Bald eagle nest spotted near Lake Carnegie Princeton Packet, February 10, 2004
Development cited in water quality dip, The Trenton Times, April 10, 2003
'3 BR, Forest Vu' May Have Added Feature: Lyme Disease Risk New York Times, April 8, 2003
Best route on car emissions, The Star Ledger, March 8, 2003
To the Editor: More About Those Eagles, US 1, March 5, 2003
Calif. auto standards bill gets a green light in N.J., The Star Ledger, March 4, 2003
US 1 Editorial and Letters about Environment and Eagles, January 22 and February 19, 2003
Development debate focuses on water use, traffic, The Trenton Times, February 10, 2003
Panel seeks action on air pollution, Princeton Packet, February 4, 2003
DEP'S ANNUAL BALD EAGLE COUNT KICKS OFF YEARLONG CELEBRATION OF ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT, January 29, 2003
Will reported sightings of bald eagles alter road plans? Princeton Packet, January 17, 2003
Gem in our midst The Trenton Times, January 15, 2003
New Administration Proposal Would Jeopardize Clean Water Act Protections for Streams, Lakes and Wetlands, National Resources Defense Council Press Release
The Forgotten Forest Product: Water, New York Times, Op-Ed January 3, 2003
Has eagle found a perch in Princeton? Princeton Packet, January 3, 2003
Stormwater runoff rules proposed The Trenton Times, December10, 2002
Jersey charts new course to protect water supply, The Star Ledger, December 10, 2002
Letter from Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association to NJDOT Bureau of Environmental Services, October 10, 2002
Hamlets' dilemma: To span or fight The Star Ledger, December 9, 2002
New Jersey Conservation Foundation Options to Purchase
10,000-acre Pine Barrens PropertyState reviews water management plan The Trenton Times, November 25, 2002
Farm to be preserved along scenic byway, The Trenton Times, October 29, 2002
`Green' award for town, The Trenton Times, October 22, 2002
Keep the promise of the Clean Water Act, The Star Ledger, October 21, 2002
Fall Comes To Trenton Marsh , by Carolyn Foote Edelmann, US 1, October 16, 2002
DEP's computer map shows pollution endangering water wells, The Star Ledger, September 26, 2002
D&R panel approves Toll recreation area, Princeton Packet, September 20, 2002
Bush Orders Faster Environmental Reviews, New York Times, September 19, 2002
Ivy vs. trees, The Trenton Times, August 31, 2002
Land-use law to get a review, The Philadeplphia Inquirer, August 30, 2002
State aims to corner watershed market, The Star Ledger, August 30, 2002
Smog tightens chokehold on Jersey, The Star Ledger, August 30, 2002
West Windsor seeks hearing on Toll's environmental permit, Princeton Packet, August 23, 2002
Waterway program in doubt, The Trenton Times, August 3, 2002
Regional approach to water pitched, The Trenton Times, July 2, 2002
Greenway chief honored, The Trenton Times, June 27, 2002
Offshore Oil Pollution Comes Mostly as Runoff Study Says, New York Times, May 24, 2002
Cherishing a nearby faraway place, The Trenton Times, May 22, 2002
Christie Whitman Holds Her Ground, New York Times, May 7, 2002
Cleaner fuel means cleaner air, Princeton Packet, Letter to Editor April 19, 2002
The water way, The Trenton Times, April 30, 2002
N.J. will buy cleaner fuel for buses, The Trenton Times, April 26, 2002
Governor McGreevey Protects Drinking Water on Earth Day, Sierra Club, April 22, 2002
State's plan will protect waterways, The Trenton Times, April 23, 2002
Marshes, Wherever They Are, Stay Dry, New York Times, April 21, 2002
Offer of help OK'd with reservations, Princeton Packet, April 19, 2002
Wetland losses mount, The Trenton Times, April 12, 2002
N.J. objects to Bush anti-smog plan, The Trenton Times, April 8, 2002
Clean-Air Standards Upheld, www.transact.org, April 2, 2002
Clean-water groups struggle to set plan, Asbury Park Press April 1, 2002
Gray Is Pushing Out Green When It Comes to Infrastructure, The Washington Post, March 23, 2002
PIRG seeks better freshwater protections, The Trenton Times, March 21, 2002
Invaders Reshape the American Landscape, New York Times, February 5, 2002
Articles about the Environment from 2001
Development cited in water quality dip
Thursday, April 10, 2003
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - A new study ties a surge in development over the past two decades to declining water quality in streams and rivers in several regions of the state, including the Millstone and Neshanic rivers in the Raritan River watershed in central New Jersey.
The study, by the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, found that water quality had declined in 35 percent of watersheds since the early 1990s, many of them in areas that were rural until recently.
Based on state data from the 1990s, the report looked primarily at changes in the populations of insects and other small organisms in these waters. Fewer species were found in the more impaired streams, which were increasingly inhabited largely by pollution-tolerant animals and aquatic weeds.
Using these measures, state data showed that water quality declined by more than 10 percent in the 1990s in the Millstone River and Lawrence Brook, while the health of aquatic life in the Neshanic River declined by 6 percent.
The Millstone and the Lawrence Brook flow through one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. Between 1986 and 1995, some municipalities in the region, including West Windsor Township, developed more than 10 percent of their land area.
"Intuitively, we know that if you build right on the river bank, it will have an impact. But this data is quite stark," said NJPIRG's Douglas O'Malley.
The group is calling on Gov. James E. McGreevey to swiftly enact several water protection measures the governor has already proposed. Primary among them are a plan to strengthen water quality protections for 15 waterways and reservoirs and to tighten stormwater regulations. Together, these reforms would make it difficult for developers to construct houses within 300 feet of a stream bank.
McGreevey announced the plan to protect the waterways a year ago, and said recently that he will finalize it within the next several weeks.
"Now we're playing a game of beat the clock with developments in Hunterdon County," O'Malley said. The proposed Milligan Farms development in Union Township along Sidney Brook, and the proposed Windy Acres subdivision in Clinton Township on the south branch of the Rockaway Creek would be hard-pressed to meet the new environmental standards if the streams receive those protections, O'Malley said.
"It would create an incredibly high hurdle for treated sewage to meet," he noted, adding that both developments had received draft permits within the past several months.
Sen. Leonard Lance, R-Clinton, a vocal conservationist in the Legislature, joined NJPIRG yesterday in urging McGreevey to enact the reforms.
"While his talk is strong, he also has to walk the walk. We need to make sure the protection of these 15 waterways happens," said Lance, who spoke at NJPIRG's press conference yesterday of stream degradation at the hands of "rapacious developers."
These pollution trends documented by NJPIRG are not new. Studies conducted by the state in the late 1990s found that 35 percent of the state's lakes, rivers and streams were "fully fishable," while an even smaller number were swimmable. In 1998, a survey found too much of at least one pollutant in 56 of the 58 water bodies tested. Much of the pollution found then, as now, is phosphorous and nitrates from lawn runoff and residential sewage.
By contrast, the departure of manufacturing and significant improvements in sewage treatment over the past several decades have made former industrial waterways such as the Delaware River significantly cleaner.
Contact Tracey L. Regan at (609) 777-4465 or tregan@njtimes.com
Copyright 2003 The Times.
'3 BR, Forest Vu' May Have Added Feature: Lyme Disease Risk
By LES LINE, April 8, 2003Building a dream house in the woodlands of the Northeast can be a blueprint for getting Lyme disease, according to a recent study in Dutchess County, N.Y.
The trouble, scientists report, is that suburban and rural home development causes fragmentation of forests, fostering a population explosion among white-footed mice, the main carrier of the disease-causing bacteria.
The mice themselves are harmless, but blacklegged ticks feed on the rodents and can transmit the bacteria to humans. And the researchers found that in smaller forest patches, as many as 80 percent of the ticks were infected.
"Clearly, local planning boards need to consider human health as well as growth and the environment when approving housing projects," said Dr. Felicia Keesing, professor of biology at Bard College in Annandale, N.Y.
Dr. Keesing and her colleagues Brian Allen, a graduate student at Rutgers, and Dr. Richard Ostfeld, animal ecologist and tick expert at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., studied blacklegged ticks on 14 privately owned patches of maple forest ranging from 2 to 18 acres. Dutchess County, they note, has the highest number of people infected with Lyme disease in the country. The results were published in the February issue of the journal Conservation Biology.
"This research is important because it gives us a new way of looking at the transmission of diseases, and shows us that human health is affected by the local ecology and by land-use practices," said Dr. Michael Bower, program director of the National Science Foundation's division of environmental biology, which financed the study.
Fragmentation has been cited as a significant factor in declines of some forest-nesting birds, but another consequence is the loss of mammal diversity. Dr. Ostfeld described the white-footed mouse as "the jack-of-all-trades mouse, at home in forest, field or your basement."
"And without predators such as foxes and weasels or competitors like chipmunks and squirrels, their numbers multiply, especially in forest patches smaller than five acres," he added.
Blacklegged ticks, also called deer ticks, are uninfected when they hatch but promptly seek a blood meal. "In small forest patches, that meal will most likely come from white-footed mice," Dr. Keesing said.
The scientists found that study sites smaller than three acres averaged three times as many ticks as did larger forest patches and seven times as many infected ticks. At one woodland home, the tick density was 600 per acre and 75 percent of those insects were infected with Lyme disease. In an 18-acre patch, in contrast, the tick density was 100 per acre and only 40 percent were infected.
"People want a patch of woods in the backyard of their house," said Dr. Keesing, "so developers will take a tract of forest and carve it up into little pieces and then put in lawns. That's the worst possible landscape for Lyme disease."
A better approach, she said, would be to cluster houses in a large area of undeveloped forest.
Dr. Ostfeld said clearing small patches of forest near existing homes would be too drastic.
"People living in high-risk areas can protect themselves by wearing proper clothing and using repellents when they are outdoors and carefully checking themselves for ticks," he said. "And we're working on environmentally friendly methods of reducing tick populations."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/science/life/08LIME.html
Best route on car emissions
Saturday, March 08, 2003New Jersey has some of the dirtiest air in the nation, and much of it comes out of the exhaust pipes of our 5 million-plus cars and trucks. The smog they spew clouds our skies and threatens our health, particularly of the 600,0000 Jerseyans who have asthma or other respiratory problems.
Automakers and environmentalists have been battling in Trenton over legislation that would bring California's toughest-in-the-nation car pollution standards to New Jersey. If it passes, we would join New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont as the only states in the East having stricter car pollution laws than the federal government requires.
Auto manufacturers, particularly the big American ones that have staked their profits on smog-belching SUVs, see the California program as ruinously expensive, with little anti- pollution bang for the buck. The greens say getting even small amounts of garbage out of the air produces health benefits.
Everyone agrees we need cleaner air. But this issue isn't as clear as either side would like.
Give Detroit the nod on the numbers debate. The California program would reduce nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds, the nasty chemicals that form lung-burning ozone smog, by just five to 13 tons a day more than federal rules taking effect over the next few years. That's not much, especially since even that paltry difference comes only after 20 years and still represents a tiny fraction of these chemicals floating around the state's air each day.
But history shows the environmentalists are right about the need to push carmakers to cut pollution.
California, wrestling with terrible smog in Los Angeles, began passing tough auto emissions laws almost 40 years ago, years before the federal government followed suit.
Automakers could not afford to ignore the state's huge population and vehicle fleet -- now 34 million people and 25 million vehicles -- and manufacturers found ways to build cleaner cars and trucks that still appealed to drivers. California's regulatory stick helped lead to today's cars being more than 90 percent cleaner than the vehicles of the 1960s.
It has not always been a smooth ride, and that is what is creating the conflict in Trenton. Since 1990, the California program has pushed for "zero emission vehicles," cars with no exhaust emissions. That means electric cars, and the move has been a flop because they proved expensive to make and sell. Few people wanted them because they cannot go far before needing a long recharge.
Manufacturers sank billions into electric cars, and most have now abandoned the projects. They legitimately worry that New Jersey signing on to the California scheme will lead to more lost money and wasted effort.
Safeguards can protect against those problems. The first comes from California itself. The state is reviewing its program and has proposed reducing the zero-emission-vehicle requirement in favor of requiring more gas-electric hybrids and fuel cell-powered cars and light trucks. The hybrids already are on the road and are getting better. The fuel-cell vehicles are supported by automakers and expected to be on the market in 12 years or so.
New Jersey lawmakers can add another safeguard. They can adopt a bill that clearly says the Legislature understands that technology changes over time and that the state and the Department of Environmental Protection are willing to modify the law as necessary. The law also should require regular DEP reviews to measure progress on fuel cells and the other advanced engineering required by the tougher standards.
New Jersey would be foolish to adopt California's strict auto emissions standards if a small pollution reduction is the only benefit. But they also help drive important technology innovations and, with some flexibility, they can help produce cleaner air in our state and around the country.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
To the Editor: More About Those Eagles
March 5, 2003 US 1
I read with great interest Richard K. Rein's reply to Lincoln Hollister about the bald eagles in the vicinity of Carnegie Lake in Princeton (U.S. 1, February 19). I view the sightings of the bald eagle as a good omen that somehow, some way, a solution will be found that doesn't wreck the environment to build a highway called the Millstone Bypass, or what is more recently referred to as "Penns Neck Area Improvements."
I happen to think the balance is dangerously tilted in central New Jersey and the wildlife and birdlife don't have enough places to call home or seek a safe haven from the human population! It's time to guide growth away from environmentally sensitive areas, such as the Millstone River, Delaware and Raritan Canal, Carnegie Lake, and Washington Road's historic Elm trees. Some people don't question why and where a road is built. They say, "Why fight progress?" Well, that all depends on what on what we consider to be progress!
Building a highway that will cause more problems than it solves is never a solution! Building a highway next to a river or canal where millions of residents and businesses draw their water is not progress; it merely transfers the costs to water treatment when we have to pump the water to make it drinkable. Being afraid to drink the water coming from your tap and buying bottled water instead is not progress. Water quality is severely threatened because we are creating more miles of asphalt, parking lots and big box stores. Air quality will continue to diminish if people have to sit in their cars for longer periods of time or drive farther to services that are outside city centers and away from mass transit routes.
Our view of progress may differ somewhat, however we seem to agree that business leaders and environmentalists can sit down and find ways to co-exist.
Mr. Rein, please take up Mr. Hollister's invitation for a ride in a canoe and explore the D&R Canal and Millstone River when spring finally comes! You will find that every possibility must be explored in order to avoid destroying our waterways and natural places to construct a highway. Asphalt is man's final crop.
Keep the dialogue open. I am a person who is hopefully optimistic that the group of citizens, mayors, environmental organizations, corporate representatives and state agencies meeting across the table from one another in the process called the "Penns Neck Area EIS Roundtable" can take a very complex problem before them, weigh all the alternatives, and hammer out a new definition of "progress."
Mary M. Penney
Skillman
-----------------------
ALLOW ME TO REPORT: A friend who lives in Kingston reported seeing an (American Bald) eagle flying past her windows while she was working with a client last week (it would have been inappropriate for her to jump up and follow the bird with eyes or binoculars). This woman is a birder, a participant in the Kingston Christmas Bird Count. She was particularly aware of the bird's large bright/dark yellow beak -- not the size or color of the osprey, for example.
Another friend, new to the region, this past Saturday saw an (American Bald) eagle sitting on the ice on "What is that lake?" She meant the widened part of the Millstone River at US Route 1 and Plainsboro Road. Her companion saw it first and she didn't believe him. But there was no mistaking that head and that size. They tried to pull off, but everywhere was posted "No Trespassing."
She was very clear regarding size and coloring, the very white head, the very dark body feathers. I checked, as blandly as I could, about a "mask" -- in case it was an osprey. No mask. She knows I've just come back from seeing hundreds of bald eagles fishing on ice, then eating them in trees along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, near Grafton, Illinois. This is why she told me -- not because she realizes that eagle habitat has anything to do my concerns over bypass roads.
As Scott Isringhausen, site interpreter at Pere Marquette State Park, told us in February in Illinois, "In order to save the eagle, it is essential to save his habitat."
Carolyn Foote Edelmann
Edelmann wrote last week's cover story on the Plainsboro Preserve.
http://www.princetoninfo.com/200303/30305c02.html
Calif. auto standards bill gets a green light in N.J.
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - After idling for years, a bill that would require more New Jersey cars to abide by higher California emission standards made an incremental lurch forward yesterday.
The bill was released from an Assembly committee and appears headed for a first vote in the Senate as well, where it has been stalled for months in the Environment Committee.
The bill, which would require automakers to sell many more low-emission and technologically advanced vehicles here than in much of the rest of the country, was approved yesterday over the vehement objections of officials with the Ford and General Motors companies.
Environmental officials with the McGreevey administration, who have said little about the controversial proposal, testified yesterday that the California car standards would bring the state large reductions in ozone-forming pollutants over the next two decades.
By 2025, cars here would emit between 2.7 and 10.8 fewer tons per day of volatile organic compounds, for example, than they would under the federal emissions program to go into effect later this year, asserted Samuel Wolfe, an assistant commissioner for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Wolfe said it was difficult to estimate reductions precisely but said the DEP had used models developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to make its projections.
Auto industry officials disagree. They say there is little difference between the federal and California standards, which have been adopted by a handful of Northeastern states, including New York and Massachusetts. They insist research and development to produce more environmentally friendly cars would be hobbled by the mandate, which calls for zero-emission cars that are difficult to make and unappetizing to car buyers.
"We spent a billion dollars on the electric vehicle, and California agrees it has no future," said Nancy Homeister, an environmental engineer with the Ford Motor Co.
California is reconsidering that portion of the standard, and New Jersey would have to accept whatever changes it makes, sponsors of the bill said.
In the late 1990s, then-Gov. Christie Whitman chose to adopt the emissions standards negotiated by the federal government with the three big automakers.
A bill embracing the California model has been stalled in the Senate Environment Committee, where co-Chairman Joseph Suliga, D-Linden, has expressed ambivalence. Suliga has a General Motors plant in his district.
Supporters of the bill cite a recent letter to Suliga signed by 26 senators, including the Republican president of the Senate, John Bennett, R-Little Silver, as instrumental in winning its release. The bill will be transferred to the Transportation Committee, they said.
"In some ways we were surprised there was a hearing. We were still negotiating with leadership," said Andrew Hudson, an advocate with the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, who said he understood lawmakers' reluctance to ruffle the auto industry.
There are two manufacturing plants left in the state - a Ford plant in Edison and a General Motors plant in Linden.
"But the sad, honest truth is that those auto plants are struggling and the carmakers will make their decisions about them irrespective of this decision," Hudson noted.
Contact Tracey L. Regan at (609) 777-4465 or tregan@njtimes.com
Copyright 2003 The Times.
January 22, 2003
Have you heard about the Eagles?
That was the earnest question posed to me by Princeton University geology professor Lincoln Hollister, in a tone that suggested whatever I had heard might not be the complete truth. This was several weeks ago and the outline of an answer flashed through my mind like this:
I had indeed heard that the Eagles had just lost to the Giants in overtime and that, while they were headed to the playoffs nevertheless, their ultimate success there would depend on reconstituting their offense with Donovan McNabb returning from a broken ankle. Back many years ago, when I believed that it was not whether you won or lost a game, but by how much you won or lost the game that counted, I would have taken that information, combed the sports pages and the sports bars for the latest information, and concluded that whatever the point spread, I should deduct a few from the Eagles' side of the equation. A team with a quarterback problem going all the way to the Super Bowl? What are the odds of that happening, I think, as compared to the odds of all the bad things that can happen when a quarterback and his receivers are the least bit off in their timing?
