Tag: Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership

June 1 – Visual Habitat Assessment with Jon Dugan!

Calling all Streamkeepers and Citizen Scientists!

Please join us for our June 1 visual habitat assessment training with the LRWP’s Volunteer Monitoring Manager Jon Dugan! (Here’s more on the LRWP’s water quality monitoring programs).

This FREE training on Saturday June 1 will run from 9 AM – 1 PM at the Middlesex High School, located at 300 John F Kennedy Dr, Middlesex, NJ 08846

We will start the morning with a lecture indoors, and then get out in the field to test our knowledge of streams and stream habitat.

Please wear clothing and footwear that you don’t mind getting wet and dirty.

Registration required.

An MLK Day invitation to grow through service

Martin Luther King Day was established as a National Holiday in 1983. Eleven years later in 1994, Congress added a service component to the holiday. Monday January 21 marks the 25th anniversary of our federally designated National Day of Service, also called the “King Day of Service” or “A Day On, Not a Day Off.”

Through his leadership of the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King provided tremendous service to our nation. Despite this, media coverage of the service aspect of Martin Luther King Day celebrations is sparse. Especially rare are stories that highlight impacts of volunteering that go beyond economic valuation and personal benefits.

How can we build on Dr. King’s legacy and celebrate volunteering in ways that strengthen our neighborhoods and nation? We can conceive of service as an expression of citizenship, service as an expression of generosity, and service as the opportunity to experience a felt sense of community.

Citizenship. The pressures of our day-to-day political and economic engagement tend to reduce us to “voters” or “consumers.” Through this process we lose sense of ourselves as citizens, and lose connection to our communities. Volunteering allows us to connect deeply with one another as citizens in the craft of working together for the common good.

Generosity. Non-profits, schools and nursing homes do not need “free labor” or “spare time” as much as they need the generosity of spirit that prompts us to engage as volunteers. In sharing our generosity, we are held to a higher standard: the intention to enhance the true well-being of those to whom our generosity is given.

Community. Volunteering is about a felt sense of community. It is about making connections and building resilience. Connections, resilience – these are especially critical assets in these more trying times.

As we recognize 25 years of celebrating service as a national value, let’s reflect on and commit to grow through the broad benefits of volunteerism. Evolving through service in this way can help strengthen our diverse communities and further protect civil rights and civil liberties.

Heather Fenyk, Ph.D. serves as Board President of the 100% volunteer-run Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership based in New Brunswick, NJ.

LRWP’s Top 10 Environmental Issues, 2019 edition

The Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership is often asked to talk about the most pressing environmental issues facing our Central Jersey watershed communities. Here is our “Top 10” list of cross-cutting concerns for 2019. Starting in February we will feature one concern a month on our website, exploring that issue (and potential solutions) in more detail. We invite you to join in the conversation.

  1. Poorly coordinated stormwater management, conducted at municipal (not watershed) scales, means that one community’s flood control efforts can lead to another community’s flooding problems.
  2. Centuries of burying and culverting streams has “disappeared” many waterways, compromising the ability of our landscape to adequately capture and store rain and stormwater runoff.
  3. Perceptions of safety (poor lighting, litter) around riverfront spaces, and poor signage and access to these spaces, deters use and enjoyment of our waterways. If we don’t know our rivers and streams we won’t grow to love them and act to protect them.
  4. Failure of aging water infrastructure (culverts, pipes, inlets and outfalls), an urgent safety issue for all our communities, is exacerbated by an increase in precipitation due to climate change.
  5. Poor control of non-point pollution sources (fertilizers and pesticides from lawns, sediments from development and erosion, oil and grease and road salt from roadways, animal and human waste, dumping of detergents and paints and other chemicals into stormdrains, and litter) results in high chemical levels, bacteria loads and algal blooms in our rivers and streams.
  6. Loss of biodiversity in our watershed, and a reduction in absolute numbers of insects and flora and fauna, reduces the ability of our ecosystem to cope with threats from pollution, climate change and other human activities.
  7. State and regional authorities do not have a clear plan to improve knowledge of the health of the Raritan and its tributaries, and do not model pollutant loads for our watershed.
  8. Recent federal rollbacks of requirements for oil and gas reporting may result in increased methane emissions and open the door to more pipelines that fragment and threaten habitat.
  9. Federal policies that extend the offshore fishing season and increase allowances in catch rates for commercial fishing reduce numbers of anadromous migratory fish in the Raritan, affecting the food chain.
  10. Limited regional cooperation, a “home rule” focus, and lack of collaborative action and capacity building results in a slow pace of restoration and improvements in our watershed, particularly in low income communities and communities of color.
  11. Check with your local Environmental Commission or Green Team for information about specific source impacts and development pressures in your community.

