Author: Heather Fenyk

It’s Carved In Stone

Article and photos by Joe Mish

Message from the early nineteenth century remains in place. Hand carved declaration memorializing the men involved in the construction of the bridge. No so different in style and material than petroglyphs from paleo times. Words replace symbols to convey a message deemed important to future travelers.

The stone plaque set in the fieldstone bridge over Cat Tail Brook is crudely chiseled with the date 1825 along with the name of the mason and men who directed its construction. 

The graves of the early settlers preserved in a small patch of land are marked with red shale stones, some with hand carved epitaph’s, other small, weathered stones barely decipherable, some messages completely eroded. 

A block of shale rests in the river with the inscription J N Stout along with the Roman numeral XVI. Well into the twentieth century, property lines were represented by rocks or trees with slash marks. 

The need to communicate is an innate human behavior, messages scribed on whatever canvas is available, whether it be scribbled on a napkin, roadside billboard, or graffiti on the side of a building. From the Chauvet Pont d’ arc caves of France and their well-preserved pictographs, to the Parsippany petroglyphs in north Jersey, each generation of humans, worldwide, expressed themselves in the most rudimentary ways, using whatever medium was on hand.  

My interest is in the paleo or pre-colonial people who lived in our area whose rationale for leaving signs and messages is no different than those seen today. Messages that were the precursor of books, told stories of the hunt or other rituals in pictographs, dendroglyphs and petroglyphs. Pictographs are paintings placed in a protected area, dendroglyphs were images carved into a tree who bark had been partially stripped, petroglyphs were figures carved or etched into stone, usually in the open for travelers to see. 

Just as the local Indians used trees to convey messages along travel paths, the desire for humans to communicate is as strong today as it was when paleo people walked the North and South Branch of the Raritan river. The search for petroglyphs is not confined to the realm of certified experts.

In the book, “Rock Art of Eastern North America”, the author notes the scarcity of primitive art in the eastern woodlands versus the numerous examples in the western states, primarily due to climate. As trees were the dominant canvasses of the woodlands, trees carved with dendroglyphs are not likely to be found. The rock strewn Sourland mountains would be a prime location for glyphs, while in the glacial scoured highlands of northern NJ, petroglyphs been authenticated.  

An example noted in the book explains dendroglyphs were located on well-travelled trails, river crossings and prominences. The topography of the land was also a factor as it restricted or directed travel around obstacles, along rivers or mountain trails. Humans as well as wildlife seek out paths of least resistance as well as places which provide a view. What traveler has not succumbed to the temptation to climb a huge boulder alongside a hiking trail? In paleo times that rock was a safe place to camp, seek refuge from a wolf, or ambush a deer. Some successful hunter might leave a mark to commemorate his luck. 

Without having read or heard of such a ritual, I would leave a coin where a deer fell to my arrow. I don’t know why I did that; no one will ever find that coin. Maybe a lingering primal behavior acted out to ensure my clan’s survival by telling another hunter, that the location was a good place to hunt. 

The South and North branch and Raritan rivers are prime places to look for petroglyphs on the shale cliffs. You are not likely to discover one, but certainly these would be the places to look. Indian artifacts abound and stories of local collectors are many. The cliffs protruding from the flood plain attracted passersby to the precipice, to see what they might see. We can only imagine a glyph carved into a nearby tree by the Unami clan, represented by the image of a turtle. Perhaps it marked territory, a place to camp or images of a turtle holding a tomahawk to signify a war party, as mentioned in the Rock Art book. Chance of finding artifacts at these outcroppings are greater than finding stone carvings.   

Knowing that our rivers were the highways of pre-colonial times, I cannot resist re-examining one particular, smooth red shale cliff, for the remains of an eroded petroglyph. That rare, smooth red shale canvas must have served as a primitive billboard with images of fish and deer taken by the Unami clan. I can’t find a sign, but I keep on looking at that cliff as if the imagined carvings were somehow transcribed to mental images perceived only by kindred spirits who traveled the same watery path.

I keep staring at this smooth cliff face along the river, hoping imagination will be the key to discovering an actual petroglyph. There is no way an early traveler could resist leaving a message on that unusual, smooth red shale tablet!
Further proof of the unbroken, innate need for humans to communicate along travel routes. Just as in paleo times a message board would be updated with symbols perhaps to show the results of a raiding party or successful hunt.

