Mr. Potato Head, lots of lumber. There was a fishing lure like the one that killed a bald eagle he once found, and discarded rope he’s seen lead to the demise of many a shorebird.

All in all, it was over 100 pounds of trash that Kauterman bagged up and put in his boat to take away. And that was just the beginning. He’d be back.

“We’re losing habitat,” Kauterman, 47, said. “It’s time to take care of what we have left.”

John Kauterman is on a one-man mission to do just that. Over the past five years, he has increasingly immersed himself in a labor of love to save the Shore’s wetlands from human carelessness and neglect, one piece of debris at a time.

Since March these efforts have had a name — the Tidelands Initiative. That’s the name of the nonprofit Kauterman’s good friend and fishing buddy Kevin Dougherty helped him create.

“He’s not the guy that gets in front of a computer. I sit in front of a computer for a living,” said Dougherty, 46, who works in pharmaceutical supply management.

Bolstered by the big response Kauterman would get whenever he posted pictures and videos of his cleanups on social media, this guy who grew up loving the Shore and his friend both came to believe the project could grow. So Dougherty offered to do the paperwork.

“It’s like he’s almost hard on himself — like he let the entire area get like this and he should have started sooner. [He says] ‘I’ve been driving by this crap for 25 years without stopping to pick it up. It’s driving me nuts now, and I got to do something about it.’ That’s how committed he is to make this work,” said Dougherty, who has long owned a summer home in Avalon. Kauterman lives there year-round.

In 2023, the men estimate Kauterman cleared 25,000 pounds of debris from Cape May County’s wetlands, working both by land and water. His tools are his hands.

Kauterman started the work as a New Year’s resolution in 2019. That first year, he figures he put in about 40 hours, working largely around the Avalon area whenever he was home from his many weeks away, commercial scallop fishing in New England.

He still does the cleanups during his time home between fishing jobs. But the range of his efforts has expanded — from Cape May all the way to Linwood. And he says there’s so much more to do. He figures he’s up to over 600 hours. He’s driven by the need that he knows is out there.

“Once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” he said.

He is also driven by something even more basic; the Jersey Shore — its wetlands and waterways — is his home, and he loves it.

He was born in Philadelphia, and his family moved to Avalon when was 2 years old.

“There was a bridge right down from the house. I was always down there on the bridge, fishing or jumping off the bridge and swimming,” Kauterman said.

He developed a love for the creatures of the Shore, too. That got him into photography at a young age. His website, johnkauterman.com, is filled with images of the animals and seascapes that mean so much to him.

He also got into surfing. That took him to Hawaii to live for a few years. But the Jersey Shore eventually drew him back home.

His efforts to clean up and preserve his beloved tidelands have turned up all manner of refuse.

“You name it, it’s out there,” Kauterman said.

The main culprits, he says, are weather and neglect. Storms have deposited loads of household and even some medical waste that he has picked up. Shotgun shells, cigarette lighters, and beer balls. All sorts of construction site debris. Full cans of defunct beer brands.

He’s chopped up whole docks that came unmoored and washed out to sea. And he’s found bottles of every possible vintage, including some with messages in them. The oddest one was a jar with a bag inside containing the ashes of an Egg Harbor City woman, Dianne Lackwood, mixed with those of her cats, Sasha and Jazzabella, and her wish that whoever finds “me” put the jar and a dated note with where it was found inside a plastic bottle and then “place all in the water so that we may continue our journey.”

Kauterman is working on it.

“I took them out fishing to be released but felt the jar they were in would be no match for a transatlantic journey,” he said. “So I’m currently trying to figure out the best way to pack them for a safe voyage.”

Meanwhile, back on land, Kauterman’s quiet crusade is getting noticed. People in the Cape May County Shore towns have been watching his progress via the reels and maps he posts on his Tidelands Initiative page on Facebook.

“I think it’s a really wonderful thing,” said Betty Raimondo, 74, of Avalon. “So many people don’t care about the environment, and he really is a person who cares. He’s been doing this for a while, and no one has told him to do it. He’s doing this on his own.”

Joe Neuber, 82, a Pennsylvania business owner who has had a home down the Shore for over 40 years called Kauterman “a real treasure.”

“He does something nobody else wants to do,” Neuber said. “Even the townships and municipalities. You can’t see it, so they don’t think about it. John walks those muddy marshes and gets bottles and trash and cans, chairs, tables, umbrellas, and all kinds of stuff. It’s amazing. I really admire the man.”

Still, Kauterman’s environmental activism has almost gotten him into hot water at times. When he’s left the bagged up waste he’s cleared by the roadside for pickup, he has at times been accused of dumping by local authorities not familiar with his project.

For that reason, he has been trying to get the word out about his initiative, and trying to collaborate with local governments. Earlier this year, for example, he gave a presentation before the Cape May County Board of Commissioners.

“I think Mr. Kauterman should be applauded for what he’s doing. It’s definitely a noble cause,” said Andrew Bulakowski, 65, vice director of the county board.

The commissioner said Kauterman was put in touch with county staff to help coordinate the pickup of some of the materials he collects and to also explore some funding possibilities.

Up to now, the Tidelands Initiative has gotten mostly small, grassroots donations — about $3,600 in all. It’s allowed Kauterman to buy things like protective gloves and a couple of chainsaws so he can break up those docks he finds.

But the more involved he has gotten, the more he wants to do. If he could raise enough money, he said, he would buy a bigger skiff to haul away more debris and a trailer so he can cart it to a local transfer station.

If he could figure out a way, Kauterman would like to devote all his time to restoring and preserving the wetlands of his beloved Cape May County.

“At the end of the day, it has given me and my family such a fantastic journey in life. I want to find a way to give back,” he said. “The Shore is a real special place for a lot of different people. If we can clean up this one small area, we can send a message to the rest of the state or the country: You don’t have to live that way.”