EPA Kicks Off Fifth Annual Campus RainWorks Challenge
College students compete to design green infrastructure for their campus
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just launched its fifth annual Campus RainWorks Challenge, a competition for college and university students to design innovative solutions for our nation’s water infrastructure. Using their campuses as labs, teams develop green infrastructure systems to reduce stormwater pollution and build resilience to climate change. Since 2012, more than 420 student teams have participated in the challenge.
“Stormwater is one of the nation’s most significant water challenges, with increasing amounts of runoff polluting our nation’s streams, rivers and lakes,” said Joel Beauvais, Deputy Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Water. “Through the Campus RainWorks Challenge, EPA invites our country’s future planners, designers, and engineers to apply their classroom learning and help us solve stormwater management problems through innovative green infrastructure design and technology.”
Teams may register for the 2016 Challenge from September 1st to September 30th. The 2016 Challenge winners will be announced in spring 2017. Each first-place team will earn a student prize of $2,000 and a faculty prize of $3,000 to support green infrastructure research or training. Second-place teams will win $1,000 for student teams and $2,000 for faculty research.
Green infrastructure decreases pollution to local waterways by treating stormwater where it falls and keeping more polluted runoff out of sewer systems. Green infrastructure features include green roofs, permeable materials, green streets, rain gardens and rain harvesting systems. Communities are increasingly using green infrastructure to supplement their “gray” infrastructure such as pipes, filters and ponds.
Green infrastructure can create vibrant communities by increasing economic activity, neighborhood revitalization, job creation and open space. It also strengthens a community’s resiliency to the impacts of climate change by reducing the burden on local water infrastructure, managing local flooding, reducing urban heat islands and lowering energy demands.
We would love to see some of the schools in the Lower Raritan Watershed enter this competition!
More information is available at www.epa.gov/campusrainworks
48 N.J.R. 1349(a)
NEW JERSEY REGISTER
Copyright © 2016 by the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law
VOLUME 48, ISSUE 13
ISSUE DATE: JULY 5, 2016
RULE PROPOSALS
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
48 N.J.R. 1349(a)
Proposed Amendments: N.J.A.C. 7:7-6.4, 15.2 and 25.1; 7:7A-11.1; and 7:13-1.2, 6.7, 7.8 through 7.12, 7.29, 7.56, 7.58, 7.61, 8.5, 8.6, 8.8, 8.13, 9.5, 9.6, 9.8 through 9.10, 11.2, 12.5, 12.14, 13.1, 13.2, 13.6, 13.7, 13.8, 13.14 through 13.20, and 20.1
Proposed New Rule: N.J.A.C. 7:13-13.4
Click here to view Interested Persons Statement
Flood Hazard Area Control Act Rules
Coastal Zone Management Rules
Notice of Rescheduling of Public Hearing
Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules
Take notice that the Department of Environmental Protection (Department) is rescheduling the public hearing on proposed amendments and new rules in the Flood Hazard Area Control Act (FHACA) Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:13, Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7, and Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7A, PRN 2016-084. The proposed amendments and new rule were published in the New Jersey Register on June 20, 2016 at 48 N.J.R. 1014(a). The Department has rescheduled the hearing date as indicated below.
A copy of the notice of proposal is available at http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules and from LexisNexis free public access to the New Jersey Register, www.lexisnexis.com/njoal.
A public hearing concerning the notice of proposal is scheduled as follows:
Friday, July 22, 2016, at 10:00 A.M.
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
Public Hearing Room
401 East State Street
Trenton, NJ 08625
Submit comments by August 19, 2016, electronically at http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/comments. The Department of Environmental Protection (Department) encourages electronic submittal of comments. In the alternative, comments may be submitted on paper to:
Gary J. Brower, Esq.
ATTN: DEP Docket No. 05-16-05
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
Office of Legal Affairs
Mail Code 401-04L
[page=1350] 401 East State Street, 7th Floor
PO Box 402
Trenton, NJ 08625-0402
In May, Alison M. Jones, Executive Director of our international partner organization No Water No Life, gave a talk in Tewksbury Twp. on the upstream-downstream issues of the Raritan Basin. Alison writes: “The audience was surprised – and then concerned – about the issues faced in the Lower Raritan and that some of the problems flowed down from the Upper Raritan.” After hearing Alison speak, one member of the audience was inspired to write an article for The Bernardsville News comparing the upstream-downstream disconnect in the Raritan Basin to the problems that led to Flint, Michigan’s drinking water debacle.
As in Michigan, in New Jersey we also face a state government willing to accept the public health risks of ignoring – and even compromising – necessary drinking water protections. The Christie administration has put new regulations into effect that will loosen the state’s clean water rules, opening up close to 400,000 acres of sensitive lands to development. While maintaining the integrity of upstream lands is clearly important for communities at higher elevations, the new regulations will have especially dire public health impacts on the state’s historically impaired and poorer downstream areas including the Lower Raritan and Raritan Bay. By opening up upstream lands to development, our downstream areas face compromised drinking water supplies, intensification of flooding, and increased water contamination associated with stormwater flows.