Build a Rain Barrel with Watershed Ambassador Jennifer Helminski!

Rain barrels collect and store rainwater from roofs, improving stream health by reducing the amount of water and pollutants that reach local waterways. The water captured by rain barrels has many beneficial uses. Residents can use water from the rain barrels to water lawns and gardens, save money on water bills and reduce stress on wells.

Rain barrels are a great way for homeowners to help protect their water supply by controlling residential storm water runoff.

At this session participants will learn how using a rain barrel can contribute to improving our water resources and will be instructed on how to build, install and maintain their own rain barrel to take home. Materials will be provided.

This workshop will be held in the Jankowski Community Center: 1 Olive Street, Perth Amboy, NJ 08861 from 6-8:30pm.

Our presenter is AmeriCorps Watershed Ambassador Jennifer Helminski, serving New Jersey’s Watershed Management Area 7 (hosted by the Union County Department of Parks and Recreation).

Registration is limited.

For more information please contact Watershed Ambassador Jennifer Helminski: watershed7@ucnj.org

Dec 18 – Annual Holiday Potluck with LRWP & Friends!

The LRWP, New Brunswick Environmental Commission and EARTH Center of Middlesex County invite you to join us for our annual holiday potluck!

We will enjoy a meal and casual conversation on the topic of “40 Years of Concern for Water Resource Management in the Lower Raritan.” Joining us will be Rutgers Professor Dan Van Abs, New Jersey Water Supply Authority’s Kathy Hale and former Middlesex County Planning Director Bill Kruse – all of whom were instrumental in shaping the Raritan Basin Watershed Management Plan almost 20 years ago. We’ll discuss current status of the watershed, and our plans for 2019.

6-8 PM at the EARTH Center of Middlesex County, 42 Riva Avenue / North Brunswick, NJ

Families welcome! Plates, forks, napkins, cups and beverages will be provided. Please bring a dish to share.

So that we can plan accordingly, RSVPs requested.

For more information or to RSVP please contact Heather: hfenyk@lowerraritanwatershed.org

Raritan River Festival 2019!

Stop by the LRWP table at the annual Raritan River Festival and Rubber Duck Race on Sunday, September 30! This is a free and family-friendly annual event celebrating our Raritan River.

Tons of fun activities are planned, including live music, environmental exhibitors, food vendors, activities for children, pony rides and a petting zoo, cardboard canoe races and the annual Rubber Duck Race.

The LRWP will be conducting water quality monitoring demos with the New Brunswick Environmental Commission and Rutgers Cooperative Extension, and hosting a special “hands-on” sculpture making workshop with our coLAB Arts partners. Don’t miss this annual summer festival in the City of New Brunswick!

World Water Monitoring Day at Boyd Park – CANCELLED!

It looks like Hurricane Florence may extend her tentacles up the New Jersey coast during World Water Monitoring Day. This would put a damper on a waterfront water quality monitoring demo.

Unfortunately we are CANCELLING our September 18 event.

Plan to join us next year to celebrate World Water Monitoring Day, or stop by the Raritan River Festival on September 30th for monitoring demonstrations of dissolved oxygen, temperature, phosphorus, turbidity, nutrients and nitrogen.

World Water Monitoring Day, established in 2003, is a global initiative designed inspire people around the world to test their local water quality and encourage action to protect water.

September 17, LRWP monthly meeting

At our September 17 meeting we will welcome Rutgers Cooperative Extension Agent Tobiah Horton to discuss a plan for rooftop and impervious surface drainages recreating an historic New Brunswick stream. The “Recreated Lyell’s Brook Green Infrastructure Corridor and Walkway” concept plan is an outgrowth of the Rail-Arts-River initiative developed by the LRWP, coLAB Arts and Rutgers Cooperative Extension.

Also on the agenda is catch up on partner activities, status updates for on-going projects, and setting planning priorities for 2019.

The meeting will be held from 10-noon in the Middlesex County Planning Offices at 75 Bayard Street, New Brunswick, NJ – 5th floor mid-size conference room.

Parking is validated for those parking on floors 5 and higher in the RWJ Wellness Parking Deck located at 95 Paterson Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Be sure to bring your ticket to the meeting for validation.

NJDEP Municipal Stormwater Infrastructure Mapping Tool

On Monday June 18, the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and Middlesex County hosted a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection training session for communities interested in learning how to use NJDEP’s new stormwater infrastructure mapping tool. This ArcGIS field app tool utilizes handheld devices to assist municipalities with meeting requirements of their municipal stormwater permits. It is available free-of-charge to municipalities and partners authorized by the municipality. Almost 50 participants learned how to automatically upload stormwater infrastructure data to NJDEP servers, overlay data with DEP maps to assess the location of waterbodies in relation to stormwater infrastructure, and more.

