Lacey Township is a large, mainland township on the western shore of Barnegat Bay in Ocean County, made up mainly of the communities of Forked River and Lanoka Harbor.
Ocean County·Central Shore
141 Miles verified June 8, 2026. Hours and prices may have shifted.
Lacey Township is a large, mainland township on the western shore of Barnegat Bay in Ocean County, made up mainly of the communities of Forked River and Lanoka Harbor. Locals often just call the whole place Forked River. It is a suburban, year-round town defined by the bay on one side and the Pine Barrens on the other, with lagoon neighborhoods, docks, and marinas rather than an ocean beach.
History The land was Pine Barrens forest and bayfront fishing ground, and Forked River grew up as a small fishing and boatbuilding village on the bay. For most of the 20th century Lacey was rural and lightly settled. Two things changed it: the Garden State Parkway brought commuters and suburban growth after the 1950s, and the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, running from 1969, became the township's dominant employer and tax base for nearly fifty years.
What makes it unique Lacey's identity is built between bay and Barrens, not on a beach. To the east, lagoon-cut neighborhoods and marinas open onto Barnegat Bay; to the west, the Pinelands Protection Act keeps a wall of protected forest from being developed. For decades the defining landmark was industrial: the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, once the oldest operating commercial reactor in the US, looming over the pines until it shut down in 2018.
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