The LRWP and SEWA volunteers went out to the litter trap in the Green Brook on Saturday, July 19th, 2025, to conduct a litter tally. Huge thanks to our SEWA International Central Jersey youth partners! Thanks to their efforts, we’ll have much better data on how the litter trap keeps our watershed clean. Learn more about the litter trap initiative here. And learn more about the LRWP’s litter tally project with SEWA here. Below, you’ll find Sewa’s Pravith Venkat describing the litter we picked up and conditions surrounding the litter trap. Tragically, a terrible storm tore through our area of study on July 14th. Almost 6.5 inches of rain fell in one hour. Scores of homes flooded up and down the brook, and at least two homes saw their foundations ripped out by the current. At least two people drowned when their car was washed off a bridge.

Blog post by Pravith Venkat.

This week’s cleanup at the Greenbook stream was heavily influenced by a recent flash flood, which caused a surge in water flow and significant changes to the litter trap’s effectiveness. While we recovered a large volume of debris, much of it had either escaped the trap or washed up on the banks. This highlights the powerful impact natural disasters can have on our cleanup efforts.

Trash Found Outside the Trap: 

• 1 mattress 
• 29 aluminum cans 
• 1 food can 
• 1 glove
• 1 glass bottle 
• 3 plastic lids
• 1 battery
• 1 safety razor
• 1 paint sample container
• 1 plastic container
• 1 boot
• 1 white bucket 
• 26 plastic bottles
• About 50 plastic wrappers
• Few pieces of styrofoam
• 1 water reservoir
• 1 green trash can 
• 2 straws 

During the storm event, the Litter Bandit broke loose from the southern bank. It then swung into the current and broached the northern bank. Interestingly, when this happened, its large buoys trapped a substantial amount of trash that we were able to recover:

• 38 plastic bottles
• 1 plastic lid
• 1 cigarette case
• 3 plastic shot bottles
• 1 glass liquor bottle
• 4 aluminum cans
• 1 plastic bag 
• Lots of styrofoam 
• 2 small soccer balls
• 1 flip flop
• 1 wooden piece
• 3 plastic wrappers
• 1 plastic gum container
• 1 paper cup 
• 1 fishing lure
• 1 plastic cap
• 1 trashbag 

After the storm, the Dunellen Department of Public Works reattached the Litter Bandit to the southern embankment.

Other observations: 

1. The southern bank exhibited only minimal plant life in the area where the Litter Bandit had been attached, whereas the northern bank had a tremendous amount of riparian vegetation. The vegetation on the northern bank may have saved the litter trap from detaching from both banks.
2. The roots of two dead as tree roots still support the bank behind the trap, but they are deteriorating. Without these roots, the erosion from the storm could have been much more severe.
3. We saw many examples of ash trees destroyed by the Emerald Ash Borer beetle. While the Emerald Ash Borer beetle is usually thought of us a pest that destroy urban and suburban ash trees, its worst effects may be the damage done to its native habitat of stream and river banks.
4. Due to a strong odor, we believe a dead animal is trapped among the woody debris washed against the northern bank.

This week highlighted one of the biggest challenges with installing litter traps in streams: How can we prepare a litter trap to handle extreme weather events? Once the water level rose too high, the current became too strong, causing debris to escape the trap. Then, the water pressure on the stream bank and the buoys caused the attachment to fail on the southern bank.

We are also noticing more signs of ecosystem damage, such as the presence of the Emerald Ash Borer beetle, which destroys the ash trees that hold together stream banks.

Going forward, we will continue to evaluate the trap’s structure and location. This could mean relocating it, or tying the rope to a stronger tree to improve stability. Our goal is to stop litter from reaching the river. To do that, we need a trap that can handle both normal water flow and extreme weather.

By Danielle Bongiovanni and J.M. Meyer

The third pathogen monitoring session of the month occurred on Thursday, July 17. Every Thursday during the summer, from May to October, the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County run a volunteer-based monitoring program along the Raritan River. We collect water quality samples at six non-bathing public access beach sites, provide our samples to the Interstate Environmental Commission for analysis in their laboratory, and report the results to the public on Friday afternoons. Our mission is to share this data with the community and partners to ensure the safe use of the Raritan river for all.

We could not perform this service without the cooperation of our community and university partners, especially Rutgers University! This week, four members of the Rutgers community joined us at Rutgers Boathouse to look for pathogens. Our guests included Executive Dean Laura Lawson, Executive Vice Chancellor Jason Geary, Assoc. Professor Michele Bakacs, and Professor of Landscape Architecture David Tulloch, who also serves as a LRWP board member.

Our lab results for water quality samples taken on Thursday, July 17, 2025 show Enterococcus bacteria levels exceeding the EPA federal water quality standard of 104 cfu/100mL at FOUR (4) of our monitoring sites this week. Problem sites are indicated by red frowns on the map and chart which includes: Riverside Park (Piscataway), Rutgers Boathouse (New Brunswick), Ken Buchanan Waterfront Park (Sayreville), and Edison Boat Launch (Edison Township). Green smiles on the chart and map indicate the sites with bacteria levels safe for recreation, and include the following: Raritan Bay Waterfront Park (South Amboy) and 2nd Street Park (Perth Amboy).

Pathogens/Enterococci levels are used as indicators of the possible presence of disease-causing bacteria in recreational waters. Such pathogens may pose health risks to people coming in primary contact with the water (touching) through recreational activities like fishing, kayaking or swimming in a water body. Possible 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.

Our goal in reporting these results is to give residents a better understanding of the potential health risks related to primary contact during water-based recreation. If you are planning on recreating on the Raritan this weekend, make sure to stay safe and wash up after any activities!

This summer, the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership will partner with the Central Jersey chapter of Sewa International to train the next generation of citizen scientists! The collaboration will focus on the Green Brook litter trap, a project funded through the ‘damages’ assessment of the Cornell Dubilier Electronics site in Plainfield. Together with a handful of science-minded high school students, we will be assessing our toolkit for counting the litter trap’s collections, imagining new ways of protecting our streams, and investigating the point-source of various pollutants in the Green Brook. In a few days, our Sewa volunteers will begin posting their findings.

This project is part of the Cornell-Dubilier Electronics Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan (NRDAR Plan), and our partners include Dunellen, Green Brook, and the Cornell Dubilier Trustees (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration).

Stay tuned!