Resilience Meeting with South River Green Team
On Saturday February 1 the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and the Rutgers Bloustein School Environmental Planning Studio will join the South River Green Team and the larger South River community for a conversation about resiliency in the context of riverine/coastal flooding and floodplain buyouts prompted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. We will discuss research tasks the Environmental Planning Studio students will engage in during the course of the Spring 2020 semester, including work on a Sustainable Jersey “Water Story” action. Our discussion will be followed by a tour of the flood affected areas.
South River residents, and residents of the larger Lower Raritan Watershed, are welcome to join.
We will meet at the First Reformed Church, 40 Thomas St., Lower Level at 1 pm.
Parking is available in the lot that can be entered through the drive between 42 and 44 Thomas Street.
Agenda:
1 p.m. — Planning studio meets the Green Team
1:30 p.m. — Sustainable Jersey staff and partners join
2:30 p.m. — Tour of flood areas
Special attention will be given to South River’s Census Tract 69, home to a low socio-economic status immigrant community with a life expectancy well lower than the national average. Residents in Census Tract 69 have a four-year lower life expectancy than in neighboring tracts in South River, and the lowest in Middlesex County.
Throughout the course of the semester students will work to understand how coastal/riverine flooding, buyouts, open space, and water infrastructure (water supply, wastewater, stormwater) affects health outcomes. This will include analysis of development and neighborhood change patterns, living conditions, demographic shifts and what the long-term implications of this change may be for the region and other flood-inundated riverine and coastal areas.
Please contact the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership for more information: #908.349.0281