Author Joe Mish has been running wild in New Jersey since childhood when he found ways to escape his mother’s watchful eyes. He continues to trek the swamps, rivers and thickets seeking to share, with the residents and visitors, all of the state’s natural beauty hidden within full view. To read more of his writing and view more of his gorgeous photographs visit Winter Bear Rising, his wordpress blog. Joe’s series “Nature on the Raritan, Hidden in Plain View” runs monthly as part of the LRWP “Voices of the Watershed” series. Writing and photos used with permission from the author. Contact jjmish57@msn.com.

From Clean Water to Clean Watersheds: The Clean Water Act at 50, with Considerations for the Next 50 Years

By LRWP Board President Heather Fenyk, Ph.D., AICP/PP

Today, October 18, 2022, marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA). To be sure, we owe a debt of gratitude to the shapers of the 1972 CWA for creating a law that significantly stemmed the flow of noxious point source pollutants into the nation’s waters. While we celebrate the successes of this seminal legislation, it is important to acknowledge the still unmet mandate of the CWA to bring about drinkable, fishable, swimmable waters. Water pollution remains a profound problem, with more than forty-seven thousand US waters still impaired. This includes every single stream, brook and river in the Lower Raritan Watershed. The major source of pollution into waters US and globally? Non-point source runoff from farm fields and the hardscape surfaces of our developed landscapes.

The LRWP believes we must chart a new path to meet drinkable, fishable, swimmable goals in the next 50 years:

In terms of strategy, centering the health of watersheds in environmental policymaking is key to realizing healthy waters.

This strategy must include integrated watershed management approaches that: 1) minimize impacts of land uses and development on waterways (good stormwater management is a start, however it does not go far enough as preventive practice); 2) require wastewater and stormwater be managed as assets; and 3) center the hydrologic cycle and aquatic systems in maintaining and restoring habitat connectivity.

The LRWP knows it is not our waterways that need to be cleaned so much as we must fix our lands to reduce polluted runoff into our waters. We see this in our water quality data: samples captured during drought weeks show lower pathogens than samples captured during wet day monitoring. And what happens after days of consistent downpours, as during the first week of October? Pathogen counts on our final monitoring session for 2022 on October 6 were the worst of the season. The LRWP invites you to join us to see first hand these connections between land use, engineered hydrologic flows, and water quality during our October 30th field session “Introduction to Urban Stream Health.” Watershed-themed costumes welcome!

On October 22 the LRWP will host a clean-up of the South River floodplain to recognize the 10th anniversary of SuperStorm Sandy. Reflecting on the impact of this storm we recall the catastrophic failure of Middlesex County Utilities Authority’s centralized sewage treatment facility. Sandy-related failure of the MCUA facility resulted in direct point source discharge of hundreds of millions of raw, untreated sewage into our waters. Observing how MCUA continues to discharge treated sanitary sewage into the Raritan River gives us pause. A holistic watershed management approach views wastewater as an asset, with water reclamation and reuse closing the loop between water supply and wastewater disposal. Setting an agenda for clean water for the next 50 years we must prioritize these better ways to clean up our waterways while meeting other sustainability goals.

Remembering Scott Yaede

The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership lost a dear friend, Scott G. Yaede, who passed away on Friday September 16, 2022 at home in New Brunswick, NJ.

The environment was Scott’s passion, and he was a member of the New Brunswick Environmental Commission for decades, serving as chairman for many of those years. He conducted yearly environmental clean ups with the City of New Brunswick and was a steadfast volunteer at the annual Raritan River Environmental Festival. Scott was a member of the American Littoral Society and served as one of the first water quality monitors on the Raritan River for the New Jersey Baykeeper in the 1970s.

Scott was involved in early conversations to start up the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and was a cheerleader as the organization grew and developed. He was especially supportive of, and involved with, the community boat build program. Until last year he joined most of the LRWP boat build sessions and stream clean ups. Scott was an avid kayaker and could often be seen cleaning up trash as he kayaked along the Raritan River.

