Ocean County, New Jersey

Lacey Township is a township in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is considered part of the Jersey Shore and South Jersey regions, as well as of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 28,655, an increase of 1,011 (+3.7%) from the 2010 census count of 27,644, which in turn reflected an increase of 2,298 (+9.1%) from the 25,346 counted in the 2000 census. The 2010 population was the highest recorded in any decennial census. It was named for Continental Army General John Lacey.Lacey Township was incorporated as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 23, 1871, from portions of Dover Township (now known as Toms River Township) and Union Township (now Barnegat Township). Portions of the township were taken on June 23, 1933, to form the borough of Island Beach (which is now Island Beach State Park, part of Berkeley Township). The township was named for Revolutionary War brigadier general John Lacey, who developed Ferrago Forge in 1809.The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is located in the southern part of the township. The single-unit 636 MWe boiling water reactor power plant adjoins the Oyster Creek and is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation. It produced 9% of the state's electricity and is the nation's oldest operating nuclear power plant, having first been brought online on December 1, 1969, and is licensed to operate until April 9, 2029. In 2010, Exelon announced that it would close the facility in 2019 as part of an agreement with the State of New Jersey under which the plant would be allowed to operate without cooling towers. The plant, which had contributed a third of the township's budget through taxes, was closed in September 2018, after which a decommissioning process estimated to take eight years and cost $1.4 billion was to be undertaken.Murray Grove is a Unitarian-Universalist retreat and conference center in Lanoka Harbor, traditionally considered the site where Universalism in America began.

Double Trouble State Park is located in Berkeley and Lacey Townships in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The park was once the Double Trouble company's company town. The park's wilderness is part of the Pine Barrens ecosystem. The park is operated and maintained by the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry.

Central Regional High School is a four-year regional comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Bayville section of Berkeley Township in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Central Regional School District. The high school serves students from the municipalities of Berkeley Township, Island Heights, Ocean Gate, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park.As of the 2022–23 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,606 students and 121.4 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.2:1. There were 434 students (27.0% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 139 (8.7% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

The Lacey Township School District is a comprehensive community public school district serving students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from Lacey Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located in South Jersey along the state's Jersey Shore.As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised of six schools, had an enrollment of 3,864 students and 334.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.6:1.The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group "DE", the fifth-highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.The school district includes six schools. Cedar Creek School (CCS), Lanoka Harbor School (LHS) and Forked River School (FRS) serve grades 1-5. Mill Pond serves grades Preschool-K. Lacey Township Middle School (LTMS) is an intermediate school for grades 6-8 and is located behind the high school. Lacey Township High School (LTHS) has served grades 9-12 since its creation in 1981.

The Central Regional School District is a regional public school district in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States, which serves students in seventh through twelfth grades from the municipalities of Berkeley Township, Island Heights, Ocean Gate, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park.As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised of two schools, had an enrollment of 2,414 students and 177.2 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.6:1.The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group "B", the second-lowest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.

Lacey Township High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Lanoka Harbor section of Lacey Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which operates as part of the Lacey Township School District. The school is overseen by the New Jersey Department of Education and has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1983.As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,256 students and 92.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.7:1. There were 200 students (15.9% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 52 (4.1% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.The school's mascot is a lion, the symbol is a paw, for the "Lacey Lions." The school's colors are navy blue, silver, and cardinal Lacey Township High School has implemented a random drug testing policy. Students participating in any extracurricular activities including after school sports, clubs or any school event must sign a waiver that allows them to be drug tested randomly. The first offense includes suspension from all after school activities for 10 days.

The Forked River Nuclear Power Plant was a proposed nuclear power plant in Lacey Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. It was proposed as a single 1,070 MW reactor in 1969 to be built by Combustion Engineering and operated by Jersey Central Power and Light. The facility would have been located on a site between JCP&L's existing Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and the Garden State Parkway. Unlike the Oyster Creek Plant, the Forked River Plant would have a cooling tower to prevent the release of hot water into Oyster Creek and Barnegat Bay.Construction of the plant was halted in 1974 due to financial cut-backs and environmental protests, but was resumed in 1976. The plant's construction was ultimately canceled in 1980, when General Public Utilities (the parent company of JCP&L) halted construction "because of financial difficulties stemming from the accident at its Three Mile Island facility", as well as uncertainty over whether the NRC would grant a license or possibly institute other costly regulations. In addition, community fears and a construction accident that killed one worker helped end the plant's construction.

