Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has brought millions of people together to celebrate our world’s environment. The day has also focused our attention on environmental problems such as pollution, flooding and littering.
Join the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, Franklin Township Environmental Commission, the Watershed Institute, and others for an Earth Day clean-up of Naaman Park!
WHAT: a clean-up of Naaman Park on Saturday April 17
SPECIAL NOTE: Please wear closed toe shoes and clothes you are willing to get dirty and wet. Bring a reusable water bottle. Gloves, bags and light refreshments will be provided!
REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
***For more information contact Stan Jaracz, Franklin Environmental Commission member at jaraczs@yahoo.com***
You may wonder why it is so important to keep our waterways clean. Streams, rivers and other waterbodies make up the watershed where we all live. Watersheds are areas of land where runoff from rain and snow drains into a lake, stream, river or wetland. These watersheds are full of life. They provide habitat for fish, birds and wildlife. They are also a source of drinking water for homes and businesses. The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and The Watershed Institute share a joint mission to keep water clean, safe and healthy through conservation, advocacy, science and education.
How should we assess areas for habitat connectivity in our urban watersheds? How can we build support for biodiversity planning in our urban core?
In this half day workshop we will learn how to use tools developed by NJDEP to help assess habitat connectivity needs, and hear from NY/NJ Harbor Estuary about findings from recent citizen science connectivity assessments.
To kick things off, we will hear from Isabelle Stinnette with NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program who will discuss findings from their Aquatic Connectivity Through Climate-Ready Infrastructure Project. This project uses the North Atlantic Connectivity Collaborative protocols (www.naacc.org) in concert with a hydraulic model to make recommendations for connectivity restoration in New Jersey watersheds.
Following Ms. Stinnette’s presentation we will hear from NJDEP zoologist Brian Zarate and his team who will introduce the statewide habitat connectivity plan called Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey (CHANJ), launched last year by the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife. NJDEP will provide an overview of the major tools that CHANJ offers to guide a multi-scale, all-hands-on-deck approach to improve landscape and roadway permeability for wildlife, demonstrate the new interactive, web-based CHANJ Mapping tool, and show how it can be used to help guide land protection and management and to mitigate barriers to wildlife movement – goals that are particularly urgent in the face of climate change and urbanization.
This online workshop will run from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm on Monday May 4.
Presenters:
Isabelle Stinnette
Isabelle Stinnette is the Restoration Manager at the New York – New Jersey Harbor & Estuary Program (HEP), where she runs the inter-agency restoration work group, tracks restoration progress in NJ and NY, and works with partner agencies to further habitat restoration efforts. Prior to joining HEP, she worked for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) as a Restoration Biologist as well as Research Technician expediting storm recovery and resiliency projects. Isabelle has a M.S. degree from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at Stonybrook University and a B.A. from St. Lawrence University.
Brian Zarate
Brian Zarate is a Senior Zoologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program (ENSP). He coordinates the state’s reptile and amphibian conservation work and leads a statewide wildlife initiative called Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey (CHANJ). After receiving his BS in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University in 2001, Brian worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska and then returned to New Jersey to begin employment for the Division. Until 2007 Brian worked under contract for the state through the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey not-for-profit agency and then was hired by ENSP later that year. Brian serves on committees and boards for the Wildlife Habitat Council, American Turtle Observatory, NRCS, and the Highlands Council. He’s currently a national co-chair for Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) and a long-standing member of the Northeast PARC steering committee.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Registration closes 6 PM Sunday May 3. Registrants will receive a link to the training on Sunday evening in advance of the Monday session.
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Photo: Roger Dreyling, “BioBlitz Foxes” @ Elmwood Cemetery, New Brunswick 6.18.2019
The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership invites you and your favorite young person to learn about watershed health, the role of arts in environmental outreach, and to join us in stewardship by creating “watershed sculptures” for inclusion in our 2020 Sculpture Project gallery installation.
This FREE event will be held on Saturday March 7 from 2-4 pm at the Milltown Senior Center: 60 Violet Terrace, Milltown, NJ 08850
So that we can be sure we have adequate supplies, preregistration is requested.
Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund.
Program funded by Middlesex County, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
PARK(ing) Day is one of our favorite days of the year. What’s not to like about taking over hard, impervious parking lot surfaces and re-purposing them into beautiful pop-up-parks for public enjoyment? This year the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership teamed up with the Rutgers Landscape Architecture Club, New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects – NJASLA and Garden of Healing Yoga & Wellness to make magic happen in downtown New Brunswick. With thanks to videographer Will Atwater for this recap of the day.
Join the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Central Jersey Stream Team for a clean-up of the Green Brook!
WHAT: a clean-up of the Green Brook on Sunday December 8 from 10AM to 1PM
WHERE: Green Brook Regional Center, 275 Greenbrook Rd, Green Brook Township, NJ 08812
This Event is Co-coordinated by the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Central Jersey Stream Team. With special thanks to the Green Brook Department of Public Works for cartage and supplies.
Please wear closed toe shoes and clothes you are willing to get dirty. Gloves and bags will be provided!
Registration requested.
*** For more information contact Heather hfenyk@lowerraritanwatershed.org, or #908.349.0281 ***
Green Brook clean-up 2018 – trash as far as the eye could see.
Some 30 tires are stuck on the river bottom near Highland Park’s Donaldson Park. The LRWP and our Central Jersey Stream Team friends have wanted to get in there all year. Saturday October 26 is our last chance for a super low tide in 2019, and if the weather holds out we should be able to wrestle these guys out of the muck.
This will be a VERY muddy clean-up, requiring muscle and perseverance. There are few small items to collect in this area it is mostly buried tires.
Registration starts at 12:30pm, we want to get out onto the mud flats quickly to take advantage of the low tide at 2:11pm. We expect to have things wrapped up by 3pm.
Please wear appropriate clothing and footwear that can get wet and (VERY) muddy.
Please park by the basketball courts, we will fan out onto the mud flats from there.
Registration requested. This is a “shine only” event, and we will not hold the clean up if the water is high because of recent rain. Please be sure to check our event page for updated information.
Article by Howard Swerdloff, New Brunswick Environmental Commission
On Saturday June 8, 2019, the Elmwood Cemetery hosted their first annual “BioBlitz.” (A“BioBlitz” is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time.) The event was sponsored by the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership (LRWP), the Americorps Watershed Ambassadors Program, New Brunswick Environmental Commission, North Brunswick Environmental Commission, and the Elmwood Cemetery.
Photo credit: Roger Dreyling
Over 4 dozen area “citizen scientists” and experts scoured the 50 acre site identifying and cataloging the fish, mammals, insects, aquatic invertebrates, fungi, plants, and birds. They identified 8 species of fish; 8 species of mammals; 47 species of insects; 15 species of aquatic invertebrates; 20 species of fungi; 37 species of plants; and 42 species of birds (the latter are catalogued on E-bird: https://ebird.org/nj/view/checklist/S57201308 ) — a total of 177 different species.
Photo credit: Johnny MalpicaPhoto Credit: Johnny Malpica Photo credit: Johnny Malpica
The event inspired many two-way conversations between our community participants and the volunteer scientists. Instead of a didactic “top down” learning experience, both groups shared their knowledge and understanding of the local environment in a way that enhanced the specialized knowledge of the expert scientists, and, in turn, the expert scientists helped community volunteers develop a deeper knowledge and appreciation for the natural world and local environment. The experts’ final reports will be ready in a month; their findings will be shared with the volunteers. Elmwood Cemetery plans to make a Bioblitz an annual event.
Elmwood Cemetery, a Special Forested Habitat Refuge The cemetery is nestled between the New and North Brunswick communities. It was established in 1868 as a “Victorian Garden Cemetery” during the rural cemetery movement, and to this day all of Elmwood’s lanes and paths are lined with evergreens and flowering native trees. Cemetery managers are building on this legacy of careful planning and land protections to secure Arboretum accreditation, which will allow them to further advance the planting, study, and conservation of woody plants and trees in the area.