With gratitude for your friendship and stewardship, Scott. You are missed!

Scott Yaede shows off the smallest tire found during a clean-up of the Raritan River floodplain in Donaldson Park, October 26, 2019.

The Embers Burst Into Flames

Article and photos by Joe Mish

Blaze orange leaves adorn this local black oak. Nature’s seasonal clock has struck 10, autumn has arrived as October takes out a full page ad to showcase its array of brilliant color.

The hot breath of August turns September mornings into a smoldering mist as embers of summer’s end burst into an explosion of October color.  

The early morning autumn mists, so prominent along the rivers and brooks that flow gently across the landscape, stir the imagination to reach back in time to a place where magic was the accepted answer to the wonders of nature. 

Dark green leaves turning to fluorescent orange is the stuff of wonderment. The purpose of which is to generate thought and build creative answers to perplexing questions. It is as if nature is guiding human evolution to higher intelligence by flashing colorful prompts to articulate a creative response. Creativity is the foundation of knowledge and its application. A warm up exercise for the immersion into disciplined technology, ruled by logic and reason. 

The heavy white mist, rising from the river, overflows the pastures, providing a blank slate, into which the light of dawn infuses clouds of ever-changing color. A band of intense pastels emerge from the night and rest upon the horizon to await the sun’s arrival. The first color to appear is a layer of fireball red which cools to an orange glaze, so intense, it appears the world is on fire. Purple streaks fading to rose, pink and salmon support layers of golden yellow, chartreuse and sulfur. This celestial palette, stirred by the rushing wind, spurred on by the sun’s heat clashing with the night’s cool air, disperses the colors to tint the rising river mist.

The predawn light begins to color the rising mist along the South Branch

The early morning light show vanishes into thin air as the sun rises to its zenith above earth. Brilliant blue sky, unmarked by clouds, stand in contrast to the colorful October foliage. Late afternoon herds of fluffy white clouds appear animated as their structures are constantly reshaped by the whim of the wind.  Each bold cloud, composed of delineated puffs of white, bordered by shades of gray, compel interpretation as they resemble earthbound faces, animals and objects. Again, a playground for the imagination to run wild, compliment of autumn weather. It is easy to understand how humans used the sky to interpret messages from the beyond, as true in paleolithic times as it is today. Playing with clouds is to share the exact same emotion and interpretive conclusions as long-gone ancestors. The clouds become a portal in that way, piercing the impenetrable wall of time to prompt creative interpretation, likely more aligned than different.

Fluffy white clouds invite the viewer to ride the sea of imagination.

It is the colorful autumn foliage which garnishes the late day clouds and dramatic morning river mists of October. At a distance, woodlands appear as a single undulating blanket, woven with colorful threads, showing irregular swatches of yellow, green and scarlet. Viewed as a time lapse, the colors expand southward, while the northern edge reverts to earth tones of grayish brown as if consumed while on the run, from the hungry wolves of winter. 

Brilliant, blaze orange oak leaves defy imagination in their intensity, and stand in bold contrast to the conservative green, brown and gray tones that dominate the landscape. Like a flash of fire, its sight demands our absolute attention as sure as the flash of a lightning bolt. In that long moment of awe, imagination, held in abeyance by reality, rushes in to disrupt the continuity of time.  

October is totally dedicated to autumn and all its glorious color, a time when golden mists and billowy white clouds mark the transition between summer and winter; a perfect agreement between two polar opposites.  

The trail of Octobers past, is a familiar well-worn path through time, lit with the brilliance of golden leaves, beckoning the traveler deeper into a world of timeless beauty.

The trail of Octobers past, is a familiar well worn path through time, lit with the brilliance of golden leaves, beckoning the traveler deeper into a world of timeless beauty.

Author Joe Mish has been running wild in New Jersey since childhood when he found ways to escape his mother’s watchful eyes. He continues to trek the swamps, rivers and thickets seeking to share, with the residents and visitors, all of the state’s natural beauty hidden within full view. To read more of his writing and view more of his gorgeous photographs visit Winter Bear Rising, his wordpress blog. Joe’s series “Nature on the Raritan, Hidden in Plain View” runs monthly as part of the LRWP “Voices of the Watershed” series. Writing and photos used with permission from the author. Contact jjmish57@msn.com.