Forked River () is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Lacey Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 5,274, an increase of 30 (+0.6%) from the 5,244 enumerated at the 2010 census, which in turn reflected an increase of 330 (+6.7%) from the 4.914 counted in the 2000 census.Many Ocean County residents commonly refer to all of Lacey Township as Forked River. The first word is pronounced by locals with two syllables (). Pronouncing the first word with one syllable () is a sign of a new resident or outsider.

Holiday Heights is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Berkeley Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP's population was 2,099.

Berkeley Township is a township in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, extending from the Jersey Shore westward into the New Jersey Pine Barrens. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 43,754, the highest ever in any decennial count and an increase of 2,499 (+6.1%) from the 2010 census count of 41,255, which in turn reflected an increase of 1,264 (+3.2%) from the 39,991 counted in the 2000 census.Berkeley Township was incorporated as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 31, 1875, from portions of Dover Township (now Toms River Township). Sections of the township were taken to form Seaside Park (March 3, 1898), Seaside Heights (February 6, 1913), Beachwood (March 22, 1917), Ocean Gate (February 28, 1918) Pine Beach (February 26, 1925), South Toms River (March 28, 1927), and Island Beach (June 23, 1933, reabsorbed into Berkeley Township in 1965). The township was named for John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, one of the founders of the Province of New Jersey.

Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station was a single unit 636 MWe boiling water reactor power plant in the United States. The plant is located on an 800-acre (3.2 km2) site adjacent to Oyster Creek in the Forked River section of Lacey Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. At the time of its closure, the facility was owned by Exelon Corporation and, along with unit 1 at Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station, was the oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. The plant first started commercial operation on December 23, 1969, and is licensed to operate until April 9, 2029, but Oyster Creek was permanently shut down in September 2018. The plant got its cooling water from Barnegat Bay, a brackish estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean through the Barnegat Inlet. At the time of shutdown, Oyster Creek was one of four licensed nuclear power reactors in New Jersey. The others are the two units at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, and the one unit at Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station. As of January 1, 2005, New Jersey ranked 9th among the 31 states with nuclear capacity for total MWe generated. In 2003, nuclear power generated over one half of the electricity in the state.In 1999, GPU agreed to sell the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant to AmerGen Energy for $10 million. AmerGen was later purchased by Exelon in 2003. Exelon fully integrated AmerGen's former assets, including Oyster Creek, in early 2009.The reactor was shut down on September 17, 2018.In September 2019, Ocean Wind, a proposed 1,100 MWe offshore wind farm, with the approval of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, secured the capacity interconnection rights to bring the power generated by the wind farm on-shore at Oyster Creek. It can use the existing power infrastructure of the plant, after some upgrades, to connect to the regional transmission grid.In January 2021, Holtec suggested that a "new generation" nuclear plant might be built at the location.

Murray Grove is a Unitarian Universalist retreat and conference center in the Lanoka Harbor section of Lacey Township, New Jersey United States, traditionally considered the site where Universalism in America began. In 1770, Thomas Potter, an unlettered but inspired Universalist landowner living in what was then called Good Luck, New Jersey, encountered John Murray after Murray's vessel was grounded in nearby Barnegat Bay. Learning that Murray was both a Universalist and a preacher, Potter prevailed on him to preach the gospel of universal love in the meetinghouse Potter had built for that express purpose ten years earlier. Despite serious misgivings and initial resistance, Murray gave his first Universalist sermon on the North American continent on September 30, 1770. Taking the experience as a sign that God wanted him to dedicate his life to preaching Universalism, he went on to minister to the first Universalist congregation in the United States, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and later to be centrally involved in the founding of the Universalist Church of America. Universalist pilgrims began trekking to Good Luck in the 1830s. Unable to purchase the meetinghouse, they created what they called Murray Grove and, over time, erected the Potter Memorial Chapel for worship services and Murray Grove House for accommodations. It has been a national center of Universalism for over a century and, since the merger of the Universalists with the Unitarians in 1960 as Unitarian Universalism, remains a vital and active Unitarian Universalist gathering and pilgrimage site. Murray Grove offers historical tours as well as space for groups to hold their own retreats and conferences. Regular programs are presented, especially including the Homecoming celebration the last Saturday of each September.