On May 12, 2018 more than 150 people joined the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, Greater Brunswick Charter School, Esperanza Neighborhood Partnership, Friends of Mile Run Brook and Elmwood Cemetery for a multi-site community clean-up and celebration of New Brunswick’s Mile Run Brook. The clean-up was enlivened by our roving “Trash Troubadour” – Dave Seamon – who engaged our volunteers with song and stories as they cleaned-up the stream.
Our Trash Troubadour traveled with a large sculptural bread-and-puppets style bottle (made from trash found during prior clean-ups) that clean-up volunteers covered with messages of environmental hope. With thanks to all the volunteers for a great day of stewardship and celebration. And huge thanks to filmmaker Jessica Dotson for capturing this story of our wonderful New Brunswick, NJ community.
The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County seek civic science volunteers to assist with the Summer 2019 “Citizen Science Monitoring for Pathogens Indicators on the Raritan River.” This program will run every Thursday from May 23 to September 26. Volunteers will travel with a monitoring team to capture water quality samples at sites along the Raritan River, followed by a trip to the NEIWPCC lab in Staten Island to assist with preparation of samples for analysis. A 2 hour training is required, after which the Project Team would like volunteers to commit to assisting with at least five (5) sampling events throughout Summer 2019.
The first training will be on Thursday May 9, 1-3:30 PM at the EARTH Center of Middlesex County. Registration required.
This project will allow us to gather data and other information on water quality for six public access sites along the tidal portions of the Raritan River at locations considered non-bathing beaches. In addition to capturing water samples at each of the six public access sites, volunteers will have the opportunity to go to the NEIWPCC’s lab on Staten Island to learn how samples are processed for monitoring.
We will monitor non-bathing beach sites with active kayak/canoe launches and/or fishing and other primary contact activities that are not regularly monitored by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection or the New Jersey Department of Health and Human Services and lack sufficient water quality data.
Bacteria data will be reported in “real-time” on Friday afternoons to allow Lower Raritan residents and others to make informed decisions about their on-water recreation activities for the weekend.
The Project will also allow for development of civic science and expanded volunteer environmental monitoring programming within the Lower Raritan Watershed and Middlesex County, NJ. Working with an approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) will allow for data generated from this project to inform water quality policy and regulatory decisions at all levels of government (state, federal, local) within the project area, and to educate the public.
Water quality monitoring sampling will directly inform public access decision-making for six (6) diverse Lower Raritan Watershed municipalities (see site map below). These sites include:
Riverside Park (Piscataway)
Rutgers Boathouse at Boyd Park (New Brunswick)
Edison Basin Boat Launch (Edison Township)
Ken Buchanan Riverfront Park (Sayreville)
Raritan Bay Waterfront Park (South Amboy)
2nd Street / Brighton Avenue Beach (Perth Amboy)
Sites were chosen to inform decision-making about access and use, to aid understanding of municipal stormwater and sewage flows, and to inform current and future landuse planning and restoration efforts. Sites include the following known activities: 1) launch sites for personal non-motorized watercraft (sites 1-5); 2) fishing (sites 2-6); 3) birding hotspots (site 5); 4) crabbing (sites 2,4,5,6); 5) proximate to Combined Sewer Overflow (site 6); 6) unofficial bathing activity (sites 2,5,6); 7) collegiate watersport competition (site 2).
Generous support for equipment and data analysis is provided by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission.
Article and interview by TaeHo Lee, Rutgers Raritan Scholar
Starting Saturday April 14 and running through October, the LRWP will join Mercado Esperanza in Joyce Kilmer Park (143 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, New Brunswick) for a community market celebrating the food, arts and culture of New Brunswick and its diverse Latino community. Learn more about the Mercado in TaeHo Lee’s interview (below) with Mercado Coordinator Carolina Moratti. In the interview Carolina gives a preview of a new program for 2019 called Mercado Esperanza Kids. As part of Mercado Kids, the LRWP and our coLAB Arts partners invite you and your favorite young person to make “watershed sculptures” for inclusion in our 2019 Sculpture Project gallery installation. The Mercado runs once monthly from 11-4 PM, and will be held on April 14, May 26, June 30, July 28, August 25, September 29, October 27.