I looked back at Hollister, a Harvard (Class of 1960) and Cal Tech-trained specialist in metamorphic petrology whom I first met when he was waging a valiant (but ultimately unsuccessful) effort to prevent the dismantling of the Princeton University geology museum, and somehow guessed that we were not on the same wave length. So I gave the short answer:
"Yeah, I heard they lost in overtime to the Giants."
"Bald eagles," Hollister replied, oblivious to my answer and obviously answering his own question, "have been sighted above Lake Carnegie, and there's some thought that they might even be nesting nearby," and at this point he seemed to pause a little, as if to open the mind to all the implications of the next phrase, "possibly at the Sarnoff Center."
Until then I had not heard of the eagles, as opposed to the Eagles, but I soon did. Articles and letters to the editor in the papers trumpeted the return of the bald eagles to central New Jersey. They had been seen in the early morning hours by rowers on Carnegie Lake and by walkers on the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath.
I was even able to add my own eagle observation to the mix: A year ago the West Windsor-Plainsboro News received a report that an eagle had been sighted and photographed at the Sarnoff campus. But after a flurry of E-mails back and forth information about the photo was never received and the picture was never published.
Now I am not a betting man (if I were I would like the Raiders in the Super Bowl, even if the line gives the Buccaneers a few points), but I will make this prediction: We are sure to hear a lot more about the eagles as the deliberations continue over the proposed Millstone Bypass and its alignment.
Lincoln Hollister, whose great uncle was Lincoln Steffens, the famed muckraker of a century ago, surely will see to that, as will opponents of the bypass, which is configured to slice through a portion of the Sarnoff property and follow the D&R Canal as it carries traffic in and out of Princeton and eliminates as many as three traffic lights on Route 1 (at Washington Road, Fisher Place, and Harrison Street).
The bypass is heading toward some pivotal meetings as the planners prepare the Environmental Impact Statement that will play a large role in determining the exact location and configuration of the bypass -- a draft EIS is due in April. Between now and then we may hear more about those bald eagles -- the national bird that is found only in North America and that is listed on the Fish and Wildlife Service's threatened species list. What do you want to do, Princeton: Spend a few minutes every day at the traffic light at Washington Road, or drive a nesting pair of majestic eagles and their fledgling eaglets from their nest in some scrub pine near the towpath or in the Sarnoff woods?
There is only one problem with this moral dilemma. The eagles are not really endangered anymore. Back when they were first listed as endangered, there were only 400 nesting pairs known in the lower 48 states (many more have always nested in Alaska). Today there are reports of nearly 6,000 nesting pairs. In fact, the Wildlife Service proposed that the bald eagle be declared fully recovered in July of 2000 but delayed the decision until the experts decided what kind of management would be required once they were off the list.
So I have heard about the eagles -- the Eagles are extinct for this year in the National Football League. The eagles are making a dramatic comeback and the Millstone Bypass is not likely to deter them.
Copyright 2003 US 1
Between the Lines
To the Editor: Those Eagles, Is It Us or Them?February 19, 2003
I enjoyed Richard K. Rein's little piece (U.S. 1, January 22) about the eagles (bald) and me (not bald) . . . I think. Although I laughed, I came away with a feeling that somehow you had marginalized the importance of bald eagles in our back yard. In fact, it came across as a "nimby" article: eagles are OK over there, but not here where they might slow down sprawl. A zillion people walk the towpath every year, and now there is a chance to see the most majestic bird in North America during this stroll. I think that's a lot different than gathering up the kids in the SUV and heading off to Cape May for a wild eagle chase.
Also, I think you did a bit of a disservice to the now two-year process called the Penns Neck Area EIS. Did you know that what you call the "Millstone Bypass", which is a possible roadway section along the Millstone River and through the habitat that the bald eagles find inviting, is only one alternative available for improving traffic mobility across Route 1 at Washington Road? It is thus not "either/or" as implied in your column. We can have not only improved mobility on Washington Road but also keep the habitat for the eagles and other species. That is the goal of this "muckraker".
Yes, bald eagles are coming back. I hope we can continue to have a habitat hospitable to them so that the residents of central New Jersey will be able to experience the grandeur of our national emblem as it joins ospreys and cormorants and egrets and herons in feeding along the lower Millstone River. Everyone who has seen this habitat sees it as a real gem, a wilderness in the midst of New Jersey sprawl.
When the ice breaks, I invite you for a canoe ride up the Millstone River.
Lincoln Hollister
Richard K. Rein replies: It is true that on Super Bowl weekend I was having a little fun at the expense of our resurgent national emblem and our region's now-defeated professional football team. But Lincoln Hollister and I agree that roadways and wildlife are not and should not be an "either/or" proposition. That's why the public and its administrators place confidence in the exhaustive research, study, and reporting process now under way to alleviate congestion along Route 1.
In fact, I am not surprised that the eagles (bald ones) are makinig their way back to central New Jersey. Much of the constantly maligned new development in towns like West Windsor and Plainsboro turns out to be tightly clustered, and anything but sprawling. Both of those townships have aggressive open space programs, which is good news for the eagles. Now these towns especially want some better highways to link their developments to the rest of the community. That would be good news for people.
As for the canoe ride up the Millstone, I will join you, Lincoln, if you will take a ride with me through some of those clustered developments.
Development debate focuses on water use, traffic
Monday, February 10, 2003
By TRACEY L. REGAN
MANCHESTER - Dueling factions of silver-haired pensioners are waging a polite war over water in this Pinelands town in the center of the state's booming retirement enclave, where the spigot has recently run dry.
Citing the threat of clogged roads, dwindling streams and "showers once a month," residents in the town's Whiting section are calling on the state to deny the local water company a permit to pump the millions of gallons of water it is requesting to serve a new shopping center and as many as 1,000 retirement homes.
But supporters of the expansion argue that the permit stands between the town and much-needed amenities, including a dialysis center for residents who are paying exorbitant taxi fares to seek treatment in nearby towns and a developer's promise to unsnarl a dangerous intersection.
The pastor of the Whiting Assembly of God Church even complained recently that his temporary meeting place in a local funeral home "is less than desirable."
The pitched battle here is emblematic of struggles statewide as pro-development and anti-sprawl forces wage a philosophical war to determine New Jersey's future.
The local government has already granted approvals for half of the new housing and the shopping center, although the Crestwood Village Water Co. said it does not have much more water to sell without a significant expansion of its permit.
The owners of the water company are the developers of the proposed housing for the western section of the town.
Department of Environmental Protection officials call the town's conundrum a "classic case of where we allowed the system to go along on its own," although they say they have not decided whether or not to grant the permit.
The agency's staff recommended the expansion last fall, but critics call their assessment shortsighted.
Foes of sprawl development, who applauded Gov. James E. McGreevey for his recent promise to check runaway development, call Whiting an early test of the administration's willingness to put on the brakes.
They note that local planning boards across the state have promised thousands of development permits without first determining whether they had sufficient water.
-- -- --
Local residents say the recent drought, when they were forbidden to wash their cars or water their lawns, has many of them worried about parched times to come.
A meeting last month on the water permit, which would allow the water company to use another 95 million gallons a year from the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, drew about 400 residents from Manchester and neighboring towns.
"I'm torn," said Isabelle Lepore, a soft-spoken resident of Crestwood Village, the town's first retirement community. "The main objection is that we just had a bad drought, and they're afraid that in future droughts we'll run out of water."
While those attending the meeting clapped politely for all of the speakers, many said they were inclined to oppose the new development.
"It's difficult to get out of the village because there is so much traffic. It's not built for it," said Louise Barton, a retired teacher from New York City. She was concerned about the impact the withdrawals would have on the area's streams and swamps.
"If you pull the plug on the Pinelands, there will be no water and it won't be the Pinelands," she said.
They were challenged by other residents who accused them of siding with environmentalists and championing "tadpoles and snakes" over fellow retirees.
"There are more seniors coming here every year. Why are they coming down? Because they can't pay their taxes," said Lewis Koushel, who lived in Manchester until last year and is a supporter of the dialysis center.
"We need more stores. We need more competition. I think everybody knows the menu at Dimples - there's nowhere to go after 8 o'clock for a cup of coffee," he said.
The mayor of Manchester, who favors the new development, urged residents to fight instead against state regulators who, he said, have been pressured by the state to accept 2,500 houses on the other side of town. That development has been in court for years.
"That would require three, four or maybe five times as much water as the applicant is asking," said Mayor Michael Fressola. "That's where the real battle is."
He later called the naysayers unrealistic.
"This is going to be built," Fressola said. "The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. This will stabilize the tax rate."
-- -- --
The DEP staff gave the permit preliminary support last October, saying it would cause a 12-inch drop in the level of the well from which they want to draw additional water but would cause no significant drop in any other township wells.
Critics say the agency failed to assess the impact on local streams or wetlands.
The Pinelands Commission, the agency that oversees development in the 1.1 million-acre Pinelands National Reserve, last week called on the DEP to honor a 1989 policy requiring water purveyors to seek alternatives to withdrawals from the Kirkwood-Cohansey.
"Both the million-acre Pinelands National reserve and the state-designated protection area were established over 23 years ago, in large measure to safeguard the region's water resources and protect habitats and species dependent on those resources," said Annette Barbaccia, the commission's director.
The Pinelands Commission has recommended that the state grant no additional withdrawals of water from Kirkwood-Cohansey until a recently funded five-year study of the aquifer is completed.
Carleton Montgomery, director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, said the additional withdrawal sought by Manchester would cause "an unambiguous drop in the water table and therefore a drop in stream flows and wetlands."
A consultant to the water company said the DEP never required the company to explore alternatives to the Kirkwood-Cohansey.
The consultant warned residents that drawing from a deeper well "could result in water rates doubling or even tripling."
Residents from neighboring towns warned Manchester at the recent meeting not to repeat what they called a similar mistake made by Berlin Township. A recent, controversial well expansion there led to some well failures and foul odors because the water was being drained from nearby swamps, they said.
A year ago, the DEP recommended that the Berlin permit be withdrawn, but has not yet officially pulled it.
Contact Tracey L. Regan at (609) 777-4465 or tregan@njtimes.com
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Panel seeks action on air pollution
To the editor:
The following letter was sent to Gov. James E. McGreevey:
We are writing to you because of our concern about two items of legislation which have many sponsors but which have been stalled in state legislative committees. We are appealing for your leadership to help enact the following bills affecting public health with regard to indoor and outdoor air pollution.
1) A294/S444 - Permits Local Governments to Restrict Smoking in Public Places: Two and a half years ago the Princeton Regional Health Commission enacted an ordinance to restrict smoking in Princeton's public places. This public health measure would have been beneficial to residents and especially to employees who are subjected to smoke inhalation for long periods of times and who often do not have many choices of employment available to them. The ordinance was challenged in court by tobacco and restaurant interests who won because of state legislation from the mid-1980s barring municipalities from such action. The 1980s' laws with this restriction were passed after heavy lobbying from the same groups which are still trying to thwart municipal action to protect public health. In addition, the 1980s legislation was enacted before myriad studies pointed to the destructive health effects of secondhand smoke on non-smokers.
Recently, New York City passed legislation banning smoking in public places because New York state law does not prevent such local protection. We do not think New Jersey residents and employees should be disadvantaged in this important area of public health.
2) A409/S121 - Authorizes and Directs NJDEP to Implement Phase II of the California Low Emission Vehicle Program in New Jersey Beginning in 2006: This legislation is critical especially now as federal air quality laws are being weakened. The rise in asthma cases, especially among children, is one factor of concern. Federal action to effectively improve motor vehicle emissions and gas mileage has stalled. It is thus necessary for the Northeast states, which are most seriously affected, to join with California in the effort to create an incentive for the automobile industry to be more responsive, particularly given our difficult worldwide situation. Such action has already been taken by several states including New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine.
We do not think public health should continue to be held hostage by special interests and hope you will assist with your moral leadership.
Norman J. Sissman, M.D.
Chair
Princeton Regional Health Commission
Monument Drive
Princeton
DEP'S ANNUAL BALD EAGLE COUNT KICKS OFF YEARLONG CELEBRATION OF ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
TRENTON --- This month, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) used its annual two-day bald eagle count to kick off a yearlong awareness campaign marking the thirtieth anniversary of New Jersey's Endangered and Nongame Species Conservation Act. In addition, the DEP selected the bald eagle as the first in a series of monthly profiles on New Jersey's endangered species.
"New Jersey's Endangered Species Act is landmark legislation that has forever changed the way we manage our wildlife and natural habitats," said DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell. "Despite its continued endangered status, the bald eagle is one of New Jersey's great success stories in endangered species protection and management."
Prior to 1982, the number of bald eagles had plummeted statewide - fewer than 10 bald eagles were observed in the State's initial annual survey in 1978 - as hunting early in the century and extensive pesticide use in later decades decimated the eagle population. Beginning in 1982, the DEP's Division of Fish and Wildlife (Fish and Wildlife) engaged in a comprehensive strategy to address the situation, helping the State reduce the use of many pesticides that weaken eagle eggs and acquiring 60 bald eagles from Canada to form the nucleus of a new breeding population.
"Unfortunately, safeguards for endangered species are once again under attack at the federal level," said Campbell. "The Governor's anti-sprawl initiatives acknowledge the importance of protecting endangered species by preserving critical habitat from overdevelopment."
As part of the yearlong celebration of species conservation, the DEP will focus each month on a different threatened or endangered species found in New Jersey. In New Jersey, the bald eagle breeding population living here year-round is listed as endangered, while the wintering population is threatened.
Today, populations of wintering and breeding eagles continue to climb steadily statewide, with the number of known breeding pairs rising from a low of one in 1982 to 34 in 2002.
As part of the eagle population monitoring, Fish and Wildlife coordinates an annual Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Survey every January, which focuses on known eagle wintering areas throughout New Jersey, including the upper Delaware River, most of the major reservoirs, and the South Jersey river systems.
This year, over 75 volunteers counted 137 bald eagles and five golden eagles. The count is lower than previous years' observations - volunteers counted 165 bald eagles in 2002 and 140 in 2001 - yet Fish and Wildlife biologists say that this likely is a random result of weather conditions and not reflective of any drop in the total population.
New Jersey's Endangered and Nongame Species Act was signed into law on December 14, 1973, two weeks before President Nixon signed the federal Endangered Species Act. The law is designed to protect species whose survival in New Jersey is imperiled by loss of habitat, over-exploitation, pollution, or other impacts. New Jersey currently lists more than 35 species as endangered and more than 25 species as threatened.
For more information on each month's featured endangered species and updates about coming conservation events, visit the DEP's website at: http://www.state.nj.us/dep.
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/newsrel/releases/03_0007.ht
Will reported sightings of bald eagles alter road plans?
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 01/17/2003
ANALYSIS: Advocates say birds' presence bolsters area's status as wildlife refuge.
What do the recent spate of reported American bald eagle sightings in the vicinity of Lake Carnegie have to do with the former Millstone Bypass? Let's just say they're on the agenda.
In recent months, reported sightings in the area of the lake and the Kingston lock of the Delaware & Raritan Canal have been pressed into service by environmental advocates seeking to highlight the area as a wildlife refuge that should be protected.
Sightings reportedly have been made by amateur and Princeton University rowers, residents and at least one out-of-towner, and have been registered by the state and national Audubon Society.
But most outspoken about the eagles - regardless of whether they saw them themselves or not - have been environmentalists affiliated with the Penns Neck Area Environmental Impact Statement Partners' Round Table. Of those interviewed by The Packet, only one person reported actually seeing the birds.
The round table, a community-advisory panel to the Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute at Rutgers University, is helping weigh cultural and environmental impacts from potential alternatives to the former bypass.
A draft Environmental Impact Statement evaluating 18 roadway alignment alternatives to the former state-endorsed roadway is expected to be released in the spring. The state Department of Transportation commissioned Rutgers to study possible solutions to traffic congestion in the Penns Neck area around Route 1 and Washington Road after former Gov. Christie Whitman rejected the agency's recommendation favoring the Millstone Bypass.
A chief component of many of those alternatives incorporate an eastside connector road between Route 571 and Route 1 that would run along the Millstone River, and according to those most vocal about the eagles, cut a swath through a wildlife preserve.
Ridgeview Road resident Lincoln Hollister, a geology professor at Princeton University and a longtime opponent of the former bypass, said the Penns Neck Area EIS was very much on his mind when he called The Packet about the eagle sightings.
In December, members of the round table delivered reports and a photograph of an eagle reportedly taken by a rower and Kingston resident to the project team at Rutgers as further evidence of the need for conservation in the region, said Mr. Hollister, who hasn't seen one of the birds himself but cites five others whom he says have.
Jon Carnegie, senior project manager with the Transportation Policy Institute, confirmed receiving the reports and said the institute has notified state and federal wildlife agencies.
"We're taking appropriate actions to fully consider the sightings of these eagles in the vicinity of the project area," Mr. Carnegie said, noting that preliminary feedback from wildlife experts indicates the birds probably are migratory.
"For the people dealing with the EIS, it's not a question of stopping (the roadway) or being obstructionist," said Mr. Hollister. "The agenda is preserving this wild area, and that's not against the Penns Neck EIS. The eagle is being used as an attention getter to this existing bird refuge."
Nassau Street resident Karyn Milner, one of Mr. Hollister's sources, said she saw two eagles in October while driving past the Lake Carnegie boat launch off Route 27.
For the past year and a half, Ms. Milner said, she has observed what she believes are several immature eagles along the Delaware & Raritan Canal towpath along the lake, evidence she said that the birds are nesting and not just stopping for food on their fall migration.
Ms. Milner said she is concerned about encroachment by university construction and the bypass plan. She reported her October sighting to the state, and spread the word through an e-mail network of the Millstone Bypass Alert, an affiliation of around two dozen area advocacy groups.
It was through this network that Ms. Milner's e-mail reached Mr. Hollister, first alerting him to the birds.
The Sierra Club's Laura Lynch, who sits on the Partners' Roundtable and has been quoted in the media linking the eagles with the Penns Neck Area EIS, said she would be outspoken about the birds whether or not their habitat was in the path of a possible future roadway.
"The impulse hasn't been 'let's fight the road, so hey, let's find an endangered animal,' " said Ms. Lynch, debunking the notion that the eagle is a fraud perpetrated by bypass opponents.
Those seeking to raise awareness of the eagle in the context of the EIS have no illusions that one or two eagles - if they are, in fact, nesting in the area - can kill the road, said Ms. Lynch. But they do want the birds' presence to be considered along with the trove of other environmental and cultural data under review, she said.
"We haven't been plotting and scheming; it's just another factor," Ms. Lynch said. "There's no aim to find the nest with an agenda of stopping the road. The project is too big, and a lot of little pieces. If there's something in the way, you move the piece."
Laurie Larson, a Montgomery Township resident and compiler for the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count in December, said she received a report of a bald eagle sighting at Mercer County Park in West Windsor during the count.
As secretary of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Bird Records Committee, she has received numerous reports of sightings in the vicinity of Lake Carnegie, she said.
Given their biology, Ms. Larson said, the birds likely were migrants stopping for fish at the lake and not nesting.
"You have to have much more than one sighting of a migrant eagle to protect a habitat, but I'm sympathetic to their (environmental advocates') concerns," she said. "Anyone who's interested in birds understands it's important to protect their habitat."