Senator Bob Smith, sponsor of Bill SCR66 that would invalidate Christie’s revisions to the Flood Hazard Control Act rules, has successfully pushed his bill through the Assembly and Senate Committees. There is significant support in the Senate for the bill, including from former Governor Tom Kean, the final hurdle is for Senate President Stephen Sweeney to post the bill to a vote in the full Senate today.
It is not news to our Lower Raritan communities that water, and all attendant pollution, runs downhill. The daily work in our downstream areas must address the clean-up of not only legacy industrial contamination but also non-point-source pollutants that are carried from upstream. The LRWP has been part of a statewide campaign to support Smith’s bill and to encourage Sweeney to post this bill for a vote in Senate, but successfully addressing historic and ongoing threats to the health of our downstream areas will require new and ongoing forms of regional cooperation. Clean drinking water and the health of our communities is at stake.
NJ DEPARTMENT of ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
Notice of Rule Proposal
Flood Hazard Area Control Act Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:13
Coastal Zone Management Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7
Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7A
PUBLIC NOTICE
Take notice that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (Department) is proposing amendments and new rules in the Flood Hazard Area Control Act (FHACA) Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:13, Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7 and Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:7A. The proposed amendments and new rules fall into the following six categories: improvements to riparian zone protections; improving consistency of the FHACA Rules with the Uniform Construction Code (UCC) and National Flood Insurance Program; improving consistency between the FHACA Rules and CZM Rules; facilitation of environmentally beneficial activities; clarification that permits-by-rule, general permits-by-certification, and general permits may not be used for activities qualifying as “major development;” and changes regarding the fees associated with the review of stormwater calculations.
The proposal is scheduled to be published in the New Jersey Register dated June 20, 2016. A copy of the proposal is available athttp://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/20160620a.pdf and from LexisNexis free public access to the New Jersey Register,www.lexisnexis.com/njoal.
A public hearing concerning the proposal is scheduled. The public hearing, as indicated in a notice of rescheduling of public hearing to be published in the July 5, 2016 New Jersey Register, is scheduled as follows:
Friday, July 22, 2016 at 10:00 A.M.
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
Public Hearing Room
401 East State Street
Trenton, NJ 08625
The LRWP has submitted the following letter in response to NOAA’s Invitation to Public Comment on their “Restoration Plan/ Environmental Assessment Draft (RP/EA) for the American Cyanamid Co. Superfund Site, Bridgewater Township, Somerset County, New Jersey”:
May 23, 2016
Carl Alderson
NOAA Restoration Center – Sandy Hook Office
JJ Howard National Marine Fisheries Science Center
74 Magruder Rd, Highlands, NJ 07732
RE: American Cyanamid Draft RP/EA
Dear Mr. Alderson –
The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership has reviewed NOAA’s proposed Restoration Plan/ Environmental Assessment (RP/EA) for the American Cyanamid Co. Superfund Site, Bridgewater Township, Somerset County, New Jersey and fully supports the proposal for primary and compensatory restoration activities.
The LRWP is New Jersey’s newest watershed association, formed in 2014 to address legacy contamination and current pollution in the Raritan River and the Lower Raritan Watershed. Our mission is to conserve, enhance and restore the natural resources of the New Jersey Watershed Management Area 9, the Lower Raritan Watershed. We believe that not only will removal of the Weston Mill Dam on the Millstone River directly improve resources impacted by legacy contamination, it is our understanding that the proposed project will benefit a broad spectrum of the Raritan River’s ecology and will likewise enable other environmental and human use benefits. Significant ecological, environmental and human use benefits have in fact already been realized following recent removal of a series of dams (Robert Street, Nevius Street and Calco) on the lower portion of the Raritan River between the towns of Bridgewater and Bound Brook. Likewise, we expect that design of technical fish passage at the Island Farm Weir (located on the Raritan River) will advance multiple Lower Raritan Watershed stakeholder goals.
The LRWP is also aware that the removal of the Weston Mill Dam on the Millstone River, as well as future modifications at the Island Farm Weir to include a technical fish passage at the Island Farm Weir on the Raritan River, will expand access to several thousand acres of non-tidal freshwater mid to upper reaches of the Raritan River’s major tributaries. Removal of Weston Mill Dam and the construction of a technical fish passage at Island Farm Weir will significantly enhance maturation and rearing habitat for striped bass, American shad, American eel, blueback herring, and alewife, and should significantly increase the abundance of anadromous and catadromous species, which will improve the ecological health of the Raritan River.
The LRWP’s only concerns with NOAA’s proposal are short term sediment transport impacts following dam removal. However, we are confident that NOAA’s plan to reduce potential environmental consequences is sound and further expect that the proposed projects will provide long term restorative benefits to water chemistry, specifically decreased water temperatures in formerly impounded sections, and increased dissolved oxygen concentrations. These changes will benefit riverine biota from the most basic food chain level up to the top predators for many years to come.
