Chapter 12 talked about New Jersey's shore ad coastline. Belton talked about the rising sea levels and the constant battle with nature. From my personal experience, there has been a battle with whether offshore drilling should be allowed in New Jersey. I feel that offshore drilling if there is a breach, then it could severely impact and threaten New Jersey's tourism industry with oil coming on shore and ruining our "beautiful beaches".
Looking at our recent past, Hurricane Sandy destroyed most of our coastline and due to climate change with global rising sea levels, we are threatened by more bigger and more severe storms.
1 Comment
Last weekend, we went to the Summit Public Library and we were trained on how to do visual assessments through a power presentation, and after we went to the Passaic River nearby to do our visual assessment. I took many pictures of the river and the physical characteristics which I will post later in this blog. Some of the things that we looked for were erosion, embededness, the amount of canopy covering the river, the amount of forest behind each side of the river, and more. Adding our assessments on the grading rubric, most of us got between suboptimal and high end of the marginal mark which is what it usually should be around this time of year.
We all learned to identify macroinvertebrates, but I had a hard time figuring out which was which. I really couldn't care less about bugs. I'm going to post up the pictures tonight and tomorrow because its going to be pretty tedious from my iPhone, and I believe we will be hitting up two spots tomorrow at four in South Mountain/South Orange area, and physically assessing the area, along with sending in the river stream samples for chemical analysis. In chapter 11, Belton talks about the importance of monitoring and protecting our local watersheds in the state. He goes over Strahler steam ordering system that was made in 1952 which was basically a collection of streams coming together to form wha we commonly know as a water shed. One stream that connects to another larger steam would be a 1st stream, and the larger connecting to the even larger would be a known as a second stream, which leads out to the main beginning, the base of the watershed. These small streams are responsible for the majority of the ecosystems food and nutrients in the landscape. They also carve out what the ecosystem would look like, which can take a long process over the years. Belton mentions the problems with watershed management such as the utilities to record the data. At first when they started to monitor the watched, they would only manage and focus on the larger sites. It was not until 1997 where the NJDEP started to manage the entire watershed site.
I actually remember in 5th or 6th grade I was playing in my backyard woods and I saw a lady with a mapping gadget. I went up to her in the middle of the woods and asked what she was doing. She was very startled as I remember because she would not think anyone would be in the woods. However, she said that she was testing and mapping out the wetlands areas, and I asked her what a wetlands was because I was confused and wondered why. I don’t remember what she said, but it makes sense now why she was there because I live right next to the Wallkill Wildlife National Refuge and it is all wetlands and flows into my backyard. I never realized how lit my backyard/woods was. I/m glad I was raised there. Good times. In chapter 10 Belton mentions the problems with humans building on "unused lands" for their residential homes. Former Governor John Corzine mentions that humans activity building on tapped lands have a "rippling effect" on the natural ecosystem around it for generations.
This chapter reminded me of back home in Sussex County where the housing industry is the major industry in Sussex. Known as Bedroom community Sussex has increased its population dramatically in the past 50 years, but has halted and started to decline in the recent recession of 07 since on. It has caused a lot of inference with the animals that live in the area such as black bears and deer. Sussex county roads used to be the most dangerous in the state because of the amount of cars that would hit deer and wild animals on the windy hilly roads. People also try to fix the problem by getting rid of the animals by hunting them. Deer are exceptional to the problem because they spawn like wildfire when not controlling numbers. However, the bear hunt endangers the population of the black bears living in the New Jersey Highlands area, and it currently has been under constant protest and debate. The overall area of the wetlands in Sussex county has been threatened with being filled in for new developmental housing and also businesses that do not thrive with the dying population. They should be using old buildings that had previous buildings that went out of business. Its interesting because you can see over the years a recently abandoned building slowly be taken back by nature in my 21 years of living. It will eat the building away with its vines and shrubbery as the trees make there way through and engulf the area entirely. People need to be more aware of the areas. Another example of people effecting areas would be the highlands area itself with taking away the trees and forest around the lake areas that supply the state's water. The forests filter the water that goes in the soil and fertilizes the soil as the water is purified and put back into the lakes. deforestation in New Jersey is such a serious issue because if not controlled it can severely and permanently effect our water supply in addition to the amount of polluting we do. This week I met up with professor glenn and went over the data sheet for HUC 40 50 and 60. We've decided that since 40 and 60 clearly have the majority of all 10 HUCs, I will not do 50. I now understand how to analyze the data to see the changes to see if it increased or decreased.
So basically Belton started off this chapter by describing how he grew up in Jersey city and never got to really see the forest until he grew up. Belton talks about how New Hersey's forest land was originally cleared out in colonial times fore the charcoal, and later also plowed out for the suburban uprisings in the mid 20th century. However, New Jersey forests are the most conserved in the Northeast land-wise and many of the trees we see now are new maturing trees saved by conversation efforts to restore New jerseys forests to the natural state (haha state pun).