Bald eagles, which are on the state's threatened species list, are on the rise in New Jersey, up from a single nest reported between 1970 and 1988 to 27 in 2001, said Ms. Larson, who credited efforts by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Ms. Larson said it is important for sightings to be reported to the DEP's Endangered and Nongame Species Program, which can be reached at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensphome.htm.
©Packet Online 2003
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
BY EDITORIAL
One of Mercer County's finest, and least-known, assets is the Hamilton-Trenton Marsh. A 1,250-acre wetland near the Delaware River, it sprawls across parts of four municipalities - Trenton, Hamilton and the two Bordentowns - and is centered on the county-owned John Roebling Memorial Park. Flora and fauna abound here. Trails and waterways invite such recreational activities as hiking, canoeing, fishing and birdwatching. The marsh is rich in history, as well. It is home to the largest Native American village site in the mid-Atlantic region, with artifacts dating back 6,000 years; the Watson House, the oldest house in Mercer County; and the remains of White City Amusement Park, which a century ago attracted visitors from across the region.
For years, the Delaware and Raritan Greenway, a nonprofit land conservancy that has led the fight to preserve thousands of acres of open space in central New Jersey, has been trying to raise public awareness and use of the marsh, even while improving its protection. Now it has been instrumental in forming "Friends of the Marsh," which held its second meeting this week. The Friends will provide the organizational framework necessary to raise funds and successfully lobby legislators for such things as additional public-land purchases, improved trails, protection for the park against pollution and designation of the area as a National Wildlife Refuge. Its most ambitious goal is to build a nature center on one of the bluffs overlooking the marsh.
The Greenway and others are rendering a great service by protecting and promoting this gem in our midst.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
New Administration Proposal Would Jeopardize Clean Water Act Protections for Streams, Lakes and Wetlands, says NRDC
Group Warns Proposal Part of a Larger Campaign to Gut Key Environmental LawsWASHINGTON (January 10, 2002) -- Today's Bush administration proposal to limit the scope of Clean Water Act coverage would threaten all U.S. waterways, according to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). The administration issued two related documents: an "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking," which calls into question federal Clean Water Act protection for a variety of waterbodies; and an attached "guidance" document for the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which discourages their field offices from protecting wetlands. The advanced notice allows for a 45-day public comment period.
"There is no legal or scientific justification for legalizing pollution in waterways that have been protected for three decades," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's Clean Water Project. "The Bush administration doesn't seem to understand that all of our waters are connected. If you allow corporate polluters to dump toxic waste in creeks, it will flow into our rivers and threaten our drinking water."
Today's proposal opens up a range of possible rule changes, but any change would jeopardize the integrity of the Clean Water Act, Stoner said. The waterways at risk are creeks, small streams, and many types of wetlands, which could become vulnerable to unrestricted dredging, filling and waste dumping. Exempting them from clean water protection would affect all Americans by drying up and polluting drinking water sources, and flooding homes and businesses. Finalizing this proposal also could threaten wildlife habitat. For example, it could decimate the U.S. duck population.
"The administration's proposals are scientifically bankrupt," said Daniel Rosenberg, a wetlands expert at NRDC. "The Clean Water Act has been tremendously successful because its longstanding rules ensure that all waterbodies, large or small, are protected. Once again, the White House has tuned out the science and is only listening to the siren song of mall developers and mining companies."
The Army Corps of Engineers and EPA claim that the proposed rulemaking is a necessary response to a January 2001 Supreme Court ruling, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC), that limited federal Clean Water Act authority over wetlands that were protected only because they provide habitat for migratory birds. However, neither the Supreme Court ruling nor the majority of lower court rulings suggested the need for new rules.
"The Supreme Court did not suggest that the basic framework of the Clean Water Act be dismantled," said Stoner. "Invoking this court decision is just an excuse to allow developers, mining companies, and other polluting industries to fill in wetlands and to dump waste into small streams. These radical changes in the Clean Water Act are being promoted by some of the same polluting industries that financed the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign."
States do not have programs to compensate if the administration kills federal protection, Stoner said. Since most states rely on the backstop of federal regulation, few have comprehensive programs that protect wetlands, creeks, streams and ponds. States have largely relied on federal Clean Water Act permits as the primary way to control pollution in their waterways.
NRDC said today's proposal is part of a larger administration campaign. "This is just one salvo in the Bush administration's all-out assault on fundamental protections for our air, water and public health," said Gregory Wetstone, NRDC's director of advocacy. "Emboldened by the election, and unrestrained by serious congressional oversight, the Bush administration has intensified its effort to undermine our landmark environmental laws."
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 500,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/030110.aspreltaed article and editorial in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/11/politics/11WATE.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/11/opinion/11SAT1.html
The Forgotten Forest Product: Water
By MIKE DOMBECK
STEVENS POINT, Wis. - My daughter, Mary, is a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in Mali. Each day she gets a small amount of drinking water, which she must purify, plus two buckets of water for bathing. We are far more fortunate here in the United States, a relatively water-rich nation. Yet even here, water restrictions have become the norm in some parts of the country - in the East, where supplies once seemed inexhaustible, and in the arid West, where a number of states, along with Mexico, routinely fight over the trickle from what is now the parched Colorado River.
Given such realities, I am puzzled that water rarely enters the debate as the Bush administration and interest groups argue about roadless areas, logging and forest fire management. For water is perhaps the most important forest product.
Forests generate most of the water in the country, providing two-thirds of all the precipitation runoff - the water that comes from the sky - in the 48 contiguous states. Some 14 percent of all runoff comes from the roughly 190 million acres of our national forests, which take up only 8 percent of the land. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states rely on national forests for their drinking water. Millions more depend on state and private forests to facilitate the refilling of aquifers from which they draw their water.
A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the vital connection between forests and water. When Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the first United States Forest Service chief, set up the national forest system, they talked about managing for the greatest good for the greatest number - for the long run. This was in response to the cut-and-run era of timber harvests that left the United States with 80 million acres of denuded forests known as clear-cuts, mostly in the East and upper Midwest. Roosevelt, Pinchot and other federal policymakers were most concerned about preserving the long-term timber supply and the watershed function of the forests.
Yet in modern times, this connection has been lost. When I was in the Clinton administration, I participated in more than 100 Congressional and public hearings and fielded thousands of questions about forest policy. Then, as now, water rarely surfaced as a forest management issue. Yet water from our national forests has an economic value of more than $3.7 billion a year, according to a Forest Service report issued in 2000.
How do forests produce and preserve water? The complex array of trees, shrubs, ground covers and roots slows runoff from rain and snow, and water is purified as it percolates through the soil and into aquifers. By slowing runoff, forests also reduce floods and erosion, minimizing the sediment entering streams and rivers.
Mature forests do this work best. They have the best soil, and their mixed canopy - a mosaic of open and closed spots among the treetops - allows for snowfall accumulation and eventual runoff. Old trees also use less water for growth than young trees do. And as intact forests better regulate water chemistry and temperatures, they enhance habitats for aquatic species. (In many streams this means better recreational opportunities, such as trout fishing.)
New York City has some of the best water in the world because it maintains healthy forests in its Catskill, Delaware and Croton watershed system. The E.P.A. recently warned that New York would have to spend more than $6 billion on a purification plant if it failed to protect those watersheds.
It comes as no surprise that the Bush administration is proposing new forest-management policies. New administrations always bring new policies. What's unfortunate, however, is that some of these policies effectively abandon Theodore Roosevelt's long-term goals. Roosevelt valued open-space preservation and resource conservation. That's why I support the recent ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the ban on building roads in roughly 60 million acres of national forest. Maintaining these areas is both prudent and conservative, especially given the explosive rate of urban expansion and the rapid decline of open space.
New national-forest planning regulations should now specify that the remaining old-growth public forests should not be harvested, since these wild lands provide the cleanest water in the country. Rather than wasting energy on the rancorous, tired debates about road building in the wilderness and old-growth forest management, the focus should be on how to let our forests do their job of producing high-quality water. Given our water supply problems, this should be the highest priority of forest management.
Mike Dombeck, a professor of global environmental management at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, was chief of the United States Forest Service from 1997 to 2001.
Has eagle found a perch in Princeton?
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 01/03/2003
This photo, posted on Ed Hewitt's Web site, row2k.com, reportedly shows an American Bald Eagle in flight over Lake Carnegie in September.
------------------------------------------------------------------------Reported sightings in vicinity of Lake Carnegie have stirred up some feathers
Rumored sightings of an American Bald Eagle in the vicinity of Lake Carnegie and the Kingston lock have stirred up some feathers in Princeton.
"It is our national bird, and it had been fairly rare in New Jersey," said Westcott Road resident Patrick Lyons. "When the closest we get to an eagle these days in on a quarter, the fact that one has been sighted in this hugely dense populated area I think is terrific."
Mr. Lyons said he hasn't sighted the eagle himself, but he said Kingston resident Ed Hewitt, a rower who has trained on Lake Carnegie and who runs a rowing Web site called row2k.com, evidently has.
Mr. Hewitt, who was unavailable for comment Thursday, and a boatload of rowing coaches reportedly sighted the eagle over the lake in early September, and a photo of the bird is posted on the row2k.com Web site.
Similar third-party sightings are being reported by other Princeton residents, as well.
Tom Southerland, a world-class birder who recently announced the closing of his company, Princeton Nature Tours, after more than 21 years of leading nature trips around the globe, said he hasn't seen the eagle.
But Mr. Southerland reports hearing of several sightings this fall by friends, some who reportedly sighted the eagle while hiking the Delaware & Raritan Canal towpath, another a rower who saw the bird while practicing on the lake.
Another sighting reportedly occurred recently in the vicinity of Rosedale Park in Hopewell Township during the Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count.
Ridgeview Road resident Lincoln Hollister, a geology professor at Princeton University, reports five credible sightings of the bird, which include the one reportedly made by Mr. Lyons' rowing friend, Mr. Hewitt, who reported seeing the eagle stealing fish from ospreys, which he said is typical behavior for American Bald Eagles.
According to Mr. Hollister, who said he has yet to see the bird firsthand, another source is a student of his on the university crew team who said his coaches reportedly saw the eagle.
Another is an e-mail from a friend who forwarded to him an e-mail of someone who saw the bird between where the Millstone River enters Lake Carnegie and the lake's dam near Kingston.
The other two firsthand sightings, Mr. Hollister said, were reported to him by Regatta Row resident Eunice Wilkinson, whose residence looks out on Lake Carnegie.
But Ms. Wilkinson said she hasn't seen the eagle herself. She said two friends of hers have - one an area resident, the other a Canadian, both of whom are currently out of town, she said.
Mr. Hollister said he has gone looking for eagle nests with his sons. They found no definite nest, but may have found one site that is a candidate for an eagle nesting site, though to protect the bird habitat he wouldn't divulge locations.
"If there is a nest out there, people will want to go out looking for it," he said.
And while the fact that many of the reported sightings are secondhand, the sheer volume of them is noteworthy. And then there's the photo taken by Mr. Hewitt.
"That's enough to convince me these things exist," Mr. Hollister said. "The eagles are indeed coming back in New Jersey. Whether they are just flying around taking fish and enjoying the Millstone-Lake Carnegie area, or whether in fact they have a nest, we have no idea about that."
Bald Eagles have been spotted in New Jersey with some frequency, according to reports on the New Jersey Audubon Society Web site. The birds are on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's endangered species list for the state, though in 1999 the Clinton Administration proposed delisting the Bald Eagle from the threatened and endangered species list for the lower 48 states.
©Packet Online 2003
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6585858&BRD=1091&PAG=461&dept_id=425695&rfi=6
Stormwater runoff rules proposed
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - The McGreevey administration is proposing new rules for managing stormwater runoff from development in an effort to reduce what officials call a significant source of pollution to streams and aquifers and a contributing factor in floods and declining water tables.
The new rules, proposed yesterday, would call upon developers to figure out how to better balance paved areas with landscaping in order to retain water at a given site. The new rules would require developers to maintain the same rate of groundwater recharge at a development as exists before it is built upon.
Stream buffers and hedgerows are one approach in an overall strategy in which retention basins "we hope will become a technology of the past," said Bradley Campbell, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Developers would be required under the new rules to create 300-foot buffers to protect the state's most pristine streams and reservoirs. The rules would be relaxed somewhat in areas such as cities and farms where stream corridors are already disturbed.
The proposed changes mark the first update of the state's stormwater rules since they were adopted in 1983, Campbell said.
The DEP will also ask municipalities to devise plans to control stormwater from existing and new development. Such plans, which are required by the federal Clean Water Act, might include street sweeping and new grading, but in general will not involve pouring more concrete, Campbell said.
Bill Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, said he was concerned about the cost of the proposed regulations at a time when towns and cities are struggling to balance their budgets.
Environmental advocates applauded the state's proposals, however, which they called long overdue.
"We've hit rock bottom and now we're trying to reform, when there still is some buffer left," said Maya Van Rossum, director of the Delaware Riverkeeper, adding, "Too much drinking water has been written off because of stormwater contamination."
Contact Tracey L. Regan at (609) 777-4465 or tregan@njtimes.com
Copyright 2002 The Times
Jersey charts new course to protect water supply
Tougher rules would limit development, focus on conservation
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffThe drought that prompted water restrictions over the summer has spawned its first set of environmental regulations, tough new rules intended to protect the water supply by restricting development in outlying areas.
The new rules, announced yesterday by state environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell, will dramatically increase the protective buffers around vital streams, wetlands and reservoirs from 50 feet to 300 feet.
The rules -- expected to go into effect in about a year -- also will alter the way new developments treat storm water, focusing more on getting that water back into the ground than piping it off site. And for the first time, the state will recommend new technologies -- from porous pavement to innovative uses of vegetation -- to accomplish that goal.
Environmentalists embraced the new rules as a solid step toward protecting the water supply and attacking the dangerous flood-and-drought cycle that has afflicted the state for years. Builders were predictably wary, and the League of Municipalities voiced concern about another mandate being shouldered by taxpayers.
In keeping with state efforts to rein in sprawl, the new rules -- which still require public hearings -- make a number of provisions for developers in cities and older suburbs. The state will require new developments to "recharge" as much storm water into underground aquifers as seeped into the ground before, but that "100 percent standard" is waived in developed areas, as are the wide stream buffers.
"We're going down a totally new road," said David Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "It's absolutely needed, and, while this doesn't get us to our destination, it gets us a long way there."
But Tony DiLodovico of Schoor DePalma, one of the state's leading engineering firms, said the new rules may get some people knee-deep in water, particularly in parts of the state with lots of bedrock or water tables close to the surface.
"When you are forcing storm water into the ground anywhere near existing development, there is always the fear that it will end up in someone else's basement," he said.
During the height of the drought, environmentalists had complained that storm water in New Jersey was treated largely as a nuisance, piped off site into streams where most of it flowed out to sea. Campbell talked of this water as a vital resource that could help stave off relentless drought.
Developers say they agree that it is important to protect the state's water supply, but they have balked at accepting blame for droughts and floods. The U.S. Geological Survey, while noting the recent drought produced record low stream flows and groundwater levels, also has stopped short of laying the blame on development.
David Fisher, a member of the state Planning Commission who works in the development industry, said the new rules make builders a scapegoat for the state Department of Environmental Protection's own historic failure to address the state's water-supply problems.
"I'm not sure you achieve much of anything by squeezing a little recharge out of what little development is happening in the state right now," he said.
But environmentalists argue that when sprawling parking lots, big-box stores and large housing developments take the place of forests, it is bound to have a measurable effect on the amount of water seeping into the ground.
"There is no question that sprawl development depletes aquifer recharge and increases the volume of runoff dumped in our streams and on downstream communities," said Maya Van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper. "Common sense would allow people to realize that."
While the proposed "100 percent" recharge standard will be new terrain for developers, the DEP stopped short of a more restrictive standard. That is because the amount of water calculated to reach aquifers is generally less than one quarter of the 43 to 45 inches of rainfall that falls each year on the state.
Most of that water is absorbed by trees and vegetation on undeveloped property, and winds up evaporating or flowing into streams. Since much vegetation would be removed, environmentalists had pushed the DEP to increase the amount of water getting to the aquifer, but the agency opted not to go that far.
The DEP did, however, attempt to attack the runoff that most environmentalists agree is the most serious threat to the state's water supply. These pollutants -- car and truck oils, road salt, lawn fertilizers and pet feces -- currently wash into streams with the rush of storm water.
The new rules will require a plan to filter 80 percent of those pollutants from the storm water, possibly making use of the same techniques like filtering layers beneath new porous pavements or grassy buffers that would serve the same function.
The rules come as new federal regulations are requiring towns to present regional storm-water management plans. Bill Dressel, executive director of the League of Municipalities, said the DEP might have softened that blow, but he said comprehensive, expensive reports may now be required.
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He can be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
Hamlets' dilemma: To span or fight
Future of one-lane bridges a rocky road for rural Jersey
Monday, December 09, 2002
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffThe twisting country roads that lead to the Hunterdon County hamlet of Mountainville cross tea-colored streams on charming one-lane bridges.
These bridges and hundreds like them across rural New Jersey force motorists to stop at opposite banks and wave one another across. But that folksy courtesy belies a bitter feud being waged over these historic crossings.
Residents have fought pitched battles with engineers bent on modernizing single-lane spans they argue are unsafe and ill-equipped to handle increased traffic, bulkier school buses and heavier fire trucks.
Locals insist wider bridges will only beget new road projects, which will pave the way for more of the growth that is beginning to overrun the state's last rural places.
With county officials planning to widen two one-lane bridges in and around Mountainville, some residents are vowing a fight for their way of life.
"Part of the character of this area is its winding roads and narrow bridges," said Libby Devlin, who can see one of the spans from the back window of her historic home. "If we lose that, we'll be just like anywhere else."
John Glynn, director of roads, bridges and engineering in Hunterdon County, said local norms must sometimes give way to change. He has overseen perhaps two dozen bridge widenings in a quarter century and, with about 50 one-lane bridges left in the county, he sees more on the horizon.
With development on the rise, once-sleepy roads are becoming too busy for bridges designed for horse and buggy, Glynn said. He said prudent fiscal management demands engineers build new bridges to meet a community's needs for the next five decades.
"I don't think anybody wants to see these areas change, but we have to spend the public dollars wisely," he said.
In the past, a majority of the Hunterdon County's freeholder board has sided with Glynn, with Marcia Karrow casting lone votes against bridge widenings. She believes small projects can have far-ranging consequences.
"If you build it, they will come," she said. "My fellow freeholders say the traffic is already here, and it's true. But if you make it easier for people by widening bridges and roads, more will follow."
Recent spats over bridges in Delaware Township and East Amwell make Hunterdon the center of the one-lane controversy in New Jersey, but the issue has erupted in other locales. In all, there are 218 such bridges in the state. Most often, the battles are touched off by a county inspection that deems the bridge unsafe, although occasionally a wandering trucker forces the issue by overloading one of the spans.
"These battles are being fought all over the country," said James Corless, national campaign director for the Surface Transportation Policy Project, an anti-sprawl group. "Locals are in huge fights with state DOTs and engineers to not have their place look the same as everywhere else."
Groups like Scenic America, Smart Growth America and more local concerns like the Alliance for Historic Hamlets -- a Mountainville group whose acronym AHH! attempts to duplicate the reaction of first-time visitors -- say they too are concerned about safety. But they argue old ways can work in modern times, sometimes slowing traffic and making things safer.
State Department of Transportation officials, who recently vowed to attack internal policies that promote sprawl, agree there are alternatives to widening. They cited a 1996 Hunterdon County case in which a 130-year-old, one-lane bridge in Clinton was restored after county, local and state engineers supported the project.