The workshop began with an overview of the recently renewed municipal stormwater permit requirements provided by NJDEP’s Matt Klewin. A pdf of Mr. Klewin’s presentation can be found here:

NJDEP – Municipal Stormwater Permit Requirements update June 2018.

Tim Ebersberger then presented a brief overview of how to visually assess the quality of existing stormwater infrastructure, assisted participants with tool download, and demonstrated tool function (how to log in and activate the collector application) before attendees ventured out for hands-on usage of the mobile mapping application.

Mr. Ebersberger’s presentation can be found here:

NJDEP_Stormwater_Mapping_Training_6.18.2018

NJDEP will ensure that municipalities interested in this project that do not hold a current ArcGIS license will be provided with a license free-of-charge. Please contact Tim Ebersberger for more information:

Tim Ebersberger, NJDEP Bureau of Nonpoint Pollution Control

609-633-7021

timothy.ebersberger@dep.nj.gov

What’s the Point?

Article and photos by Joe Mish

My South Branch office is made of kevlar and weighs 52#, well lit with natural light and leaves no trace. A perfect vehicle for discovering New Jersey’s natural treasure hidden in plain view.

Every once in a while, it is useful to check your back trail to validate your current course. For the last few years I have been attending the Rutgers sponsored, ‘Annual Sustainable Raritan River Conference’ and was introduced to the people and effort dedicated to improve the water and land that make up the Raritan River basin.

It was strange at first to hear someone else talk about my river. There was a moment of concern, a tinge of jealousy, that my ownership of the river was being usurped by strangers, some not even native to New Jersey. I soon realized I was among kindred spirits. It was like meeting long lost relatives….. whose company you sincerely enjoyed. Each member contributed a critical piece of the puzzle, whether a citizen, volunteer or a degreed scientist, each perspective complimented the other, and occasionally there was the discovery of a piece no one knew was missing. The symposium took the threads of individual effort and wove them into a whole cloth.

I was pleasantly surprised, the focus of the conference dovetailed perfectly into my goals and objectives. It also prompted me to revisit what I hope to accomplish with my images and words, given the current status of New Jersey’s relationship with its natural treasures.

Today New Jersey enjoys a natural inheritance that is the sum of the legacy left by generations of agrarian, industrial and residential development. Sacrificed in the name of progress, our natural and wild treasures are reputed to have been diminished to a vanishing point in the wake of the great human juggernaut. However, despite New Jersey’s recurring reputation as the most densely populated state in the union, wildlife is found to proliferate along its river corridors, highways, woods and fields. Much of this wildlife existed before the establishment of farms, whose disappearance falsely signals the surrender to unabated construction and development. The farms and cows are actually late-arriving interlopers, highly visible and used as a convenient but inaccurate measure of our intrinsic wild and natural resources. It is the presence or absence of cows that form the basis for politically subjective land use decisions.

Even the most ardent nature-oriented residents are often oblivious to the richness and distribution of this state’s natural treasures. Regional areas, reputed as nature destinations, add to obscure our natural treasures as their existence implies an absence of nature except where designated. Combine this with the perspective of the nature-neutral and nature-oblivious residents and it is understandable how the nature sterilized image of New Jersey arises from within and grows with distance to earn a national and global reputation as “the ghost of nature past”.

Against this background my photographic intentions range from historic documentation of ephemeral wild moments to portraiture revealing the energy and dignity of the creatures that covertly exist among us. What the camera misses the words capture, what the camera sees the words enhance.

The articles are a blend of literary flourish embedded with scientific information as much for entertainment as to arouse curiosity. I wish to create a gravitational pull of curiosity that draws the reader to seek deeper knowledge. Hopefully some youngster will be intrigued enough to pursue more detailed information and perhaps launch a career in science.

One reason New Jersey’s natural treasures remain hidden in plain view is because of prejudice and limited expectation. The best way to remedy this, is to change the lens through which our natural world is viewed. I do this by presenting stories and information from unique perspectives, along with images of wildlife most have never seen and many more don’t believe exist so close to home.

When I consider my place in the effort to restore the rivers, I see me operating on the interface between art and science. I walk that line to help transition attitudes and open eyes to a new reality fostered by creativity and imagination.

Rutgers fish camera at Island Weir Dam on the Raritan River is now online.

http://raritanfishcam.weebly.com

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.

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