Participants at Mercado 2018 learn about watershed health while participating in sculpture-making. Photo: coLAB Arts
Carolina Moratti and her
son Abraham met me at a Café on George Street during Rutgers spring break to
talk about the monthly Mercado Esperanza on Joyce Kilmer Avenue in New
Brunswick. Carolina has worked with the Mercado since it started in 2016, and
now serves as Coordinator. Carolina is a Peruvian born American. She moved to
the US in 2005, and five years later became a citizen. She was a former student
and an instructor of Elijah’s Promise. She currently works as a phlebotomist,
partaking in community outreach with women and kids as a hobby. She describes
herself as a hard working single mom. Abraham is Carolina’s 12-year old son and
a 6th grade student of Von E. Mauger Middle School in Middlesex. Though
he was born in the States, he identifies himself as a Peruvian, Central and
South American.
T: Tell me about New
Brunswick’s Mercado. What is your role at these monthly events?
C: I started by helping community women, entrepreneurs, and cooks who wanted to build a business. I would coordinate their involvement at the Mercado, helping them sell prepared foods. Later on I started to work managing the Mercado as a whole. I also created the Mercado Esperanza Kids, in which I work with young volunteers to do activities for kids. We have young kids doing temporary tattoos and face painting, and also environmental education. My current priority is emceeing the Mercado, taking care of Mercado Esperanza Kids, and doing social media and public relations.
T: Does the term Mercado
mean market?
C: Yes! And Esperanza
means hope. Mercados are everywhere in Latin America. Some places are called
Marketa but we call ours Mercado Esperanza/Hope. We’re giving hope to people
because sometimes they are in a difficult situation. They are homeless, they
don’t believe in themselves, they are having a hard time making money, succeeding,
and having their voice heard. So we gave them some representation, something
that they can be proud of. It is really life-changing.
T: I think it is also
very important that this Mercado also allows people to celebrate their culture.
C: People can feel
secluded as immigrants in America when nobody sees them. But we give them some
representation and help them to be seen. What I love about Mercado is that we
keep in traditions. And we’re showing our kids how wonderful it is to go to a
local Mercado and experience how we are trying to bring the culture of Mexico
here. We’re bringing culture, we’re bringing memories, we’re bringing flavors, we’re
bringing music, and all that vibe that we have when we go to another Mercado in
any part of South America or Central America or Mexico. We have so many vendors
with their kids selling and playing at the Mercado. It’s very good to see that
the kids are also getting involved.
T: As part of Mercado Esperanza
Kids you are working with the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and coLAB
Arts to offer a “Watershed Sculpture Project” activity. Why is it important to
you to see environmental outreach included as part of Mercado offerings?
C: The more things we include at Mercado the
better. If you go there for food but we are teaching you about how to keep the
water clean, how to produce less garbage, how to reuse, how to recycle. If we
can give you that information we are making a change because we don’t have that
in our culture. A lot of countries in Central or South America don’t do that. People
are very excited to see environmental education. It’s a lot of information that
is not easy to get to. So if we provide that with Mercado it’s amazing. Because I know it’s going to make a change.
T: Last summer you participated in a weeklong “Watershed
Institute” with coLAB and the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership. What were some
of the things you learned that week?
Abraham: I learned about water quality
monitoring, and how it’s important to protect the environment. And I learned
that we can protect the environment by making sure we recycle things. We can
also clean up after ourselves and after others who have forgotten to do so. We
could maybe even make a fundraiser for an environmental cause.
Abraham Moratti conducts visual habitat assessments as part of Summer Institute 2018 “Art and Action in the Watershed.”
T: Do you have anything to say to adults who
mainly created the environmental issues that you and I have to inherit for our
lifetime and for the following generations?
A: They should have been more careful. They
should have been more thoughtful. They should have cleaned up their mess after
themselves. They should have been more aware of what they were doing.