"DOT does not try to force any particular design down anyone's throat," said DOT spokesman Micah Rasmussen. "If an inspection comes back unsafe, something has to be done. No one is saying it has to be X, Y or Z."
Glynn said that when state bond money is used, however, state engineers frown on designs that don't conform to guidelines set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
Assistant Morris County Engineer Surinder Thapar agreed that county engineers often look to federal or state guidelines in such cases. His office has widened at least three dozen bridges in the last decade, and he said there may be only a half dozen one-lane spans left in the county.
"Residents will say, 'This bridge is very historic. It's a rural neighborhood. It will increase traffic.' But we cannot get state and federal aid if we do not widen these bridges to certain standards," Thapar said.
After years of feuding with anti-sprawl groups, AASHTO has begun to promote "context-sensitive design" that takes into account the character of an area.
The association recently put out a separate manual for "low volume roads" that addresses one-lane bridges, but, Glynn said, most Hunterdon County spans are busier than the qualifying standard of 200 vehicles a day.
"In some cases, it is possible to preserve the character of a road or bridge and incorporate that in a redesign," said Jennifer Gavin, an AASHTO spokeswoman. "But these are very case-sensitive issues. One thing to keep in mind with one-lane bridges is safety."
In Somerset County, where 13 one-lane bridges remain, Rich Grocholski, county bridge engineer, said he makes every effort to restore narrow spans on local roads, and he cited several projects where that was done at greater cost. (The examples he cited cost roughly $1 million each, whereas Glynn is replacing bridges for about $500,000.)
In his 11 years with the county, Grocholski said, he has seen state attitudes soften when it comes to one-lane spans.
"You don't get a blank check, and you have to justify it from a safety perspective," he said. "But it's no longer opening a manual to a table and saying, 'It has to go.'"
In Mountainville, a tiny strip of historic businesses and houses that is part of Tewksbury Township, residents are fighting plans to widen two bridges from 16 to 26 feet. The county has deemed one bridge linking the hamlet to Oldwick unsafe and vowed to close it if locals don't accept the widening.
In the past, such drastic action has split opposition and led to acquiescence.
Shaun C. Van Doren, a Tewksbury committeeman and local historian, said county officials don't realize the harm such projects can do.
"I'm willing to go as far as these residents want to go in fighting this," he said. "We need to stand up for our way of life."
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He may be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger.
New Jersey Conservation Foundation Options to Purchase 10,000-acre Pine Barrens Property
Largest Private Land Conservation Deal in New Jersey History
Far Hills, NJ November 18, 2002 New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJCF) has signed an option to purchase the nearly 10,000-acre DeMarco Farm, one of the largest privately owned tracts of land in New Jersey.
The spectacular property has 1,500 acres of reservoirs and thousands of acres of wetland and upland forests including 600 acres of Atlantic white cedar swamp. Fourteen tributaries of the West Branch of the Wading River originate on or pass through the property. The land has exceptional habitat for native and endangered species including bald eagles and the unique Pine Barrens tree frog. The farmed portion of the property includes 800 acres of cranberry bogs and 300 acres of blueberry fields.
The property is located in the "Heart of the Pine Barrens in Burlington County, surrounding the Village of Chatsworth in Woodland, Tabernacle and Bass River Townships. It connects five state-owned properties: Brendan Byrne State Forest (formerly Lebanon State Forest), Wharton State Forest, Bass River State Forest, Greenwood Wildlife Management Area and Penn State Forest.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to permanently preserve the heart of the Pine Barrens," said Michele Byers, Executive Director of NJCF and former Pine Barrens resident. "In the grand scheme of the efforts to protect the Pine Barrens, underway since the 1970's, the preservation of the DeMarco Farm will be one of the most important accomplishments in a generation.
NJCF is working closely with Garfield DeMarco, President of A.R. DeMarco Enterprises the farm,s owner to make the deal happen, but has only five months to raise the money needed to purchase the property.
To help ensure the property's preservation, the family has generously decided to give half the value of the property to NJCF as a gift. "My family and I want to see this unique and beautiful property preserved in its natural state for all the people of New Jersey, stated Mr. DeMarco. "I know my father, who loved this land every bit as much as I do, would want this as well, he continued. "We look forward to working with New Jersey Conservation Foundation to bring this project to a successful conclusion.
"Purchasing this property is a big challenge for NJCF, added Ms. Byers, "but the landowners have given New Jerseyans an amazing opportunity and we will do everything we can to raise the necessary funds.
Anyone interested in helping save this property can send a tax-deductible gift to NJCF's "Heart of the Pine Barrens Fund."
New Jersey Conservation Foundation is one of the nation,s premier land conservation organizations. Since 1960, it has protected tens of thousands of acres of New Jersey forest, farmland and open space from the Great Swamp, to Patriots, Path, to Wells Mills Park. NJCF has been in the forefront of land preservation policy, including historic laws protecting the Pine Barrens, farmland, water quality and every Green Acres open space initiative. For more information, call 1-888-LAND-SAVE, or visit their website at www.njconservation.org.
State reviews water management plan
Monday, November 25, 2002
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - As one of the worst droughts on record recedes in memory amid a rain-drenched autumn, state environmental officials say they are still pushing for major changes in the way they manage the state's water supply.
Despite a slight drop in overall water use statewide over the course of the 1990s, driven by a steady decline in industrial consumption, increased use of potable water by the state's growing population has stretched supplies thin in some regions, officials say.
Much of the state's evolving management strategy is aimed not just at better control of water consumption in regions where it is rising quickly, but heading off shortages before they develop in times of drought.
The state will encourage water transfers among regions before reservoir levels drop precipitously, said Dennis Hart, the state's drought coordinator. The state also will ensure the equipment to make these transfers is working before they are needed.
Earlier this year, water officials were frustrated that they could not move as much water as they wanted from the central part of the state, which had abundant supplies, to the parched northeastern region, because a pumping station in Newark was in disrepair.
Water companies are reluctant to transfer water before they absolutely have to, Hart said, because it is costly to pump it. But he said the state may be able to find some funds to subsidize water transfers in a proposed sales tax on water that is now under consideration by the state Legislature.
The bill, which in its current version in the Senate would assess a 3-cent tax per 1,000 gallons of water, also would provide money to upgrade pumps and pipelines.
The state is scouting out new sources of water - or in some cases, reviving some old, abandoned ones, officials said. The state Department of Environmental Protection has asked Elizabethtown Water Co. to clean some contaminated groundwater in Springfield that the company had abandoned, which would allow it to pump an additional 4 million to 5 million gallons a day. The company is now assessing how much it will cost.
"There are areas where groundwater has been written off and areas where it shouldn't be," said Hart.
-- -- --
The state is also moving to reform how utilities get permits to use more water, by requiring them to better document their demand and to show they have a viable source before requesting a larger allocation.
The McGreevey administration has infuriated builders in some of the state's fastest growing areas, such as Atlantic County, by withholding water permits for suppliers who promised it to developers who had already gotten local construction approvals. Hundreds of builders and other construction industry contractors descended on the State House this fall to protest the administration's action and vow political payback come election time.
Statewide, water use declined from just over a trillion gallons a year in 1990 to about 980 billion in 1999. Karl Muessig, a state geologist, attributed the decline to more efficient industrial processes. Power companies, for example, are able to reuse a lot of the water they use for cooling.
"But potable consumption has gone up," he said.
Hart said some of the sharpest growth is being felt along the coast - from Monmouth to Cape May County - and in the Philadelphia suburbs in Gloucester and Camden counties.
"Some of these places are at their peak," he said.
-- -- --
The central part of the state is experiencing slower, but steady growth, said Henry Patterson, spokesman for the Elizabethtown Water Co., who said his company is anticipating growth of 1 to 1.5 percent per year until 2010.
But requests for water in the central part of the state, which has surplus capacity in its two major reservoirs, are under greater scrutiny as well.
The DEP told Elizabethtown it will not approve its request for an increase until the company assures the state it has contracted for enough water from the New Jersey Water Supply Authority, which operates the Spruce Run and Round Valley reservoirs in Hunterdon County.
Elizabethtown spokesman Henry Patterson called the DEP's request "prudent and reasonable" and said the company was complying.
But despite central New Jersey's large reservoirs, there are municipalities within the region that are experiencing shortfalls and moving to slow growth as a result.
Hopewell Township, for example, has lowered zoning densities in some of its sections where the dense bedrock prevents water from seeping down to the aquifer below and where it can be difficult for well-diggers to find the fracture that will allow them to reach groundwater. A local farm recently sunk a 560-foot well and came up virtually empty.
"It's scarce in some parts - it's not infinite," said Mayor Marylou Ferrara, who said a recent report on the town's geology "made us sit up and take notice."
Hart, the state's drought coordinator, said that in general the state does not have a good handle on well water use. His department only reviews developments with 50 or more wells.
Ferrara said the township was pleased Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to reuse a substantial amount of water at its facility. Mark Caine, an environmental, health and safety official for B-MS, said the company had reclaimed and reused a million gallons of nonpotable water over the course of about a year.
And then there is the occasional water company in the area with supplies to spare.
Trenton Waterworks, which draws water from the Delaware River, has recently agreed to provide Hamilton with 3 million gallons a day. The company already has an interconnection with its neighbor but can only transfer about 750,000 gallons a day at peak demand. Should it experience an outage, the plan would also allow Hamilton to return water.
"We're looking for customers," said Brent Cacallori, the superintendent of the system and the chief engineer. "We have lost two large customers - General Motors and Carter-Wallace - who accounted for just under 10 percent of our water usage."
Contact Tracey L. Regan at (609) 777-4465 or tregan@njtimes.com
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Farm to be preserved along scenic byway
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
DELAWARE TOWNSHIP - Plans to spend $1.98 million to preserve a 221-acre farm along Route 29 near Bull's Island State Park were announced yesterday.
State Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox, state Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell and Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township, hailed the plan to preserve the Shuck farm off Federal Twist Road as key to preserving the riverside highway.
Route 29 was nominated as the state's first scenic byway under a federal program to preserve scenic corridors. The highway, about 35 miles long, runs from Trenton to Frenchtown.
"It is important that we preserve and protect open space along this wonderful highway corridor," Fox said. "The property we are acquiring buffers the Delaware River and will be a tremendous addition to Bull's Island recreation area and the Route 29 Scenic Byway."
Campbell said the property was among the last developable parcels in what is called the Delaware River Bluffs Corridor, which includes the Delaware & Raritan Canal.
Funding for the purchase included $1 million from the Federal Scenic Byways program, with the rest coming from the state Green Acres and Garden State Preservation Trust programs.
The U.S. Transportation Department recognizes National Scenic Byways by their archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities. The nation has 72 scenic byways in 32 states.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - With nearly half of the town preserved as open space, there can be little debate that West Windsor is a green town.
But state environmental agencies are set to put that in writing tonight when West Windsor is officially honored with the first "Green Town" award for its work in protecting the environment.
Leaders of the Environmental Education Fund and the New Jersey Environmental Lobby will present the award to Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh at 8 p.m. during a public ceremony at the municipal building.
"We chose West Windsor mainly because of the amazing job they've done preserving open space," said Eileen Hogan, president of the Environmental Education Fund. "They've done a lot of creative things with preserving land."
The two groups set up the award to honor local towns for their efforts to improve air and water quality in New Jersey, Hogan said.
The groups want to encourage towns to have master plans and zoning ordinances that support the environmental aspects of the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
West Windsor has preserved nearly 47 percent of its land through farmland preservation, dedicated parkland and open space funds.
"(The award) recognizes the fact that we as a council have been actively pursuing open space parcels that have been under threat of development by developers," said Jackie Alberts, a township council member who sits on the Open Space Utilization Task Force. "We have looked at ways to incorporate environmentally friendly designs into our site plans."
The town taxes residents seven cents per $100 of assessed property value to be used for open space preservation, or about $175 a year for someone with a house valued at the township average of $250,000.
"The residents in West Windsor want environmental concerns to be included in land use planning," Hsueh said.
The town also has a Shade Tree Committee and a Storm Water Management Committee as well as several environmental plans in place.
Hogan said West Windsor was chosen to receive the award among only a few competitors this year, but the two groups hope more towns will apply next year. To qualify for the award, towns must answer 20 questions about environmental plans that can be found on www.njenvironment.org.
"We're hoping some of the more urbanized towns will apply," Hogan said. "Even if they don't have open space to preserve, there are a lot of things they can do to preserve the environment."
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Keep the promise of the Clean Water Act
By Amy Goldsmith
Monday, October 21, 2002
As we get ready to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act this month, we are at the most important moment since the law was passed. With Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman weakening the Clean Water Act nationwide, the promising first steps by the McGreevey Administration have become much more important and need to be followed up with additional measures.
Before the Clean Water Act passed Congress in 1972, the Passaic River caught on fire and was an open sewer. Since then, we have made progress, but many New Jerseyans are waiting for the act's promises to be kept. The goals of the federal Clean Water Act were to return 100 percent of the nation's waters to fishable and swimmable conditions by 1983 and eliminate all water pollution by 1985. Thirty years later less than 15 percent of New Jersey's waterways meet these goals and more than 60 percent of our waterways are too polluted with phosphorus from sewer plants and animal waste.
According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, every waterway in New Jersey is threatened by the overdevelopment that accompanies sprawl. Furthermore, the Clean Water Act mandated that every polluted waterway have a cleanup plan in place by 1979. Today, 1,042 New Jersey waterways require such plans, yet currently no New Jersey waterway has an adequate one.
That's what makes Whitman's record so disappointing. While Governor, she weakened critical Clean Water Act protections, cut funding, reduced enforcement, and failed to clean-up the state's most polluted waters. Now as federal administrator, she is trying to do to the nation what she did to New Jersey -- weakening the Clean Water Act that she is supposed to be enforcing.
Two months ago, Whitman released a rule proposal that would eliminate needed clean-ups by redefining certain polluted waters as "clean", weaken standards to reduce the level of clean-ups for other polluted waters, allow polluters to increase their amount of discharge based on speculative, unenforceable reductions from sprawl runoff, permit pollution trading based on the honor system that allows polluters to skirt the Clean Water Act without EPA oversight, and cut funding for enforcement at EPA.
Since we can no longer count on a strong federal backstop, the actions of the McGreevey Administration have become that much more important. Fortunately, while critical details remain to be implemented and the strong opposition from those that benefit from sprawl and water pollution must be countered, Governor McGreevey is off to a promising start.
In a difficult fiscal climate, Governor McGreevey has restored the vigor and funding to the DEP's enforcement program, proposed stronger standards to protect the state's pristine waters, and made the strongest commitment yet to cleaning up the state's polluted waters. For example, the Governor has announced a major shift in policy to increase protections for the state's most important water supplies to ensure that their water quality is maintained.
However, special interests are making a concerted effort to stop this promising start in its tracks. We hope that large development projects like Windy Acres and Milligan Farms in Hunterdon County do not undercut the Governor's plans by building two new sewer plants that would dump directly into two of the waterways he has designated for increased protections. This is a game of beat the clock will DEP permit the new sewer plants before the Governor's plan goes into effect? Furthermore, significant clean-ups and enforcement are lacking on the most important waterways, such as the Passaic River with its phosphorus problem.
Sprawl and overdevelopment are not only paving over our countryside, but they make our water quality and our droughts worse. Buildings and pavement stop rain from filtering through the ground -- a process that removes pollutants and recharges water supplies. Especially during dry periods, this threatens the quality and supply of groundwater and makes our rivers and streams too low and too dirty to take drinking water from too often.
Clearly, there is much to be done before the goals of the Clean Water Act have been met in New Jersey. Now is not the time for photo ops. It is the time for Whitman to rethink her policies and for the McGreevey Administration to follow through on its promising initiatives.
The public deserves, expects and demands no less.
Copyright 2001, The Star-Ledger
Amy Goldsmith is the director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. She wrote this article in conjunction with Douglas O'Malley, the clean water associate at the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, and Dennis Schvejda, conservation director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
DEP's computer map shows pollution endangering water wells
Thursday, September 26, 2002
BY ANTHONY S. TWYMAN
Star-Ledger StaffState officials yesterday unveiled a sophisticated Internet computer mapping program that shows how close contaminated sites are to public drinking water wells, as well as a wealth of other environmental information about New Jersey.
Called "i-Map," the project is the first of its kind in the nation, according to state and federal officials. A major goal of the project is to help state and municipal officials take measures, such as changing zoning rules and preserving open space, to protect the state's 2,425 public drinking water wells.
For the first time, people can go to one central source to find information about how much sewer plants and factories discharge into rivers and streams, the amount of water and air pollution coming from industries, and the types of environmental violations brought against companies. Previously, people would have had to gather this information on a case-by-case basis, one site at a time.
Department of Environmental Protection officials rolled out the first phase of the project yesterday in Trenton. The second phase, adding more data, will be released next spring.
"We want the public to be aware of and to participate in environmental planning to help them make scientifically sound decisions," said DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell.
The new computer program includes more than 30 maps showing everything from roads and legislative district boundaries to the locations of toxic sites, public drinking water wells, endangered species and forests.
Environmentalists have taken a particular interest in the program's ability to show the proximity of contaminated sites to public drinking water wells. "We have been trying to get this kind of information for the past five years," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.
The "i-Map" program can generate colored circles showing the area from which a well draws its water, and how long it would take for any pollution that might leak from a given site to taint a public water supply.
For instance, the maps show that two wells in Netcong and one in Roxbury that are run by the Netcong Water Department are within 1,600 feet of severely contaminated groundwater at the Compac Corp., Netcong Borough Circle and the closed Fenimore public landfill.
But the DEP maps do not show whether pollutants from contaminated sites have actually seeped into wells. DEP officials hope by spring to have completed a study that will show which wells are at risk.
State officials and water suppliers stress that wells are routinely tested for contamination and are closed if they become polluted.
"We believe (the) drinking water is safe," said Campbell, saying there are "rigorous testing" and "safeguards" in place.
Bob Olivo, Netcong's superintendent of public works, said the water the town takes from the three wells near contaminated sites is safe to drink. "Our wells are tested annually," Olivo said. "We do the testing that is required by the DEP."
Environmentalists, however, have doubts about the rigorousness of the state-required testing and the DEP's enforcement of federal safe drinking water laws. They fear that toxic chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants from lawns, farms, underground storage tanks, municipal landfills and steel drums stored on old industrial sites may be seeping into the groundwater that supplies the public. Nearly 42 percent of New Jersey residents rely on groundwater sources for their drinking water.
"The fact that these sites are so nearby means we're likely to find out many wells are contaminated," said Dena Mottola, acting director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group's citizen lobby.
Statewide, the map shows more than 12,000 contaminated sites, more than 2,000 of which are severely polluted and located near wells.
The DEP data show:
* Ninety-two of the state's most severely contaminated sites are located close enough to public wells that, if pollution leaked out, it could reach the well within two years.
* Fifteen towns in seven counties have 10 or more contaminated sites that could threaten wells within two years if pollution reached the groundwater.
* The counties of Morris and Bergen have the most severely contaminated sites (16) that could threaten a well within two years, followed by Union (nine), Passaic (eight) and Sussex (seven). Hunterdon and Essex each have six.
Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, operators of public wells must test them for about 90 pollutants and substances. Contaminated wells must be closed or have treatment systems installed, said DEP spokesman Fred Mumford. In some cases, the DEP also may allow the well operator to correct a contamination problem by blending water from the dirty well with clean water from another source.
