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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Frames: This 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.
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.
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.
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) sampling conducted at Landing Lane Bridge along the Raritan River on July 27, 2022 indicates MODERATE HEALTH RISKS associated with the presence of harmful algal bloom (HAB) in the water.
The water body advisory for presence of HAB microcystins warns against primary contact (swimming or wading or directly touching the water) for both humans and pets, and against drinking the water or consumption of fish caught in the water. Harmful algal blooms could lead to serious health risks. If you or your pet have had primary contact with the water, please wash with fresh water immediately.
Testing of the water late in July found dangerous levels of microcystins, a class of toxins produced by certain freshwater cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae. According to the DEP, these microorganisms could pose a high risk of health effects, including abdominal pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting and nausea, dry cough, diarrhea, blistering around the mouth, pneumonia and liver toxicity.
Children and pets are particularly vulnerable because they ingest more water in relation to their weight.
More information is available on the searchable NJDEP website:
The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership is keeping an eye on things, and will post notices at locations with observable HABS or at locations indicated as problematic by NJDEP.
How can you reduce the risk of dog poisoning by cyanobacterial toxins?
• If possible, keep your dog on a leash near shorelines.
• Don’t let dogs wade, drink the water or eat/walk in beach debris.
• If your dog goes in the water please remove them immediately.
• Don’t let them lick their fur or paws after getting out of the water.
• Rinse/wash them thoroughly with fresh water from a safe source if available. (i.e. bottled water or household garden hose). Otherwise a towel or rag can be used to remove algal debris.
• Use rubber gloves during pet cleaning, if possible.
• Dry them thoroughly with a clean towel or rag.
• Wash your hands with fresh water.
• Please notify the public health department or state natural resource management agency if you observe a suspected HAB.