Belton also goes on to talk about how the pine barrens in South Jersey were constantly a threat to be harmed by business ideas such as an airport or a casino, but thankfully none of this went through. This reflects to me because I lived in an area that it a mixture of thick forests, farmland, and wetlands. This beautiful place is called Sussex County and the motto is people and nature together. I can say that Sussex has many conserved area such as Stokes, Kittitany, Delaware Water Gap, and many other state parks and wildlife refuge areas. My back yard is even ha trails that hop onto the Famous Appalachian Trail! However there is an ongoing battle that really upsets me with the influx of suburban home building. Sussex County has transformed itself into a bedroom community where people commute to work from their houses in the County. However, since 2007, the population has steadily declined leaving many houses leaving many houses empty, and people still building. this meaning taking down forested areas, and it hurts to see it taken down. Businesses also try to build like Crystal Springs golf course and their condo homes even in my backyard woods, an area I grew up in playing and exploring in the woods with friends. However they stopped because they ran out of money thank god, however they took down about a 1/5 of the forest. Its a pain to see his happen and I will always advocate conversation of wildlife, especially forests. In chapter 8, Belton talks about his work in Camden, on a team working with toxins track down study. Belton talks about how dangerous Camden is with its gang related activity, the high crimes and murder rates, not to mention a prime example of the Northeast's rust belt with abandoned factories and shipping yards teaming with pollution. Belton found chemical barrels in the rivers of residential areas, which contaminated the water, as well as concrete being crushed in the air, which created many dust particles that can inflict pain/illness for people breathing in the air around them.
In fact, the one area Belton talks about, Cramer Hill was a prime example of how environmental injustice and pollution is associated with poor areas. Cramer Hill had plans by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to use eminent domain to clear out the area for the construction of Middle Class family homes and a highway to pass through to avoid traffic in the area, as well as the agency cleaning up the area. Many people in the area realizing that they would be stripped of their homes and relocated, filed for environmental injustice. However, plans still would have gone through if not for a planning error miscalculation which caused the entire plan to fold. Camden was trying to push the poor out while cleaning up, for wealthier people to move in. This shows the disregard for the concern of the poor and the polluted area that they live in. They would have been forced to live in other polluted areas or even left homeless. If it wasn't for the Salvation Army and their grant, Cramer hill would not have been cleaned up to combat poverty and pollution. Some of the areas were turned Into parks and recreational facilities to combat poverty and pollution in the area. The concrete dust particles harming the air reminded me of a court case that I read about in Ecology and politics, a cement company was creating dust particles in the near areas that were harming people living near by causing a nuisance. However it was taken to court and the company had to compensate them for their health damages. Depending on the time of the court hearing, they could have used that as a way to combat the pollution if the community was educated about the environmental injustices going on. With lower class areas and pollution also this brings up their lack of education to even get out of the situation which is very sad, because the lower class people do not even know what is going on and that they can do something about their situation! Looking into the Oranges, West Orange, a wealthier community than East Orange, is going to have less pollution than East because of the economic situation allows them to move away from the areas that were abandoned by industries, which left all the pollution in those areas. In chapter 7, The book discusses the major dilemma/problem when environmental legislation comes into play to be approved. Rarely, when environmental legislation comes into play, it ever gets approved as a first priority in order to prevent something from happening. Lawmakers will usually put over "more important issues" ahead of upcoming environmental problems, spending money in different places. It will only become important when a major catastrophe occurs and/or the problem is already in effect. In my opinion, if we keep doing this, there could be a catastrophe or event that could not allow us to respond with effective policy and could threaten our own existence on Earth.
After many businesses/factories were already polluting land, CERCLA was created to tax on pollution/emissions that would prevent businesses from polluting any further on land, forcing them to clean up. However they found a way around it by going outside of the city, abandoning the areas that were already polluted and didn't have to essentially clean it up. This backfired on the legislation's attempt to try to get the people/businesses to clean up themselves, instead of the government intervening. The Brownfield Act was pretty significant in that it offered a cheap cleanup to brownfield sites, that were basically old industrial sites no longer in use. They turned into residential housing, baseball fields, and other parks or places for small businesses. In chapter 6, Newark, New Jersey had extremely high levels of dioxin, comparing to levels of the infamous war chemical Agent Orange which was used in the Vietnam War to destroy the thick jungles, consequently giving birth defects to thousands of people. The dioxin levels were so hazardous that people who were trying to fix the damage done by closing down the local open air markets were wearing special suit "spacesuits" to prevent themselves from coming into contact with these. When they were closing down, kids were out in the open playing with open fire hydrants exposed to this in the local water as well. Fisherman who fished in the Newark waters were the most exposed to the toxins, had to be informed and affected their way of life earning a living and how they got their food.
The dioxin levels were so bad in New Jersey that when the Swedish scientist who went and tested the levels in his lab ended up contaminating his whole entire lab and was forced to shut down his lab. Imagining how easily the samples from Newark forced an entire lab to shut down is unbelievable to think that people everyday were exposed to these by drinking the water, eating the local fish, and just being in the area alone seemed unfathomable. Many people later reports health problems and birth defects in children. From Chapter 5, Belton talks about the lack of responsibility with chemical disposal by New Jersey’s chemical companies. Belton blames the chemical companies in Jersey City for contaminating the people and their surrounding environment, due t their lack of safety regulations. Chemical companies used mobs to get rid of the chemical waste and by product, because they did not want to be responsible to pay to properly dispose and the buildup that they had were increasing on their properties. This process of illegal dumping harmed the environment and cost a lot of money to clean up. One of the by products were chromium 6, which was this mud substances, was sold into reuse for roads and filling up wetlands.
Im honestly kind of sickened that they sold hazardous waste product to areas knowing they would effect the health of the people and the environment. I live in a wetlands area in Sussex county and I hope they didn’t fill it in with the evil mud, because I don’t want to die or get sick. I grew up in those woods and wetlands and I thought I was safe away from those yuppies in the dirty cities. Damn I was wrong. |
|