The i-Map program can be found on the DEP's Web site (www.nj.gov/dep). Anthony S. Twyman covers the environment. He can be reached at atwyman@starledger.com.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
D&R panel approves Toll recreation area
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 09/20/2002
Commission reaches compromise with West Windsor over a waiver for stream-corridor intrusion.
The Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission reached a compromise Wednesday with West Windsor Township officials over a waiver for stream-corridor intrusion by Toll Brothers' Estates at Princeton Junction housing development off Bear Brook Road.
The township had sought a 24-space parking lot, basketball court, tot-lot playground and playing fields for the controversial development as one of the many conditions of approval. Toll Brothers had agreed to provide them.
But Canal Commission officials recommended against them due to concerns over encroachment into the commission-protected stream corridor that drains into the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park, said commission Executive Director James Amon.
On Wednesday, West Windsor Planning Board attorney Gerald Muller and township landscape architect Dan Dobromilsky appeared before the commission to make their case for the desired amenities.
The commission ultimately agreed to grant the stream-corridor waiver with a 5-0 vote, but with conditions. Among them was withdrawal of the proposed parking lot from the plan and a ban on laying impervious surfaces, Mr. Amon said.
The commission hearing was the latest hurdle for the controversial development. Despite a state Supreme Court ruling upholding the developer's right to build, West Windsor continues to fight the massive project.
Toll Brothers began clearing trees on the 293-acre site off Bear Brook Road last week despite a request by the township for a court-ordered stay to halt work, which was denied last Friday.
The township claimed the trees should not be cut down until a dispute over a stream encroachment permit granted by the state Department of Environmental Protection is cleared up in a pending case before the Appellate Division of state Superior Court.
Also on Wednesday, the Canal Commission voted 5-0 to grant a stream corridor waiver for Princeton University's plan to build 206 new graduate-housing units at Lawrence Apartments off Alexander Street.
The application, which the Princeton Regional Planning Board approved earlier this month, drew criticism because it will result in the loss of approximately 1,000 trees.
As part of its waiver approval, the Canal Commission imposed a conservation easement that will protect about 37 acres of woodland buffer along the Stony Brook, Mr. Amon said.
He said the university had no plans to cut down the trees, but now there is a mandate in place that makes it illegal to do so.
©Packet Online 2002
Bush Orders Faster Environmental Reviews
September 19, 2002
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUISWASHINGTON, Sept. 18 - President Bush ordered federal agencies today to speed environmental reviews for major transportation projects, arguing that excessive red tape had impeded the construction of airports and highways.
Environmental groups immediately denounced the action, which was released this evening as an executive order. They said the order was part of an effort to restrict public debate and undermine environmental protections in place for three decades.
The president's order calls on the secretary of transportation to draw up a list of high-priority projects like roads, bridges, tunnels and airports that should receive expedited reviews and permits. It sets up an interagency task force to "identify and promote policies that can
effectively streamline the process" while maintaining public health and environmental protection.The transportation secretary, Norman Y. Mineta, said complex permit requirements had increased the time it took to build an airport to an average of 10 years, a new highway to 13 years.
"Too many transportation projects become mired for too long in the complex web of clearances required by federal and state law," Mr. Mineta said. "This initiative is intended to make our transportation investments more efficient, helping to ease congestion and reduce pollution."
The task force, which would report to the president through the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, would include the secretaries of transportation, agriculture, commerce, interior, defense, as well as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Environmentalists said the order was part of a sweeping effort by the administration to weaken landmark environmental legislation under the guise of streamlining. They viewed the order in the context of White House initiatives to roll back rules affecting logging in national forests and offshore drilling for oil.
"This administration wants to shoot the sheriff protecting our environment so the highway robbers can ride again," said Deron Lovaas, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The advocates said the administration was seeking to undercut the 32-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, which they consider the Magna Carta of environmental protections. The act sets the terms by which federal agencies must study and disclose the environmental effects of their actions and include the public in decision-making.
A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to say whether the White House wanted to modify the act. All changes under the president's order "will fully comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental statutes," Mr. McClellan said.
Mr. McClellan said the new task force would develop several "best practices" to guide decisions on high-priority projects. "Too many projects are being delayed that would actually reduce congestion and emissions," he said.
Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, are studying ways to alter the act. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday.
Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense, said the president's order made Congressional action unnecessary. Mr. Krupp disputed claims that environmental impact studies and public comment had needlessly bogged down important projects.
"There are not any projects that have been significantly delayed because of environmental review," he said.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Saturday, August 31, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON TOWNSHIP - Fall may be coming in more ways than one for about 1,000 trees that could get the ax under a Princeton University plan to expand housing for its graduate students.
The trees are on 10 acres of university-owned land off Alexander Road, just south of the neighboring Springdale Golf Club.
They would have to be cut so the university can add 206 new housing units to its Lawrence Apartments complex for graduate students.
University officials will seek approval for the $40 million expansion plan Thursday night from the Princeton Regional Planning Board.
Mark Kirby, an architect and planner with the university's planning office, said it will be impossible to replace all the trees slated for destruction on site.
He said university officials recognize the plan entails much more than snipping a few saplings.
"The university has a forester as part of this project - the first time we've hired a forester as part of a project team," he said.
The university intends to replenish the tree supply somehow, Kirby said.
It would do so through a combination of plantings, including hundreds of new trees on the Lawrence Apartments grounds and a new patch of forest at some other site that would not be subject to new development, Kirby said.
"We don't have an ordinance requiring re-planting, but it's been suggested they may want to reforest other areas," said Lee Solow, planning director for the Princetons.
"We will ask them to make some changes to preserve some of the more significant trees," Solow said.
The site slated for clearing under the university's plan has a wide variety of trees, including hardwoods such as cherry, oak and maple, Solow said. Their trunks range in circumference from about 8 inches to 40 inches, he said.
"The university is taking pains to replace" the trees that would be destroyed under the expansion proposal, Kirby said.
That includes planting about 450 trees and 3,200 shrubs throughout the expanded apartment complex, he said.
"We typically don't plant 400 or 500 trees in a new project," he said. "But still we realize that it's not enough."
Additionally, "you can't say that an acre of shrubs is equivalent to an acre of trees," Kirby said.
That's why the university tapped a forester as a consultant on the project - to find a suitable location for new forest elsewhere in the community.
Kirby said the site targeted for development was farmland until the late 1950s or early 1960s, when part of it became fertile ground for new forest and the existing Lawrence Apartments.
About 75 percent of Princeton's nearly 1,900 graduate students live in university housing, school officials have said. But hundreds of others are forced to find off-campus housing in the highly competitive suburban real estate market in the area.
As a result, graduate students here have a more difficult time finding affordable housing within walking distance of campus than they would at an urban school like Columbia University.
"There's a serious shortage of university-supplied housing for graduate students," said Kirby, who is the university's project manager for the proposed Lawrence Apartments expansion.
The project would more than double the number of units in the complex, which now has 150 apartments in seven buildings that range in size from two to 12 stories.
The 206 new apartments would be built in seven proposed buildings, including four three-story structures, two five-story structures and one six-story building.
University officials hope to begin work by early November and have the two five-story buildings ready for students by the time the 2003-2004 school year starts, Kirby said. The intent is to finish the entire project in early spring 2004, he said.
The project - which would increase the number of beds in the complex from 206 to 552 - should generate a large enough critical mass of residents to justify jitney bus service between the campus and the remote site, he said.
Also, plans call for a new traffic light that would control traffic flow at Alexander Road and a new road that would provide access to and from the complex. The new road would be near an existing bike path north of the current entry, West Drive, which would remain, Kirby said.
The area south of the proposed construction site contains environmentally sensitive areas that include a wildlife sanctuary, the Delaware & Raritan Canal, the Stony Brook, wetlands and flood buffer zones.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Land-use law to get a review
Bush officials are studying rules that require environmental impact analyses.
By Matthew Daly
Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Aug. 30, 2002WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is reviewing a landmark environmental law both reviled and praised because it requires lengthy studies before foresters cut a tree or developers start to dig.
White House officials say they want to modernize the 32-year-old law they blame for bureaucratic gridlock. Environmentalists fear it's a move to roll back crucial protections.
"Given this administration's past record on the environment, it's hard to imagine they are up to any good," said Maria Weidner of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm and advocacy group.
At issue is the National Environmental Policy Act. Signed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the law requires developers, loggers and others to describe in detail the impact a proposed project will have on the environment and come up with measures to minimize it.
A typical environmental impact statement includes detailed analyses by several federal agencies and extensive public comment.
Environmentalists consider it a fundamental law and rely on it to limit development on public land and block projects that threaten endangered species, including the spotted owl and steelhead trout.
Critics say the law has burgeoned into a swamp of regulations and logistical hoops that stall federal action for years at a time.
"The simple fact is, [the act] has been used and abused by those who want to obstruct activities" such as logging in national forests, said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber-industry group.
The review was launched last month by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which says the law needs to be updated after three decades. A nine-member task force is accepting public comment through Sept. 23 and expects to issue a report early next year.
"We're not out to gut" the law, task force director Horst Greczmiel said. "We're out there to try to make it better. In common parlance, we want to cut the fat if there's fat out there and we want to beef up the beef."
©Phildelphia Inquirer, 2002
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/3969197.htm
State aims to corner watershed market
Purchase of open space near water supplies and flood zones given priority under new law
Friday, August 30, 2002
BY JEFF WHELAN
Star-Ledger StaffThe state will make purchasing land near water supplies and in flood-prone areas a top priority of New Jersey's open space preservation program under a bill signed into law yesterday by Gov. James E. McGreevey.
Environmentalists hailed the new law. They said the state's previous plans for purchasing land for open space preservation were haphazard and made the program vulnerable to political influence while leaving environmentally sensitive areas -- such as one million acres of forest in the Highlands -- at risk of development.
"This new law helps to ensure clean drinking water supplies for millions of New Jersey citizens and also serves as a natural buffer against future floods," McGreevey said a Statehouse press conference.
In 1998, voters approved a referendum to provide $1 billion over 10 years for open space preservation. The new law requires the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop a master plan to determine where acquisitions for recreation, water protection or conservation purposes should occur.
Under the measure, the DEP would give added weight to property near watersheds and flood-prone areas when ranking land purchases for the Green Acres program.
State officials also noted that eight of the last 12 months have been the driest in New Jersey's recorded history.
"Our water supply is precious, as we've been shown by the drought we face now," said Assistant DEP Commissioner Karen Kominsky. "Too often, these areas go unprotected."
Kominsky said the new program would make preserving the 1 million acres of forests in the Highlands a priority. She said the Highlands are the source of water for over one-third of the state's residents.
"That's a lot of people. That's a lot of water. That's a lot of resources that are going to be protected," she said.
Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club, said the new law would end a haphazard system that failed to protect land near the Spruce Run reservoir in Hunterdon County and the Wanaque reservoir in Passaic County from being sold to developers.
"We would see lands being purchased not in any rhyme or reason, sometimes not even in very important areas. And yet there were properties right next to some of the major reservoirs in New Jersey that were for sale and sold off to development," he said.
Senator Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), a sponsor of the law, said the state paid millions of dollars in property damage that resulted from Hurricane Floyd. He said purchasing land in flood-prone areas would save the state money on insurance claims in the long-term and help reverse "bad planning decisions made a hundred years ago."
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
Smog tightens chokehold on Jersey
State jumps to near the top in national ranking for exceeding federal pollution standards
Friday, August 30, 2002
BY TOM HESTER
Star-Ledger StaffNew Jersey skies are getting smoggier despite a $500 million state effort to toughen auto emissions testing, leaders of two environmental groups said yesterday.
New Jersey was the fourth-smoggiest state in the nation last year, soaring from a 28th national ranking in 2000, according to statistics released yesterday by the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and the New Jersey Sierra Club. Only California, Texas and Pennsylvania recorded more instances where smog exceeded federal standards over an eight-hour period.
And this year's hot summer helped make the smog problem even worse. With about two weeks remaining in the summer smog season that began in May, federal ozone standards were exceeded 279 times at the state's 15 monitoring stations. That's almost as much as the 282 recorded in New Jersey in 2000 and 2001 combined.
"Every New Jersey resident has felt the impacts of 2002's brutal smog season," said Drew Hudson, NJPIRG's clean air advocate. "If they are breathing the same air we are, our state and national leaders should act quickly to reduce smog."
Ground-level ozone or smog is a dangerous respiratory irritant that can affect health. Every year, air pollution in New Jersey sends 22,000 people to emergency rooms, with ozone a key pollutant triggering more than 20 percent of the visits, the environmentalists said. More than half of all Americans reside in places where smog levels are high enough to cause asthma attacks, decreased lung function, coughing, wheezing and eye and throat irritation.
The environmentalists said the state's controversial $500 million contract with private contractor Parsons Infrastructure and Technology to toughen car emission inspections has not played a role in cutting auto emissions -- a leading cause of smog.
"Parsons was to go after older cars, 1996 or earlier and force better maintenance, make them pollute less," said Jeff Tittell, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club. "The state incorrectly estimated that most of the cars would fall into that category. But by the time Parsons got started in 1999, 65 percent of the cars in the state were newer than 1996."
Tittel said two-thirds of the smog can be blamed on New Jersey motorists and sprawl.
"New Jersey is number one in the nation in vehicle miles traveled. People are living farther from their jobs due to sprawl and they are driving more cars," Tittel said. "The people in New Jersey are not going to get out of their cars, so we have to make the cars cleaner."
NJPIRG and the Sierra Club support legislation stalled in the state Senate Environment Committee that would require New Jersey dealers to sell only low-emission cars akin to those sold in California. So-called California cars would cut auto emissions by more than 20 percent in New Jersey by 2020, according to environmentalists.
The environmentalists also support a U.S. Senate bill that calls for a reduction in emissions from power plants. They and the McGreevey administration oppose a plan by President Bush to relax air pollution rules for power plants and other facilities, saying one-third of New Jersey's smog floats on the jet stream from plants in the Midwest and South.
Virtually every county in New Jersey had an increased number of smog days last year when compared with 2000. Ocean County, with many commuters and the Garden State Parkway, led the state with 21 smog days. Camden County, which is across the Delaware River from Philadelphia and has its own traffic problems and industry, was second with 19 smog days.
Nationally, there were 4,634 instances of smog exceeding federal levels last year in 42 states and the District of Columbia. People in San Bernardino County, Calif., and Harris County, Texas, were exposed to the highest concentrations of smog in the nation. Eight states had no reports of high concentrations of smog last year.
The figures were garnered from statistics compiled by the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger.
West Windsor seeks hearing on Toll's environmental permit
By: Gwen Runkle , Staff Writer 08/23/2002
Township wants DEP to address flooding concerns
WEST WINDSOR - The battle between the township and developer Toll Brothers rages on - now over an environmental permit.
Township leaders and some neighbors fear Toll Brothers' 1,165-unit Estates at Princeton Junction housing development may cause a tributary of the Little Bear Brook to flood, threatening homes along Bear Brook Road, including the Windsor Haven housing development.
Both the township and the Windsor Haven Condominium Association have asked the appellate division of the state Superior Court to prevent Toll Brothers from obtaining a stream encroachment permit because they claim the state Department of Environmental Protection has not thoroughly checked over the developer's proposal.
But Toll Brothers claims the township and neighbors' appeals are just a last-ditch effort after years of litigation to stall their housing project and the developer recently asked the courts to accelerate consideration of the matter so the company can start to build
The stream encroachment permit is virtually the only thing preventing Toll Brothers from beginning construction, since a stay on site work was lifted by the state Supreme Court shortly after it ruled in favor of the developer in its affordable-housing case against the township on Aug. 1
Township Council President Charles Morgan calls Toll Brothers' claims "outrageous" and maintains the township is not trying to stall construction.
"We are not making a big deal out of the stream encroachment permit because we want to delay the project," he said. "We are making a big deal out of it because the DEP does not appear to have given us a fair opportunity to state our concerns and because we know that Toll is motivated to minimize their expenses and maximize their profits even if that means leaving West Windsor with flooding problems."
The DEP granted Toll Brothers a stream encroachment permit in November 2001. The township and members of the Windsor Haven Condominium Association requested a hearing and a stay of the permit the following month.
DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell issued an order denying the township and condominium association's requests on July 3. The township and the association appealed that decision later in July.
Toll Brothers filed its brief asking the court to make a quick decision Aug. 9.
"Resolution of this case represents the only significant remaining impediment to initiation of construction," Toll's court documents state. "Despite representing 'the largest inclusionary development in West Windsor' the Toll development has been delayed by litigation for nearly ten years. ... Further delays would merely perpetuate the township's longstanding failure to satisfy its Mount Laurel obligation required under the New Jersey Constitution and Fair Housing Act."
But Mr. Morgan finds this preposterous.
"Toll represents itself to be a quality builder," he said. "If West Windsor believed their representations, there would be a lot less resistance to their project.
"All they have to do is stand behind their promises," he continued. "Instead of giving us an opinion that their project won't flood us out, all they have to do is give us their guarantee that they won't flood us out."
Joseph O'Shea, president of the Windsor Haven Condominium Association, agreed. "We believe we have a good legal case," he said. "All we're asking is that Toll meet the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection standards."
Karen Cayci, a township attorney, and Paul Schneider, an attorney with the Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla law firm in Middletown representing Toll Brothers, were unavailable for comment.
©Packet Online 2002
Saturday, August 03, 2002
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - While New Jersey's major industrial waterways are largely cleaner than they were three decades ago, streams in developing areas are increasingly dirty.
The future of a grass-roots effort to protect the state's waterways from the effects of sprawling neighborhoods - the main culprit in the pollution - is tangled in debate.
The McGreevey administration is weighing whether to continue funding the local planning groups that have been assessing the health of the state's waterways amid doubts about whether the millions spent so far have produced enough results.
During former Gov. Christie Whitman's second term, the state Department of Environmental Protection gave more than $7 million in grants to local groups to identify sources of pollution in the state's 20 watersheds and to devise strategies to protect them, DEP officials said.
The Regional Planning Partnership in Mercer County, for example, received $400,000 to coordinate the assessment of the Delaware River watershed in this part of the state.
Some of the groups leading these efforts in New Jersey have recently acknowledged that much of the money was poorly spent, producing few results. But they are asking the new administration to allow them to finish the work, calling their grass-roots effort an essential step in building political support for sensible development throughout the state's hundreds of municipalities.
"We think eliminating the whole program, as discussed by some, is throwing the baby out with the bath water," said George Hawkins, director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, at an unusual press conference earlier this month in which he said the program "lacked a regulatory system and the backbone to make it go."
Hawkins is leading a coalition of nearly 40 environmental, planning and watershed groups urging the administration to continue working with local advisers.
Hawkins said the coalition is also calling on the McGreevey administration to calculate the effects on water supply and quality of developing all of the land in the state zoned for growth.
"Political administrations will come and go, but this effort has to be consistent - this grass-roots effort to understand changing land use and the amount of pollutants in our streams," he said.
DEP officials have not said whether they will renew all the contracts. The agency recently stopped funding a planning group in North Jersey.
"We are doing a watershed by watershed review," said DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell. "In most cases, we are making substantial changes - moving from planning to action."
Water tests show that much of the pollution in the state's lakes and streams is not industrial waste but the by-products of development - high water temperatures in streams where nearby trees have been stripped away, filthy runoff from paved surfaces and high nutrient levels from a variety of human activities.
But assigning cleanup responsibility has been a politically charged process that draws environmental advocates, dischargers and developers into heated debate.
