By Endurance Laryea, LRWP Summer Research Intern

On a clear and sunny morning, the team set out today for the fourth monitoring session of the month. Most of the sites were serene with little activity. A beautiful reminder that rest is part of nature.  

The team, today! Mike, Ashley, Paula, Endurance and Heather (taking the photo)- Photo by Heather Fenyk. 

With beautiful smiles, Paula and Ashley pause quickly for a moment from calibrating the sonde to pose for a quick photo. Photo by Endurance Laryea.

Mike and Heather had an intriguing conversation about landscape development—discussing ways in which the environment around the river sites we visit can be improved to help water safety.  

Launching the day’s sampling at our first site, Riverside Park, is Ashley taking the sample.  Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Paula records the values of pH, salinity, chlorophyll RFU, oxygen saturation, temperature amongst others from the sonde. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Heather on trash pickup duty at Riverside Park. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

We visited Lock 11 for the second time. It is amongst the four new sites we are investigating this summer, and it passed the EPA safety level for enterococcus CFU on our last visit, and it passed again this time with a value of 80 CFU, below the safety level of 105 CFU.

Heather, Ashley, and Paula take measurements from the canal at Lock 11 while Mike completes the visual assessment form. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Photo by Paula Rubio.

Of all the sites, New Brunswick was our busiest site today. 

At Rutgers Boat House, two fawns and a doe were spotted on the other side. We thought they were the cutest things we saw today! Photo taken by Ashley Fritz. 

That’s Asley’s favorite bird, the Great Blue Heron! Photo by Ashley Fritz.  

Today is not the first time seeing this Rutgers rower and her coach. But today, the team had the opportunity to explain what the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and its team does.  

Photo by Ashley Fritz. 

Grass being cut from the vegetation near the boat house floating near the dock. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Heather was so excited about Paula’s nails matching LRWP’s colors that she had to take a picture! Photo by Heather Fenyk.  

Not much was happening at Edison Boat Launch today, but we did speak to this nice fisherman with his line and hook and bait. He had not caught any fish at the time of our conversation and reasoned that it may be due to low tides. He was the only one at the boat launch by the time we were done and leaving. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Ashley and Paula recording values at Sayreville. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

Taken aback by the presence of the seagull on the pole, after he has stood by the pole for a while without noticing it, Mike expresses his surprise to the seagull as though it can understand him. A funny encounter that I had to capture. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

A family spotted picnicking at Waterfront Park, South Amboy. Photo by Heather Fenyk. 

Paula on sampling duty at South Amboy. Photo by Endurance. 

Mike on trash pickup duty. Photo by Endurance Laryea. 

A dead blue crab on the shore at Waterfront Park, South Amboy. 

Our monitoring session was wrapped up at 2^nd Street Park, Perth Amboy. The last sample bottle of the day was added to the cooler. We proceeded with the post-sampling calibration of the sonde as we waited for Alexa, a representative from the Interstate Environmental Commission (IEC), to pick up our samples and send them to the lab for testing. 

Samples from all seven sites visited today and a blank sample. The blank sample is a sample of pure water which is placed together with the samples in the cooler and used as a reference for comparison during testing—it serves as a control. Photo by Heather Fenyk. 

Paula, Ashley, and Endurance handling post-sampling calibration and visual habit evaluation. Photo by Heather Fenyk. 

We ended the session today with a lesson on resilience from this tree. The tree grows through the chain link fence of a parking lot in the elementary school at Perth Amboy. Regardless of its compromising habitat, the tree is keeps thriving and bearing fruits! 

Photo by Mike. 

Photo by Heather Fenyk.