Boyd Park’s Sculptural #FRAME

In environmental monitoring, a picture is worth a thousand words. Crowd-sourcing hundreds or thousands of field photos for sustained environmental monitoring and reporting is even better!

By engaging community members in taking and sharing photographs of the landscape, the LRWP’s #FRAMES repeat digital photography project serves a need in bringing awareness to areas at risk for sea level rise, littering, and development pressures. We think our monitoring #FRAME – conceived as a sculpture – is a pretty great example of creative environmental communication! Check it out in New Brunswick’s Boyd Park, along the water near the amphitheater.

The #lookfortheriver #FRAME in New Brunswick’s Boyd Park

This project developed as a collaboration between the Lower Raritan Watershed Partership, coLAB Arts, the City of New Brunswick, and sculpture artist Toby Horton. Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and arts trust fund. Made possible by funds from Middlesex County, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

FramesThis project includes installation of streamside sculptures and signage that tell a story of hidden streams and landuse impacts in our local floodplains. Some sculptures are crafted of materials salvaged from homes destroyed by flooding and communicate historic flood height in the area. Designed as “frames,” they are positioned to frame views of areas at risk of inundation, erosion and other climate impacts. Interpretive information invites the viewer to take photos through the frame and to upload to social media. This actively engages the viewer/photographer as civic scientist and yields crowd-source longitudinal data that tells a story of seasonal and other changes (litter, invasive plants, high water levels) thus allowing for restoration planning.

Raritan Pathogens Results 8.25.2022

The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County run a volunteer pathogens monitoring program from May to September every Summer. On Thursdays we collect water quality samples at 6 non-bathing public access beach sites along the Raritan River, provide our samples to the Interstate Environmental Commission lab for analysis, and report the results for the public on Friday afternoons.

Our pathogen results for August 25, 2022 show that our three most upstream exceed federal water quality standard for recreation, represented by the red frowns on the map and chart: Riverside Park (Piscataway), Rutgers Boathouse (New Brunswick) and the Edison Boat Launch (Edison) all sampled with high Enterococcus levels. The “green smileys” for the downstream sites indicate that Enterococcus bacteria levels are below the EPA federal standard for recreation.

As always, if you do choose to recreate on the water take proper precautions and be sure to wash hands and any body parts that came in contact with the water.

Suitable levels for primary contact should not exceed 104 cfu/100mL. Per the EPA’s federal water quality standard for CFU primary contact, Pathogens/Enterococci levels are used as indicators of the possible presence of disease-causing bacteria in recreational waters. Sources of bacteria include Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), improperly functioning wastewater treatment plants, stormwater runoff, leaking septic systems, animal carcasses, and runoff from manure storage areas. Such pathogens may pose health risks to people fishing and swimming in a water body.

Big thanks to the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County and the Interstate Environmental Commission for their partnership, and to our monitoring volunteers that came out this week! See here for more information on our pathogens monitoring program.

Thank you, Ella!!

Gabriella (Ella) Robinson, a freshman at Seton Hall and former resident of Piscataway, has earned her Gold Award after completing over 80 hours of community service in partnership with the Lower Raritan Partnership, the 4H Club, Jack and Jill of America, the Central NJ chapter, and the township of Piscataway and Middlesex County. The Girl Scout Gold Award is presented to fewer than 6 percent of Girl Scouts annually.

Ella’s Gold Award Project, called “Go Green Central New Jersey,” was designed around bringing awareness to the water pollution of the Raritan River. Go Green Central New Jersey’s goal is to protect the Raritan River Watershed and educate residents about the importance of environment at Raritan via cleanups and other community environmental stewardship opportunities. She also created a rain garden in Columbus Park in Piscataway.

Gabriella faced a great deal of adversity to accomplish Gold Award distinction. Working on the award since 2019, she worked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Hurricane Ida nearly curtailed her plans and she had to move the location of the rain garden because the original location was flooded because of Ida.

“This award is important because it shows not only the importance of each of us helping the environment but why community partners are so important,” explained Gabriella. Gabriella will attend Seton Hall University in the School of Diplomacy and International Affairs where she hopes to make a difference on the global scale.

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