Environmental advocates do not always agree on management strategies. Just after Gov. James E. McGreevey took office, a coalition of groups called on the new administration to tighten water quality standards for streams and reservoirs.
"It's most important that the state has to have clear direction and oversight to make sure that cleanup plans for the state's rivers are put in place. It's the state's responsibility," said Jeffrey Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, and a onetime critic of the state's watershed program. "The watershed program is important for education and outreach, and enlisting support for these cleanups."
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Regional approach to water pitched
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Water flow doesn't follow town borders.
That mantra comes from the regional planners who are striving to convince local town leaders that the shape and size of commercial and residential development can influence water quality for residents across the area.
"A regional focus is necessary to plan for water quality and supply," said Noelle Reeve, senior project planner for the Regional Planning Partnership, a local planning group.
"Watersheds, lands that drain to a stream, don't follow municipal boundaries so we will continue to cross municipal boundaries to ask mayors to think regionally about their streams and groundwater."
The partnership recently held a meeting for mayors and planning board members from six municipalities that share the Assunpink Creek and its tributaries to discuss ways to tailor growth in a way that doesn't diminish water quality.
Representatives of West Windsor, Lawrence, Hamilton and Ewing townships in Mercer County and Roosevelt, Upper Freehold and Millstone in Monmouth County attended the meeting in the West Windsor Municipal Building.
Reeve says many planning boards aren't aware of minor ways to control water flow such as clustering houses instead of spreading them out. Trees in the middle of parking lots and sloped curbs can also move water along better, she said.
"The problem with water rushing off a parking lot is that it hits the stream so fast and then it's gone," Reeve said. "A number of (the towns) share streams and all of their streams drain into the Assunpink."
Lawrence Mayor Doris Weisberg, who attended the meeting, said she wants to ensure that town leaders keep watch over water quality as a couple areas of the town are redeveloped.
"We are looking at ways to incorporate stormwater management and water preservation during redevelopment," Weisberg said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection contracted with the Regional Planning Partnership more than a year ago to manage watershed planning for the Central Delaware Tributaries.
The study area includes parts of western Hunterdon, Mercer and Monmouth counties whose streams flow into the Delaware River or the D&R Canal.
"Working with the municipalities . . . to figure out where growth should go and what areas should be preserved in order to protect stream quality and well water supply is the next step of the watershed planning project," Reeve said.
Abbie Fair of the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions said Mercer County faces two challenges: "To protect water resources it must promote redevelopment of areas that already have sewers and roads and it must carefully consider the location of development in its remaining undeveloped areas."
Copyright 2002 The Times
Thursday, June 27, 2002
PRINCETON TOWNSHIP - Linda Mead, executive director of the Delaware & Raritan Greenway Inc., received a $10,000 grant in recognition of her leadership role on land conservation in central New Jersey.
The grant accompanied a conservation award given to Mead this week by The Conservation Fund during a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington.
The award recognizes the land-preservation efforts of Mead and the Greenway in densely populated central New Jersey, where high property values make preservation particularly challenging.
"The judges felt that through your vision, leadership and dedication, you showed how much can be accomplished through partnerships and collaboration," Conservation Fund President Lawrence A. Selzer wrote in a letter to Mead.
Dennis Davidson, deputy administrator of New Jersey's Green Acres program, was among those who recommended Mead for the award.
"D&R Greenway has become a critical partner in reaching the state's ambitious open-space goals in New Jersey," Davidson has said.
The Greenway, central New Jersey's regional land trust, aims to protect and preserve open space.
Created in 1989, the Greenway has protected more than 4,600 acres of environmentally sensitive land worth $78 million, officials said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Offshore Oil Pollution Comes Mostly as Runoff, Study Says
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Most oil pollution in North American coastal waters comes not from leaking tankers or oil rigs, but rather from countless oil-streaked streets, sputtering lawn mowers and other dispersed sources on land, and so will be hard to prevent, a panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences says in a new report.
The thousands of tiny releases, carried by streams and storm drains to the sea, are estimated to equal an Exxon Valdez spill - 10.9 million gallons of petroleum - every eight months, the report says.
When fuel use on water, either inland or offshore, is also taken into account, the report says, about 85 percent of the 29 million gallons of marine oil pollution in North America each year comes from users - drivers, businesses, boaters - and not from the oil industry. In particular, spills from tankers, barges and other oil transport vessels totaled less than a quarter-million gallons in 1999, down from more than six million in 1990.
The shift follows a substantial tightening of environmental regulations on oil exploration and shipping since the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in 1989. The new report is the academy's third examination of marine oil pollution since 1975, but the first since the Exxon Valdez spill.
More than half the oil runoff in North America occurs along the East Coast from Virginia to Maine, the report said. That concentration of oil pollution, the authors said, reflects the density of people, vehicles and other sources in the corridor from Washington to Boston.
Oil carried in runoff is particularly damaging, the report said, because it typically ends up discharged by rivers and streams into bays and estuaries that "are often some of the most sensitive ecological areas along the coast." That relentless runoff carries traces of a host of chemicals that are found in most fuels and that can harm marine life even in low concentrations.
"We've all seen the sheen on the streets," said one author, Dr. Nancy N. Rabalais, a marine biology professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. "That eventually is going to run off and end up in a river. The cumulative effect of human activity all over the landscape eventually gets into the sea."
Worldwide, the panel estimated, 70 percent of marine oil pollution comes from fuel users, not producers or shippers.
The panel said one significant source of oil pollution, though a much smaller one than fuel use on land, was the two-cycle engines still used in many outboard boats and personal watercraft like Jet Skis. Those engines use a small amount of unburned fuel as lubricant and then expel it. The report encouraged the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to promote a shift to different engine designs, and groups representing the watercraft industry said yesterday the move was under way.
The academy's findings echo a growing consensus in recent years that "nonpoint" pollution, from countless dispersed sources, poses one of the nation's most serious and intractable environmental problems. With tankers or oil fields, specific agencies can require double hulls or dikes to hold back leaks, but no agency polices parking-lot runoff.
"There are lots of good regulations in the Clean Water Act that deal with point discharges, and we have the Coast Guard to deal with oil spills," Dr. Rabalais said. "But no matter whether it's pesticides, fertilizers, oil or grease, we're not to the point of managing these things. And they are very important."
The study, by 14 scientists and engineers, including some from the oil industry, was produced by the National Research Council, the branch of the National Academy of Sciences that conducts independent studies for the government.
While emphasizing the problem of oil pollution in runoff, the report noted a sharp drop in the number and volume of accidental spills by tankers and barges in American waters since the Valdez grounding. Even with that improved record, the report said, it is important for governments to continue intensifying safeguards against such accidents, because the transporting of oil around the world will increase steadily.
But it is just as important to start focusing on ways to better measure oil releases destined for waterways and to pinpoint their sources, the report said.
William D. Hickman, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group in Washington, said the report correctly highlighted both progress in the oil industry and continuing pollution problems.
The report also said more work should be done to understand the effect of oil seeping naturally from underwater deposits in the ocean. Humans release about 210 million gallons of petroleum a year into the seas, the report said, while natural seepage adds 180 million gallons.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Cherishing a nearby faraway place
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By MARIA CRAMER
HAMILTON - Paddling through these quiet waters, you can almost imagine yourself in the peaceful bays of Maine, Washington Township resident Leona Fluck reflected yesterday as she canoed on Crosswicks Creek.
"Except for those smokestacks, put those out of your mind," she said.
Fluck was referring to the PSE&G Mercer Generating Station, a coal-powered plant on Duck Island.
Deep inside the Hamilton/Trenton Marsh, away from traffic humming on Interstates 195 and 295, it is difficult to remember this is New Jersey, she said.
"It's hard to believe where we are," said Fluck.
About six years ago, the Delaware and Raritan Greenway, a nonprofit land conservancy group, cleaned about a dozen tons of trash that included everything from tires and car parts to washing machines, from the Hamilton/Trenton Marsh, allowing beavers and river otters to make a comeback.
Encroaching development now threatens the marsh.
Yesterday, Fluck, her husband George, and more than 70 environmentalists, state representatives, municipal leaders and school teachers, canoed along the creek from Bordentown Beach to Watson Woods in Hamilton then back to the beach.
They were invited by the Delaware and Raritan Greenway, which is trying to preserve more land around the marsh and promote it as an educational resource for nearby schools, especially those in Trenton.
"You represent the potential of this place to be recognized for the natural treasure that it is," said Linda Mead, executive director of the Greenway.
Crosswicks Creek, one of the tributaries of the Delaware River, runs through the Hamilton/Trenton Marsh, a 1,250-acre refuge for 812 species of plants, 60 varieties of fish and 237 types of birds, worthy of federal designation as a National Wildlife Refuge, said Mead.
Her organization is working with local leaders to buy land around the marsh to stem the negative effects of the development that surrounds it.
Usually, no one uses the creek, many canoeists said.
"It's like no one knows it's here," said Steve Obst, a township resident, who brought his kayak into the creek.
During the summer, however, personal watercraft tear through the creek noisily, disrupting wildlife and shattering the calm, said Fluck.
"Shame on them," she said.
Centuries ago, Lenape Indians would flock to Watson Woods in the spring, where they would drag in large sturgeon, some measuring up to 12 feet long, said Clyde Quinn, a Delaware and Raritan Greenway volunteer.
"Too many men and all the waste we put out choked them out" about 70 years ago, said Quinn.
On their way back to Bordentown Marina, where the participants had parked their cars, canoeists mourned the loss of the sturgeon and expressed hope in the wildlife that has returned in recent years.
Red-winged blackbirds, attracted by the wild rice that grows at least six feet on the marsh, come by the thousands in the fall, said George Fluck.
The municipalities that touch the marsh, including Hamilton, Trenton and Bordentown, have to coordinate to help set up links that would create a greenway, said Mead.
"That's the next real challenge," she said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Christie Whitman Holds Her Ground
May 7, 2002 Editorial
One big exception to the Bush administration's pro-industry attitude on environmental matters has been Christie Whitman's support of tough new restrictions on diesel-powered buses and trucks imposed by her predecessor at the Environmental Protection Agency, Carol Browner. Last week Mrs. Whitman's persistence paid off when a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington upheld the rules despite industry arguments that it did not have the technology to produce the cleaner fuels and engines the standards will require.
Environmentalists called the decision the biggest step forward for cleaner air since the removal of lead from gasoline more than 20 years ago - the equivalent of removing 13 million of the nation's 14 million trucks from the road.
The rules are aimed at reducing soot and smog-forming nitrogen oxides from diesel-powered trucks and buses by more than 90 percent beginning with the 2007 model year. The most important rule requires refiners to reduce the sulfur content in diesel fuel by 97 percent. That's crucial because sulfur clogs up a vehicle's catalytic converter, the device that removes pollutants from exhaust.
Mrs. Whitman supported these rules when she was governor of New Jersey. But she has not had much luck in pressing her views on the White House. This time she won her case, not only inside the government but in the D.C. Circuit, which has often been hostile to federal regulation. In an administration that is also suspicious of regulation, her resolve is commendable.
Copyright New York Times Company 2002
Cleaner fuel means cleaner air
To the editor:The recent news that New Jersey Transit will buy cleaner fuel for its 2,000 buses is welcome as a major public health and environmental protection measure. The American Lung Association of New Jersey commends Gov. McGreevey and his administration for making public health a high priority in their decision. Spending a little more now will save not only future health care costs, which can far exceed the additional cost of the cleaner fuel, but will also add much to the quality of life for many people.
Two years ago, industry lobbyists convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they could not even begin to clean up diesel pollution until 2006. The McGreevey administration has proven them wrong. The recent announcement that New Jersey Transit will start running its fleet on ultra-low-sulphur diesel fuel this July is proof that we can start now and need not subject ourselves to four-plus years of dirty diesel.
Cleaning up diesel pollution is particularly important in New Jersey because breathing the air in this state often presents an unacceptable health risk and diesel pollution is one of the major causes. Diesel pollution has been cited as a cause of cancer, heart disease, asthma and other diseases.
By doing what the lobbyists said was impossible, New Jersey has also opened the door to cleaning up other fleets of diesel vehicles such as municipal buses, garbage trucks and, most importantly, school buses. Children are among the most vulnerable to diesel pollution, and studies have shown that children receive large doses of this pollution on and near school buses. Asthma - the number one reason children miss school for health reasons and an increasing problem among New Jersey's children - can be caused or aggravated by diesel pollution.
Although cleaner ultra-low-sulphur diesel fuel is a little more expensive than the diesel fuel we currently see belching from trucks everywhere in the state, as more vehicles adopt this fuel the price difference will be reduced. Investing in ultra-low-sulphur fuel is one of the most cost-effective means of cutting pollution and protecting public health.
The road ahead is clear - we need ultra-low-sulphur fuel in all diesel vehicles in our state and, ultimately, we should use non-polluting alternative fuels. Such measures are needed more than ever because federal authorities are currently backing away from the air quality measures necessary for clean air, especially in densely traveled states like New Jersey. This national stance is impeding the painstaking progress toward clean air made over the last 30 years. The McGreevey administration has started New Jersey on the right track.
Grace Sinden
Chair
Environment and Occupational
Health Committee
American Lung Association
of New Jersey
Route 22
Union
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
By ANNE LEVIN
Its banks are peaceful now, interrupted only by birdsong and the occasional thumping of joggers' sneakers along its dirt paths. But the Delaware & Raritan Canal that snakes through Princeton was once a major transportation route, noisy with activity.
In what used to be the Princeton Basin off Alexander Road, lumber, coal and grocery dealers worked. There was a bottling plant. Small factories made bricks and window sashes. It was a settlement of more than 40 buildings, a vibrant center of 19th century life.
``From Tow Path to Bike Path: Princeton and the D&R Canal,'' the current exhibit at the Historical Society of Princeton's Bainbridge House, takes a look at the canal and its importance in area history. The show traces the development of the Princeton Basin and looks into the lives of the boatmen who plied the canal for a living during its century of commerce.
``It's a part of local history,'' says Dorothy Hartman, curator of the exhibit. ``This was a busy little community, a little village called Turning Basin Park. There were a couple of bars, a church, a blacksmith shop, a lumber yard, offices and a hotel. A number of businesses grew up around the Princeton Basin because of the canal. There was a railroad spur that went from the basin to the center of town.''
The canal is important, also, because of the Princeton-based Stockton family's involvement in its building.
Commodore Robert F. Stockton of Princeton and his father-in-law, John Potter, funded much of the construction of the canal which opened for business in 1834. This was the final link in the intercoastal waterway that extended from Massachusetts to Georgia.
``Canal fever'' had gripped the country after the opening in 1825 of the Erie Canal and many such waterways were built across the country.
``The road systems were so bad, and the railroads were not here yet, so cutting canals . . . (was) one of the best ways to move goods and services,'' says Hartman, who has a public history consulting firm in Montague.
``Once anthracite coal was discovered in the Jim Thorpe, Pa., area, the best way to transport it was by water,'' Montague continues. ``But the rivers were not navigable. So the best way to do it was with canals.''
During the Civil War, canals were used to transport troops and supplies. It was in the post-war years that canal income reached its peak. According to records, 2.9 million tons of coal were shipped by canal in 1871.
The D&R Canal's main use was for industrial transport, but a few recreational activities worked their way into its waters as well. The Princeton University rowing team used the canal for practice, but had to stop because of the heavy traffic.
``There were also steam packet boats,'' says Hartman. ``And because of Princeton University, there were a lot of excursions to attend events at Princeton. Rich alumni would bring their steam-powered sloops from New York to attend sporting events.''
By the late 19th century, the growth of railroads was taking a substantial bite out of canal traffic.
``Soon after the canals were completed, the railroads became popular,'' says Hartman. ``Once that happened, (the railroads) were choice because they could move goods year-round and were a lot more convenient. They overtook the canals very quickly.''
The D&R Canal's financial losses began in 1893, according to information from the D&R Canal State Park. It was used to transport ships and troops during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Pleasure boating increased and reached its height in the 1920s and the canal was used by rum-runners and bootleggers to transport liquor during Prohibition.
But the economic bust of the 1930s caused a decrease in pleasure boating and the transport of goods and the canal ceased operations in 1932.
``The canals declined in popularity, and then the State of New Jersey took over and used it as a water supply source, which they still do,'' says Hartman. ``Now, we know it as a wonderful greenway.''
By the 1970s, the D&R Canal was used more and more for recreational purposes. Delaware & Raritan State Park was established by the state in 1974, one year after the canal was declared a National Historic Site.
The Historical Society of Princeton played a major role in the preservation of the canal route as a park.
``They have a very good collection of photos of the canal era,'' says Hartman. ``Primarily, the flat material in the show comes from their collection. We were also lucky enough to work with the National Canal Museum of Easton, Princeton University and the Canal Society of New Jersey to get materials for the exhibit.''
Hartman hopes the exhibit will enlighten visitors about the canal's environmental issues as well as its history. Most of all, she hopes to convey a feeling of what life was like along the canal more than a century ago.
``I think about being pulled along by mules and what a slow, steady pace that would be,'' she says. ``It was almost like taking a long walk - so much slower than what we're used to. It was an opportunity to go back and reflect and that's what we hope to show.''
``From Tow Path to Bike Path: Princeton and the D&R Canal'' at the Bainbridge House, 158 Nassau St., Princeton; Tuesdays to Sundays, from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. (609) 921-6748
Copyright 2002 The Times.
N.J. will buy cleaner fuel for buses
Friday, April 26, 2002
TRENTON - The state will purchase clean-burning, low-sulfur fuel for its fleet of 2,000 diesel buses, reversing a decision made by NJ Transit earlier this year.
The new fuel, to be delivered in July, will cost an additional $1.6 million a year, a consideration that prompted the cash-strapped agency in February to postpone the purchase.
State transportation officials said yesterday the fuel used by these buses is highly polluting.
The fuel switch, they said, will reduce tailpipe emissions of sulfur dioxide by 90 percent and soot by 25 percent. The cleaner fuel has 15 parts per million of sulfur, as compared with 300 parts per million.
``When faced with decisions about costs or the public health, we must remain committed to protecting our residents, especially those in urban areas of the state,'' said James Fox, the state transportation commissioner.
Environmental advocates applauded the decision.
``It's significant,'' said David Pringle, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. ``Despite the budget problems, the commissioners are prioritizing public health. The long-term public health benefits of this initiative far outweigh the short-term costs.''
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Governor McGreevey Protects Drinking Water on Earth Day
Sierra Club, April 22, 2002
Trenton, NJ - On the shores of the Round Valley Reservoir, New Jersey's largest reservoir, the state's five largest environmental and outdoor recreation groups today, Earth Day, joined Governor McGreevey and DEP Commissioner Campbell as they announced a major initiative to significantly strengthen protections of key waterways across the state.
"Governor McGreevey has given us lot to celebrate this Earth Day. This initiative, the latest in a list of very positive actions taken by the Administration to protect the environment, gives substantial new protections to the state's last clean water sources. We look forward to working with the Administration to implement it," said Dena Mottola, Acting Director of NJPIRG.
Prior to the announcement, special designation was applied narrowly to the state's waterways, failing to protect 14 of the state's 15 largest reservoirs and most of the state's largest rivers and streams that serve as drinking water sources. The presence of trout reproduction was the primary factor in determining which New Jersey waterways receive special protective designation.
"The Governor's announcement today represents a sea change from the Whitman Administration - factoring in public health, landscape, and stream ecology in developing protections for water supplies may seem like common sense, but until now, they were all too commonly ignored," said David Pringle, Campaign Director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
In addition to the 9 reservoirs and 6 streams that will immediately receive increased protections, the Governor announced 1) a more comprehensive list of upgrades will be developed over the next months and 2) these protections will be integrated into all of the relevant DEP water rules.