Enhancing fish populations in the Raritan River system is important for fresh and marine ecosystems. It is especially appropriate as the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) lists the estuarine portion of the Raritan River as an important migratory pathway for anadromous alewife and blueback herring, species which NOAA lists as of special concern. The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership feels that the proposed projects could help to reverse declining population trends, and anadromous fish returning to spawn each spring in the Raritan River provide an attraction to the general public in the Raritan River Basin. The removal of the Weston Mill Dam on the Millstone River and feasibility analysis and design of technical fish passage at the Island Farm Weir are important to the LRWP and we fully support the proposed projects.
Sincerely,
Heather Fenyk, Ph.D., AICP/PP
President, Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership
www.lowerraritanwatershed.org
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Interior, and the State of New Jersey invite public comment on a proposed plan.
The Draft RP/EA is available at the following website:
http://darrp.noaa.gov/hazardous-waste/american-cyanamid
The public comment period on this plan ends June 10, 2016.
To request further information or an additional hard copy of this document or to submit your comments, please contact Carl Alderson at (732)371-0848, NOAA Restoration Center – Sandy Hook Office, JJ Howard National Marine Fisheries Science Center, 74 Magruder Rd, Highlands, NJ 07732 or by email at Carl.Alderson@noaa.gov. Please put “American Cyanamid Draft RP/EA” in the subject line.
Our friend and “Voices of the Watershed: Pinelands of Helmetta” contributor Joe Sapia writes:
“Wow, I just heard a whip-poor-will calling at my house in the Helmetta Road area. That is the first time in about 6 years I have heard this bird, once a harbinger of spring in the local Pine Barrens, since about 2010.
Antrostomus vociferus is considered a jeopardized species in NJ. This one, I heard from about 10:45 p.m. to 11 p.m. Its call was powerful, meaning it was close, but it was sporadic, not the ad nauseam call.
Listen to an example and multiply that all night.
Around here, I would say this bird is a Pine Barrens bird, so it could be heard in parts of Monroe (north of Jamesburg and hugging the Old Bridge and Manalapan boundaries), anywhere in Helmetta and Spotswood, and other local Pine Barrens areas.
If you hear one locally, let me know when and the general location. Thanks.
A few weeks ago, I saw a brown thrasher, “Toxostoma rufum,” the first one I saw locally in years. What is going on?”
Received today from Carl Alderson, NOAA Federal
To All Interested Government Agencies and Public Groups:
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, an environmental review has been performed on the following action.
TITLE: Restoration Plan/ Environmental Assessment Draft (RP/EA) for the American Cyanamid Co. Superfund Site, Bridgewater Township, Somerset County, New Jersey
LOCATION: The Millstone and Raritan Rivers, Somerset and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey.
SUMMARY: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the lead federal agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance for projects brought forth to restore injured habitat for fish and other trust resources resulting from long-term hazardous substance releases from the American Cyanamid Co. Superfund Site in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey. Projects identified in the RP/EA are compensatory for lost resources and fulfill an obligation to serve the public as required under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), also known as Superfund Law. Superfund is a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. The Draft RP/EA proposes removal of the Weston Mill Dam on the Millstone River as well as feasibility analysis and design of technical fish passage at the Island Farm Weir, located on the Raritan River.
As documented in the RP/EA, the selected projects are expected to have an overall beneficial impact on ecosystem function and species biodiversity. The project’s goals include benefits to various species, improvement of habitat function, and protection of existing habitat. Because the project is intended to restore natural resources, it is expected to cause a net increase to habitat productivity and improve ecosystem function.
INVITATION TO PUBLIC COMMENT: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the Department of Interior, and the State of New Jersey invite public comment on a proposed plan.
The Draft RP/EA is available at the following website: https://darrp.noaa.gov/hazardous-waste/american-cyanamid
The public comment period on this plan ends June 10, 2016.
One hard copy of the RP/EA will be available in each of the following public library locations:
Manville Public Library
Address: 100 S 10th Ave, Manville, NJ 08835
Phone: (908) 722-9722
Hours: Mon-Thurs 9:30AM–9PM
Friday-Sat 9:30AM–5PM
Franklin Township Public Library
Address: 485 Demott Ln, Franklin Township, NJ 08873
Phone: (732) 873-8700
Hours: Mon-Thurs 10AM–9PM
Fri-Sat 10AM–5PM
To request further information or an additional hard copy of this document or to submit your comments, please contact Carl Alderson at (732)371-0848, NOAA Restoration Center – Sandy Hook Office, JJ Howard National Marine Fisheries Science Center, 74 Magruder Rd, Highlands, NJ 07732 or by email at Carl.Alderson@noaa.gov. Please put “American Cyanamid Draft RP/EA” in the subject line.