"Anytime we protect streams, it enhances protection for fish habitat and the environment. The New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs and the Jersey Coast Anglers Association are happy the Governor is taking the first step in upgrading more of New Jersey streams and working towards the goal of making all of New Jersey streams fishable," said Tom Fote, Legislative Chairman of both groups.
"Congratulations to the Governor for protecting the water supply for millions of people in New Jersey. Now reservoirs will have more protection than a mud puddle in a parking lot. This will not only mean better quality water, but it gives us some tools to stop sprawl from affecting water quality in reservoirs," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
The 15 reservoirs and streams to immediately receive heightened protection from pollution under a proposal announced Monday by Gov. James E. McGreevey (Statehouse AP Bureau, 4/22/02):
Round Valley Reservoir-- Clinton, Hunterdon County.
Doughty Reservoir -- Egg Harbor, Galloway, Absecon, Atlantic County.
Oradell Reservoir -- Harrington Park, Closter, Haworth, Emerson, Oradell, Bergen County.
Charlottesburg Reservoir -- Rockaway, Morris County.
Boonton Reservoir -- Boonton Township, Morris County.
Swimming River Reservoir -- Colts Neck, Monmouth County.
Glendola Reservoir -- Wall, Monmouth County.
Manasquan Reservoir -- Howell, Monmouth County.
Wanaque Reservoir -- Ringwood, Wanaque, Passaic County.
South Branch Rockaway Creek -- Clinton, Lebanon, Readington, Hunterdon County.
Sidney Brook -- Clinton, Union, Franklin, Hunterdon County.
Flatbrook -- Walpack, Sussex County.
Pequest Tributary -- Liberty, Mansfield, Warren County.
Assicunk Creek -- Springfield, Mansfield, Burlington County.
Beaver Brook -- Clinton, Hunterdon County.
State's plan will protect waterways
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
CLINTON (AP) - Drinking water for millions of New Jersey residents - and an obscure but ecologically significant shellfish - would gain additional protection from pollution under an initiative announced yesterday by Gov. James E. McGreevey.
Nine reservoirs and six streams - including one in Burlington County and four in Hunterdon County - are to be protected from future waste discharges from sources such as developers, industrial plants or sewage companies. Current discharges would not be covered.
The nine reservoirs provide drinking water to about 3.5 million New Jersey residents, officials said.
``We all recognize that our earth, our land, our water is fundamentally a finite resource,'' McGreevey said. The current drought serves as a reminder that state government must do more to protect drinking water, he said.
Federal research has shown for years the importance of the waterways designated, said McGreevey, who criticized previous administrations for not doing enough.
``The science is incontrovertible,'' he said. ``Clearly the state possessed the necessary documentary evidence.''
After a public hearing process, the standards will go into effect in about nine months, according to Bradley Campbell, commissioner for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Environmental groups and developers alike praised the initiative, saying it will help keep New Jersey's waterways clean.
``It doesn't mean you can't build,'' said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter. ``If you build you're going to have to meet the highest standards possible.''
Builders' groups will continue to work with the administration to clarify the proposed regulations, according to Patrick O'Keefe, head of the New Jersey Builders Association.
``We take the view that clean water like decent housing is one of life's basic necessities,'' said O'Keefe. ``I don't think the two goals are incompatible. In fact, I think they're mutually reinforcing.''
In Burlington, the Assiscunk Creek in Springfield and Mansfield townships would be protected, and in Hunterdon, the Round Valley Reservoir, South Branch Rockaway Creek, Sidney Brook and Beaver Brook would be regulated.
Federal officials say two of the streams singled out for protection are home to the rare Dwarf Wedge Mussel, a quarter-sized shellfish whose presence is considered an indicator of pure water. The mussel can be found in only a handful of places down the Eastern seaboard.
Increasing protection of the waterways is a way to allow New Jersey to protect both endangered species and the purity of its water.
``The idea of upgrading is to provide a little more assurance that the state could, in how it manages its water quality program, maintain the quality of these streams at their current levels, rather than allowing them to degrade,'' said Tim Kubiak, who works in New Jersey for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife.
State and environmental officials said they will be working over the next nine months to identify other waterways that warrant the increased protection.
``There are certainly other waters that don't have federal or state protected species that deserve that protection,'' Kubiak said. ``Every state has the ability to do it, and there's always going to be constraints, whether they're fiscal, or knowledge, or even political constraints.''
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Marshes, Wherever They Are, Stay Dry
The State Finds That Many Projects to Recreate Wetlands Have Been Ineffective, but Won't Identify Them
By Jeremy Pearce
Sunday, April 21, 2002, New Jersey Section, Page 6
Eaten away in the hunger for new houses, roads and shopping centers, New Jersey's marshes and wetland meadows have been declining for decades.
State law directs developers to replace the wetlands they harm or destroy, often by creating new habitat that has ranged from rush-filled ponds to pockets of shrubby forest.
But most of those efforts have been failures, according to a study issued earlier this month by the state Department of Environmental Protection. In a collision of science and politics, environmentalists place the blame largely on lapses in the administration of former Gov. Christie Whitman.
"Builders weren't even applying for permits and went ahead and destroyed wetlands," said Tom Gilmore, president of the New Jersey Audubon Society. "There was little enforcement under Whitman, and that was a crime."
Last week, officials of the McGreevey administration were quick to reinforce that blame, although they declined to release the locations or even the counties of 90 freshwater; areas examined in the four-year study. Instead, Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell brushed off requests for specifics while vowing the beginning of a sterling age in enforcing wetlands laws.
Calling the state's past efforts "a dismal failure," Mr. Campbell said that stiffer policing, closer supervision by state biologists and other safeguards would soon be in place to ensure the success of future wetlands projects.
"There has been laxness in the past," he said. "There's a new commitment to wetlands enforcement in this administration."
But Pete McDonough, who served as communications director during Governor's Whitman's second term, denied Mr. Campbell's assertion. Rather than being an issue of enforcement, Mr. McDonough said, the problem is that lawmakers who drafted New Jersey's landmark wetlands law in 1987 misjudged the difficulty of the task before them.
"You won't find a developer in New Jersey who agrees with Mr. Campbell's statement," he said.
While environmental groups are hailing the study, which tries to rate the quality of artificial wetlands, builders grumble that clear direction from the state has been lacking.
The study found that in general, replacement projects tended to be too small and fragmented to create wetlands of any lasting worth. In fact, the 90 projects, which were intended to create 297 acres of fresh wetlands, resulted in only 187 acres of varying quality, according to the study.
"The developer does what the state department tells him to do," said Nancy Wittenberg, director of environmental affairs for the New Jersey Builders Association. "This is a new field of science, and an ever-evolving new field. There are gaps of knowledge."
The high incidence of failure has led scientists to doubt the merit of even trying to recreate wetlands. The areas are valued as buffers for floodwaters, filters for storm runoff, nurseries for cranberries and shelters for a complex web of plants and wildlife. Natural wetlands like the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Somerset County are known to harbor bog turtles, American bitterns, blue-spotted salamanders and a raft of other endangered and threatened species-all within the backyard of some of the state's most dense suburbs.
The recent state report underscored that observation, remarking on New Jersey's widespread failure in building forested wetlands, in particular. Although forest projects made up nearly half of all mitigation proposals, only one percent of the projects succeeded.
"The thinking is that you can duplicate," said Richard Kane, a naturalist with the Audubon Society for four decades. "But to think we can recreate a wetland in an eye-blink of time is simply dreaming.
Still, Mr. Campbell is hoping to turn those figures around through a volley of solutions. He said that a proposed $1.5 million increase to his department's enforcement budget would allow for the hiring of more staff members who specialize in wetlands. Bonding assurances, once overlooked, said Mr. Campbell, will be required to guarantee a financial commitment to fledgling projects.
In a new policy, state biologists will be sent to wetlands projects in the field before signing off on the same projects at their completion. Finally, Mr. Campbell said that he was drafting a proposal to consolidate enforcement powers now apportioned between his department's six internal divisions. Such a move would make policing swifter and more efficient, he said. Regardless, state records show that wetlands fines and violation notices did experience a rise during the Whitman administration, from 90 notices and $56,000 in fines levied in 1999, to 144 notices and $689,800 levied in 2001.
As it stands, New Jersey's protocol for protecting wetlands has rarely yielded satisfaction to either environmentalists seeking stronger measures or the developers who are forced to contend with it. Before the New Jersey Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act was passed in 1987, the state was losing fragile marshes and wet forestlands at a rate estimated at 1,755 acres each year. Since then, losses have slowed to about 150 acres annually, but still have not satisfied a state mandate to reverse the process and actually boost wetland acreage.
"The state's laws have to some extent been a failure, : said Dr. Joan Ehrenfeld, head of the Rutgers Water Resources Research Institute and a peer reviewer for the state study. "They're based on the assumption that you can make up for the destruction after the fact. That assumption turns out not to be true."
Under the law, developers that are granted state permits to build on or near wetlands must enhance, restore or recreate up to twice the amount of acreage they damage. If it is not possible to do so at the building site, they must attempt a project within the same watershed. If that also proves impossible, they can purchase credits from a private wetlands mitigation bank, which buys land and keeps it clear of development in perpetuity. ,
The Nature Conservancy's New Jersey chapter opened just such a bank in 1994, after setting aside 1,000 acres in the Delaware River basin. In recent years, similar wetlands banks have appeared in Morris, Essex, Bergen, Monmouth, Middlesex, Salem and Gloucester Counties. But unlike most other banks, the conservancy has yet to find-or rather to accept-a single depositor.
"We have been very choosy," said Michael Catania, the group's executive director and a former deputy environmental commissioner in the Kean and Florio administrations. "We don't want our bank to in effect support a developer opening a strip mall, then turning to us to buy mitigation credits."
With the very notion of creating wetlands now in question, all parties wonder about more substantial solutions. In the 100 years before 1970-an age that reckoned wetlands to be swamps and mosquito-plagued wasteland, good only for draining to make room for housing tracts or crop fields-New Jersey saw 39 percent of its wetlands pass away.
"The poet Joyce Kilmer was right when he said that only God can make a tree," said. Mr. Catania. "I guess we're finding out that only God can make a wetland."
Copyright The New York Times 2002
Offer of help OK'd with reservations
By: David Campbell, Staff Writer April 19, 2002
Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association offers services to Princeton Environmental Commission.
The Princeton Environmental Commission on Wednesday night responded favorably but with caution to an environmental organization's offer to help Princeton map its future planning.
Noelle Mackay of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association asked the commission to consider a Watershed program that analyzes existing policies in relation to long-range planning and environmental goals.
"We go through a very detailed assessment and see if there are any gaps," Ms. Mackay said.
Princeton political leaders and appointees as well as planning professionals would be asked to provide information on policy goals, then the Watershed would prepare a report that analyzes that input in relation to the Master Plan and existing planning and zoning regulations, Ms. Mackay said.
The assessment would supplement ongoing Master Plan revisions and bring the Watershed's regional expertise to bear on local planning, she said.
Montgomery Township agreed in March to take part in the program, which the Watershed offers virtually free of charge to municipalities using grants from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.
The Watershed expects to release its report for Hopewell Township, which signed onto the program about a year ago, by the end of the month, Ms. Mackay said, but noted Montgomery's report should take only four months to complete.
East Windsor, Lawrence and Hopewell Borough have agreed to participate and West Windsor Township has expressed interest, Ms. Mackay said.
Environmental commission members responded favorably to the Watershed's offer.
"I think we'd be foolish not to take advantage of it," said commission member Douglas Schleifer, and Gail Ullman said, "This would be another check to our process."
But the commission expressed concern about potential time demands on Princeton planning professionals and questioned how such a commitment would benefit planning measures already in place.
"I think we need more information first," said Commission Vice Chair David Breithaupt. "We want to make sure the benefits really are substantial."
The commission also was unclear about the role it and Princeton's governing bodies would take in the program, and delayed its recommendation until a course of action could be devised.
Mr. Schleifer and Princeton Township Shade Tree Commission Chairwoman Lily Krause, who was present Wednesday night, said they would look into the Watershed program and canvass Princeton's mayors and members of the Princeton Regional Planning Board, and report their findings at the next commission meeting.
©Packet Online 2002
Friday, April 12, 2002
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - In an unusually harsh appraisal, New Jersey environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell yesterday called state measures designed to stem the loss of protected wetlands a ``dismal'' failure.
Rather than creating two acres of wetlands for every acre lost to development, as New Jersey's strict regulations require, a far smaller amount of wetlands is actually restored properly, Campbell said, citing a DEP study of the state's wetlands mitigation program released yesterday.
Indeed, less than half of the wetlands that developers were required to create to replace the ones they built over in the construction of roads and buildings actually reached the size proposed or function properly, the study found. Efforts to recreate forested wetlands fell farthest from the mark, with a success rate of just 1 percent.
At 16 of the 90 freshwater wetlands sites studied, no wetlands were created at all.
The study's bleak results stand in marked contrast to the state's ambitious standards, which are stricter even than federal regulations.
``Despite a stated goal of achieving a net gain, we're actually in a posture, it appears, where we are sustaining a 22 percent loss,'' Campbell said, adding that he would redouble efforts to prevent wetlands from being filled in the first place.
``Mitigation is always a last resort,'' he said.
Campbell said the state would step up its oversight of mitigation projects, require developers to take out bonds to ensure there are funds to complete them and prove that the wetlands they create actually function properly, among other measures.
According to current practices, environmental consultants sign off on a project's design but do not inspect the site once it is completed.
Campbell said the names of developers, both public and private, were left out of the report since the DEP plans to review each of the cases ``to see if enforcement is needed.'' The agency does not yet have enough information to determine why projects failed.
``In some cases, (the developer) may not be aware of the failure,'' he said.
Campbell put much of the blame for the program's failure on what he called shoddy oversight by the previous administration, saying, ``The will to protect seems to have eroded.''
Once viewed as breeding grounds for disease, wetlands are now prized as filters for natural and man-made pollutants, absorbing water during floods and providing a habitat for plants and animals.
Under New Jersey rules, developers are allowed to replace the wetlands they fill by restoring former wetlands, creating new ones, contributing funds to state-monitored sites called ``mitigation banks'' and agreeing to preserve land as open space.
The study's authors sited poor hydrological conditions at many of the sites, particularly at the ones that relied most heavily on stormwater runoff.
``It's hit-or-miss,'' said Ernest Hahn, an assistant DEP commissioner, who added that the agency would urge developers to restore sites with natural hydrology, such as former farm fields established in wetlands.
Environmental advocates say the amount of wetlands lost each year is larger than what is accounted for in development permits because it is difficult to tabulate the wetlands lost in small development projects that fall below the regulators' radar screen.
According to state estimates, New Jersey lost nearly 40 percent of its wetlands between the 1870s and 1970s. More recently, viewing aerial photographs, DEP researchers determined that the state lost nearly 16,000 acres of wetlands between 1986 and 1995.
Yesterday's report was one of many in recent days outlining the difficulties in recreating wetlands.
A National Academy of Sciences study last year, for example, warned that some wetlands, including bogs and fens, cannot be restored and should not be filled.
``This study demonstrates what we already know by instinct - that nature locates wetlands where they ought to be and that covering them over with concrete and thinking you can recreate them elsewhere is a flawed concept,'' said George Hawkins, director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.
Environmentalists say that sites created by private developers are not the only ones to fail. Jeffrey Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said restored wetlands along some of New Jersey's highways fared particularly poorly.
``There is a site in Mahwah that took stormwater from Route 287 and it ended up silting in with gravel and soda bottles,'' he said.
A study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the 1990s found as many as 40 percent of mitigation sites did not meet the specifications of their own plans or permits.
Eric Schrading, a senior biologist with the federal agency, said the state had responded to the report by putting more emphasis on mitigation banking - soliciting contributions from developers for larger, state-selected and monitored sites rather than having them perform their own restorations.
He said the state had collected a lot of money, ``but they haven't spent much of it.'' None of those sites was included in the DEP study.
Patrick O'Keefe, president of the New Jersey Builders Association, said he will urge the DEP to establish more of the banks, however, noting that ``oversight by the DEP is much greater and they can prioritize where they want the mitigation to occur.''
In 1999, when the study began, the state had approved 171 freshwater wetlands mitigation sites, ranging in size from .08 acres to 41.20 acres. As proposed, the 90 sites studied included a total of 326 acres.
The researchers did not examine tidal wetlands restorations in the study, although those projects are some of the largest in the state. Public Service Electric & Gas, the state's largest electric utility, is restoring more than 2,000 acres of wetlands near the Salem nuclear plant, for example.
Tidal wetlands account for just over 20 percent of the state's wetlands acres.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
N.J. objects to Bush anti-smog plan
Monday, April 08, 2002
By TRACEY L. REGAN
TRENTON - The Northeast could become a ``dumping ground'' for pollution from the Midwest under the Bush administration's plan to control toxic air emissions from power plants, New Jersey officials contend.
The ``Clear Skies'' plan, unveiled by President Bush in broad terms this past February, proposes a nationwide cap on emissions of three air pollutants - nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury - and gives the industry wide flexibility in making the required reductions.
The plan would, for example, allow power companies to pay for pollution control devices for their generators or to buy credits, allowing them to pollute, from companies that reduce their emissions below their allotted limit.
Environmental regulators here fear that large coal-fired plants in the Midwest may be some of the largest buyers of emissions credits, putting the Northeast at the receiving end of a great deal of pollution that travels on prevailing winds from that region in this direction.
``There are absolutely no safeguards in the plan to prevent New Jersey from being a dumping ground for upwind pollution,'' said Bradley Campbell, commissioner for the state Department of Environmental Protection, who recently sent a three-page letter to the Environmental Protection Agency conveying his concerns about the Clear Skies plan.
Campbell said that environmental regulators from the Northeast will oppose Bush's proposal, while backing measures in Congress to adopt an alternate measure that would better protect this region.
Northeastern states, which argue that they cannot now meet federal air quality standards because of the pollution that crosses their borders, have filed lawsuits against several Midwestern power companies to force them to reduce emissions. They are adamant about retaining the right under the federal Clean Air Act to bring these legal actions.
Campbell and others argue that power plants in states like New Jersey are at a competitive disadvantage with respect to the Midwest, because they have been forced to make expensive investments in emissions controls in order to meet federal air quality standards. Future industrial output will be constrained, they say, if the region is prevented from attaining these standards.
Bush promotes his plan as an alternative to what he calls expensive lawsuits, however.
``It will replace a confusing, ineffective maze of regulations for power plants that has created an endless cycle of litigation,'' Bush said in a speech on the plan in February at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland. His plan would replace the country's current air pollution programs.
Because the plan would reduce overall pollution, administration officials argue, states like New Jersey would benefit. ``With Clear Skies, there will be such a dramatic cut in emissions that whatever pollution is transported will be dramatically less as well,'' said Joseph Martyak, a spokesman for EPA administrator Christie Whitman.
Bush's plan would take place in two stages, cutting emissions of sulfur dioxide by an estimated 73 percent, nitrogen oxides by 67 percent, and mercury by 69 percent by 2018.
But in his March 27 letter to Jeffrey Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator for air programs, Campbell argued that current laws, including a provision in the Clean Air Act that requires companies to implement pollution controls when they modernize or expand, would bring greater reductions in pollution.
Environmental advocates agree.
Frank O'Donnell, director of the Washington-based Clean Air Trust, said that the EPA's own analysis last year suggested that the current law would bring sharper reductions.
``Clear Skies would require a change in this law,'' he said. ``Congress would have to rewrite the Clean Air Act.''
PSEG Power, the state's largest electric utility, has already made substantial reductions in emissions and backs a plan to cut emissions of carbon dioxide as well.
``We will be watching this procedure closely to see what exactly the details are,'' said Neil Brown, a spokesman for the company. ``We will be very vigilant.''
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Back to top
www.transact.org, April 2, 2002
A three-judge panel of the United States Federal Court of Appeals ruled for the second time on March 26, 2002 on critical new health-based clean air standards, firmly rejecting industry's renewed challenges to overturn the standards. On May 14, 1999, the same panel of judges ruled 2-1 that the standards were unconstitutional, only to be reversed in a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court on February 27, 2001. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the clean air standards at issue in 1997 to protect public health by limiting nationwide pollution levels of smog (ground-level ozone) and fine, sooty particles.
When EPA issued the standards in 1997, it estimated that when implemented the standards would protect 125 million Americans from adverse health effects of air pollution. Since then, a body of scientific research has only strengthened the medical basis for the standards. On March 6, 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study of 500,000 people across the country finding that prolonged exposure to air contaminated with fine particles significantly raises the risk of dying of lung cancer or other heart and lung diseases. Other recent studies have linked the pollutants at issue with increased risk of asthma in children (The Lancet, 2002; JAMA, 2001); acute stroke mortality (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002); and birth defects (American Journal of Epidemiology, 2002). A study of the 90 largest U.S. cities found strong evidence linking daily increases in particulate pollution at contemporary levels to increases in daily death rates, and in hospital admissions of the elderly (Health Effects Institute, 2000). Another study has indicated that chronic exposure to particulate pollution may shorten lives by one to three years (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2000).
For more information, visit
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=1868
Clean-water groups struggle to set plan
Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/01/02
By TODD B. BATES
ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER"The water looks good," said K. Thomas Kellers, Monmouth County watershed program coordinator, as he stood on a bridge overlooking the Manasquan River, near Allaire State Park in Wall.
It's one of only three largely clean river or stream locations in Monmouth County, Keller said. And he'd like to keep it that way.
Kellers, other officials and citizens are midway through a four-year effort to develop a plan for "Watershed Management Area 12," which includes much of Monmouth County and parts of Ocean and Middlesex counties. One goal is to restore and enhance water quality and supplies at watersheds, areas that drain into a single river or other body of water.
But the state Department of Environmental Protection wants to reform the watershed program "before any additional taxpayer funding goes out the door," DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell said last week. The agency will meet its contractual obligations, he added.
There's been "too much talk and planning and too little real progress in protecting clean water," Campbell said. "I think generally, many groups, including Area 12, have done good work, and we need to make sure as we reform the program that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
The DEP, under then-Gov. Christie Whitman, launched the watershed program after signing the 1997 Watershed Protection and Management Act. The DEP wants officials, citizens and others to develop blueprints for protecting surface water and groundwater supplies and for reducing pollution in 20 large watershed areas across New Jersey.
Area 12 has six small subwatersheds, including the Bayshore, North Coast, Mid-Coast, South Coast, Navesink/Swimming River and Manasquan. The subwatersheds drain primarily in eastern Monmouth County, with water flowing into Raritan Bay or the Atlantic Ocean.
Since late 2000, officials and citizens in Area 12 have organized a congress, formed regional councils covering the subwatersheds, and discussed environmental issues. The group is seeking consultants' proposals to develop a $200,000 "Monmouth Coastal Watersheds Plan" by mid-2003, and other work is under way, Kellers said.
Issues include fecal pollution; fertilizers and lawn chemicals; litter; erosion; sedimentation of rivers, streams and lakes; a lack of sites for disposing of dredge spoils; loss of forests to development; and the need for a drought management plan, according to documents.
"We think we've made more progress than other watershed management areas in the state," said Kellers, who chairs the Area 12 executive committee.
The DEP funding issue is "a matter of concern," he said. He called Campbell's statement that the DEP will meet its contractual obligations good news.
"Up to this time, DEP has been very supportive of the work," Kellers said.
Worry over funding
Most participants interviewed praised the Area 12 effort, although some expressed concerns about funding or other issues.
Brian F. Hegarty, president of the nonprofit Shark River Cleanup Coalition Inc., called the Area 12 effort a "good step in the right direction, although it's an extremely bureaucratic process. It's just taken a tremendous amount of time. They haven't gotten any funding down to the local level, which is where the money is really needed.
"We are facing huge problems with stormwater runoff affecting our rivers and streams," Hegarty said. "We're talking about oil, gasoline, fertilizer from lawns, cigarette butts, trash of all kinds. And all of this stuff is affecting our drinking water, it's affecting our bathing beaches, and something needs to be done about it."
Kellers said DEP money is to be directed toward local projects, and "we recognize that there were some concerns . . . about bureaucratic procedures." The Area 12 group doesn't want to interfere with the Shark River coalition's work and is ready to help, he said.
The DEP has earmarked $600,000 for Area 12, has authorized $400,000 in spending and has given the county $90,000 so far, according to Kellers.
Three of the state's top environmental groups recently called on Gov. McGreevey and the Legislature to shift funding temporarily from watershed grants to water-protection programs.
In a letter to activists last week, Campbell said McGreevey's budget plan for fiscal 2003, which begins July 1, "provides flexibility to reallocate resources in watershed protection," allowing the DEP to increase funding for environmental enforcement by 5 percent.
Some of the watershed-management areas have "done much more useful work than others, but on the whole, it's a program that has been lacking in direction and leadership," Campbell said in an interview.
McGreevey's proposal to reform the corporate business tax will provide additional funding for efforts such as the water-shed program over the long term, Campbell said.
Rule overturned
During the Whitman adminis-tration, the DEP drafted water-quality and watershed-management rules that were attacked by activists, legislators, builders and others. Her administration adopted a portion of the rules, requiring environmental impact studies for even small developments with septic systems, in January 2001.
The Appellate Division of state Superior Court this month overturned the septic rule, saying the DEP adopted it without the required public notice and opportunity for public com-ment.
Campbell said officials are reviewing the decision, and "it's an appropriate point to review" the draft watershed rules and address concerns about them.
"Our most immediate concern . . . with the court's decision is the prospect of losing the pro-tection of the (septic) rule while we consider what chang-es may be appropriate in the rule," he said.
Manasquan Mayor John Winterstella, who is on the Area 12 executive committee, said a draft of state stormwater rules is to be released this spring, and "the role of the watershed groups across the state will be critical to the success of the stormwater program."
Steve Taylor, watershed manager of the Manasquan River Watershed Association, said the group has developed a model stormwater ordinance for towns, is working with schools and is about to launch a pilot initiative for clean marinas, among other efforts.
The association is implement-ing a 2-year-old plan aimed at protecting and restoring natural resources in the river's far-reaching watershed area.
Vincent Domidion, who chairs the Colts Neck Environmental Commission and is a member of the Area 12 executive com-mittee, said the challenge is to get citizens and municipalities involved in the watershed man-agement effort.
"Those people are going to have to be there" if the effort is to be successful, he said.
Area 12 Watershed Management Partnership:
www.visit-monmouth.com/area12/DEP Division of Watershed Management:
www.state.nj.us/dep/watershedmgt/
Gray Is Pushing Out Green When It Comes to Infrastructure
By Roger K. Lewis
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page H03With the onset of spring, trees are budding and leaf canopies are taking shape. But did you know that, each year, there are slightly fewer trees leafing in Washington than the year before?
"Trees in Washington have been disappearing since the first half of the 20th century," The Washington Post reported recently. In 1973, trees covered 37 percent of the District's land, according to American Forests, a nonprofit conservation group. By 1996 that was down to 20 percent.
Some of the tree loss is caused by diseases and pests. But much of it is attributable to "gray" infrastructure supplanting "green" infrastructure.
Gray infrastructure is what we build: roads, parking lots, utilities and buildings.
Green infrastructure is what nature provides: trees and forests, rivers and streams, wetlands and open space. Parks and playgrounds, oaks shading city streets, public and private gardens, drainage swales and flood plains are all parts of green infrastructure.
The disappearance of urban vegetation and trees is clearly an aesthetic loss. But it also means faster rainwater runoff, with less groundwater absorption to recharge aquifers, diminished wildlife habitat, reduced air quality, higher summertime temperatures and greater energy consumption for air conditioning.
To help reverse this trend, the Regional Planning Partnership, a nonprofit organization based in Princeton, N.J., published, "The Green Infrastructure Guide: Planning for a Healthy Urban and Community Forest," for which I provided illustrations. The guide's premise is that green and gray infrastructures are intertwined and together constitute "an ecosystem in which each element is dependent on the others."
Proper balance and functioning of both types of infrastructure are vital to maintaining the quality of community life and ensuring community sustainability.
If the environmental, economic and social values of green infrastructure were fully recognized, the guide asserts, it would be considered no less essential than what's made of concrete, asphalt, masonry and steel. Thus "greening gray infrastructure" should be a primary goal of American communities' planning and development policies.
The guide points out that most people understand and generally support the enormous investments made in gray infrastructure. The design, financing, operation and maintenance are sponsored by long-established public and private institutions -- transportation and public works authorities, utility companies, school boards and the real estate development industry.
But, historically, green infrastructure per se has been neglected or, at best, assigned low priority. It lacks the kind of entrenched, institutional constituency enjoyed by gray infrastructure.
"Although people may readily see the aesthetic reasons for preserving natural resources, they may never think about the pragmatic reasons for doing so," the guide notes. "Thinking only of the pleasure they give us, we overlook how essential trees and rivers are to the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink and ignore the monetary value they add to our property."
In recent decades, many state, county and municipal governments have enacted guidelines and regulations mandating minimum amounts of open space within new communities. Efforts to preserve valuable natural landscapes and wildlife habitats, either through property acquisition or protective easements, have greatly increased. Some jurisdictions, such as the District and Maryland, have even adopted tree-preservation and slope-protection ordinances.
But much of the American metropolitan landscape still remains susceptible to development shaped exclusively by antiquated zoning provisions, inflexible gray infrastructure demands and economic forces. On the list of land development requirements, protecting trees or other natural features on a site is likely to be last. Too often, expediting mass grading and satisfying the needs of parking and building construction mean bulldozing a site and sacrificing most of its green.
As part of the remedy, the guide recommends various smart-growth strategies: planning regionwide based on natural watersheds; linking new development to existing gray infrastructure; increasing density and diversifying uses in neighborhoods well served by transit; redeveloping "brown fields," land where there was prior development; creating interconnected, regional greenways serving both people and wildlife; and reforming zoning to promote and protect green infrastructure.
In a chapter entitled "The Environmentally Unsound Suburban Landscape," the guide condemns America's ubiquitous high-maintenance grass lawns with their unquenchable thirst for water and need for environmentally degrading fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. It proposes reducing lawns and replacing them with meadows and water-conserving, native vegetation.
The guide talks about "greening" parking lots with water-pervious paving and more trees and shrubs; about installing and maintaining proper species of trees to enhance city streetscapes; about planting swales and storm water detention basins with vegetation other than grass; and about restoring neglected streams and those that have been forced unnecessarily into underground pipes.
All these tactics enhance the quality and usefulness of green infrastructure while reducing the demand for gray infrastructure. But they also can help microclimates and protect both upstream and downstream water resources, an especially significant benefit in regions where the supply and quality of water are threatened.
The guide also addresses implementation -- who are the players in the planning process, what are the best available planning tools, how do you "get past the naysayers and who pays for it?"
No surprises here. Everyone has a stake: individual citizens, property owners and developers, businesses, financial institutions, civic organizations, political leaders, government officials, standing commissions and boards.
Clearly nothing can be accomplished without public education, collaboration, political will and money. "Local governments serve as the linchpin in this needed cooperation," the guide acknowledges. Action depends on funding commitments as well as good intentions.
Perhaps the best example of such commitments and good intentions is in the District. Mayor Anthony A. Williams recently hired a qualified urban forester, Mark Buscaino, to lead the District's previously understaffed landscaping office. And last year philanthropist Betty Brown Casey established the Casey Trees Endowment Fund with an exceptionally generous grant of $50 million to monitor, preserve and restore the city's trees. Green may yet trump gray.
Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor of architecture at the University of Maryland.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
PIRG seeks better freshwater protections
03/21/02
By TRACEY L. REGAN
Staff WriterTRENTON -- The McGreevey administration should move quickly to increase protections for several pristine waterways and reservoirs now threatened by development, an environmental group contends.
In a report issued yesterday, the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group asserted that water quality standards for the state's streams, lakes and rivers have not been revised since the early 1990s and fail to adequately protect drinking water supplies, endangered species and ecologically fragile water ways.
New Jersey, unlike neighboring states, does not offer strict protections for waterways other than trout streams until they are already polluted, PIRG said. The group has identified 30 reservoirs and water bodies, including Rancocas Creek in Burlington County, a tributary of the Delaware River, and stretches of the Ramapo River in Bergen County, that need stricter protection.
"We should place a higher burden on dischargers to ensure they do not degrade water quality, stop sewer expansions in some areas and put buffer zones in place," said PIRG's Douglas O'Malley.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, Elaine Makatura, yesterday agreed that the agency's water quality regulations lacked "standards and direction" and needed reform.
"We share many of the concerns outlined in the release," she said.
The state could pay to monitor and enforce these protections in part by scrapping what PIRG and other New Jersey environmental groups call frivolous watershed management programs established in the 1990s. These include grants to local groups to assess the environmental health of their region's waterways and to devise plans to better protect them.
Between 1995 and 2000, the Whitman administration gave out $25 million in these grants, with no clear improvement in watershed protections, the groups contend.
"Instead of spending money on refrigerator magnets and placemats, we need to spend money on regulations and enforcement," said Jeffrey Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.
Makatura said the DEP would "look at the entire watershed grant program," but would continue to work with local groups to monitor water quality.
Environmental groups also were calling on the agency this week to appeal the recent court decision striking down its regulation of septic systems serving developments of six or more homes.
Makatura said the agency was "reviewing its options" and had made no decision on whether or not to appeal. She said there are 20 pending applications for septic service for developments of between 6 and 50 units that the DEP no longer has the authority to review. She said developers of about 50 more projects had attended DEP meetings on the regulations, put in place about 13 months ago and invalidated by a Superior Court appellate panel Monday. According to the former rules, developments using septic systems must comply with local or county standards.
© 2002 The Times
Invaders Reshape the American Landscape
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
In the summer of 1904, Hermann Merkel, the chief forester at the Bronx Zoo, noticed that a few of the majestic American chestnut trees lining the zoo's walkways had developed a mysterious new disease. The next year, nearly every chestnut tree in the parks of the Bronx had the disease. And by the 1950's it had spread from Maine to Georgia, killing billions of chestnut trees and changing the East's wooded landscapes forever.
Merkel had discovered the disaster known as chestnut blight, giving scientists their first bitter taste of the imported diseases that have been sweeping through American forests ever since.
The best known are chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease, both of which are believed to have come from Asia and are still attacking trees today. But scientists say a host of devastating forest pathogens have continued to arrive. Among the most recent is sudden oak death syndrome, which has killed thousands of oaks and other trees in California and may threaten the mighty redwood as well.
Fast-moving and usually hard or impossible to cure, these exotic diseases have destroyed countless trees in forests, cities and suburbs. The results can be seen not only in landscapes stripped of some of their most beautiful species but in changes to how forest ecosystems work and in the economic value of this natural resource.
"I get concerned about what the forests of the future will look like," said Dr. Craig G. Lorimer, a forest ecologist at the University of Wisconsin. "To have so many diseases cause so many problems over such a short period of time is really unprecedented. You get this impression that clear-cutting is the most devastating thing that's ever happened to North American forests, and it's not. This is much more serious."
As world trade intensifies, scientists predict that more and more tree diseases will find their way into the country (and out of it). And while most pathogens die on arrival, unable to find a suitable victim or climate, a small portion turn into devastating blights. According to a report last month from the National Academy of Sciences, about 13,000 plant diseases a year are intercepted by inspectors at international ports of entry - and these inspectors are able to examine perhaps 2 percent of the incoming cargo and baggage.
The effect of such invasions is clear. A fungus called dogwood anthracnose has killed millions of flowering dogwoods in the southern Appalachians alone, essentially wiping out the species in many areas. In the Southeast, butternut canker has hit butternut trees so hard that the species has been listed as threatened in at least one state, Tennessee, and has been declared a species of special concern, a prelude to consideration for federal listing as threatened or endangered.
In the Northwest, an imported root disease is killing off Port Orford cedars, whose wood can be worth as much as $50,000 for a single, mature tree. And the list goes on. If imported insects are included among the pests, the casualty list grows even longer; some species are attacked by both kinds of imported pest.
Dr. Don Goheen, a plant pathologist with the United States Forest Service in Medford, Ore., who works with Port Orford cedars, echoed the comments of others, saying: "These introduced diseases are bad news. We're run ragged by them."
Though the devastation goes on around the country, it has received little notice outside the community of forest researchers - largely, scientists say, because a diseased tree can take years to die and its loss is not always evident to the casual observer.
"When you look out there you don't have a barren moonscape," said Dr. Scott E. Schlarbaum, a forest geneticist at the University of Tennessee. "You have a forest. But that forest is very different than it was 100 years ago."
The loss is most likely to be noticed when the tree is prized for its beauty. The rapid spread of dogwood anthracnose, a fungal disease that begins with spotting leaves and soon ends in the death of the tree, has robbed many communities of flowering dogwoods, long a joyful herald of spring.
Dr. Mark Windham, a plant pathologist at the University of Tennessee, says the disease is attacking Pacific dogwoods in the West and flowering dogwoods in the East, with the southern Appalachians hardest hit.
In 1989, Dr. Windham said, he saw 20,000 healthy trees on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee go under. "They became fully blighted in two weeks," he said. "In three years most were dead."
Researchers estimate that in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 60 percent of the dogwoods have been killed by the disease. But even this well-traveled area may not look too bad to the casual visitor: roadside dogwoods do well, exposed to sunshine, which the fungus dislikes. "Tourists don't tend to get out of their cars, so they might not see much," Dr. Windham said. "Several hundred feet into the woods they'd see a different picture."
Likewise, dogwoods in sunny yards can escape unscathed.
Besides being beautiful, dogwoods play a number of roles in the forest. The leaves have high levels of calcium, making them a primary food for lactating deer. In addition, the calcium in decaying leaves keeps soils from becoming too acidic, a growing concern now that dogwoods have disappeared from so many areas. And the outer coat of the berries is 20 percent fat, making them a crucial source of energy, for example, for songbirds.
Likewise, animals are thought to have suffered when chestnuts disappeared. Before 1900, one out of every four trees in the East was an American chestnut, an abundant hardwood and a hearty nut producer. Dr. Frederick V. Hebard, staff pathologist at the American Chestnut Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the Herculean task of restoring the tree, says oaks and hickories typically produce hundreds of pounds of nuts per acre - but when chestnut trees were also present, that same acre produced thousands of pounds of nuts. Chestnuts were said to have covered the ground like marbles.
The bounty was devoured by chipmunks, voles, bear, deer, turkey, grouse, crows and people. (The roasted chestnuts sold by street vendors generally come from Europe).
© The New York Times 2002
Articles about the Environment from 2001
|
|
and Newsletters |
|
|