A rally against ocean dumping on Sandy Hook in 2000 (Photo by Brian Ferreira)
Today is my 30th anniversary at the Asbury Park Press - fitting because it’s the 45th anniversary of Earth Day.
I did not become the paper's environmental writer on April 22, 1985. My beat included Red Bank, Little Silver, Shrewsbury Township, the NAACP and Red Bank Regional Board of Education, according to the “Red Bank Buro Revised Beats” list in my desk. We worked out of our former Red Bank Bureau on Monmouth Street.
Solar powered Asbury Park boardwalk show set for Earth Day
But my tour as a municipal reporter ended early. I became the environmental writer in August 1985. However, I wrote numerous environmentally oriented stories in my four-plus years at The Home News in New Brunswick. In fact, the first story I wrote as a full-time reporter in December 1980 centered on a controversial proposal for a sewer pipeline in the bucolic Riva Avenue section of East Brunswick. As the East Brunswick reporter and then general assignment/medical writer at The Home News, I often wrote about the Edgeboro Landfill and a proposed Wheelabrator-Frye garbage-to-energy incinerator there. The burner never materialized. I also wrote stories about hazardous waste and tainted wells.
Why Barnegat Bay's rescue plan is dead in the water
After decades of reporting about environmental issues, I have countless memories. So here’s a Top 6 list, in no particular order, that focuses on visual memories after 34-plus years on the job:
1. Landfill leachate: In the early 1980s, I recall seeing purplish ooze – leachate - next to the Monroe Township Landfill in Middlesex County. The landfill landed on the federal Superfund list of the country’s worst hazardous waste dumps in 1983. I recall going to the dump area with a Middlesex County Health Department staffer who showed me the ooze. The closest residence is about 50 feet from the dump, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report. The 86-acre landfill, which opened in 1955, was taken off the Superfund list in 1993.
Why wait so long to address Barnegat Bay hazards?
Sewage sludge dumping in the ocean (Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
2. 106-mile sewage sludge dump site: I visited its vicinity, more than 100 miles off the Cape May coast, with other reporters and photographers in 1991. The trip took about six hours on a large powerboat, but it was well worth it. The Atlantic Ocean is nearly 9,000 feet deep that far offshore, and its deep blue hue was stunning. After we reached our destination, Fred Grassle, former director of Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, hosted a show and tell for reporters on a research vessel. Grassle served as chief scientist during a 10-day research voyage at the site and its environs. From 1987 to 1992, New York and New Jersey sewerage authorities dumped millions of "wet tons" of sludge at the site, after dumping tens of millions of tons at a site 12 miles off Sandy Hook from 1924 to 1987. All told, more than 200 municipalities, including New York City, dumped sludge off the Jersey Shore over the decades. Here's an excerpt from my story on the trip, headlined Robot begins deep-sea mission near dump:
The 106-mile sewage sludge dump site and the predicted rate of sludge particles on the seafloor near the site (Source: NOAA)
In the 1980s, federal scientists predicted that measurable quantities of sludge, which contains almost all the chemicals society uses, would not reach the bottom there. The prediction missed the mark, according to Grassle, who along with colleagues from a half-dozen institutions launched a federally funded research project in 1989.... "So little is known about the deep sea in this region," he said. "Since many of the organisms live a long time, we want to see what the long-term impact is on the organisms." Grassle said he "personally" doesn't believe that the dumping will have a permanent impact. But "we shouldn't be thinking of any place on the planet as some place where we can just throw our waste and not worry about it," he said.
$50M taken from NJ child protection fund
3. Hurricane Gloria. I remember driving to work on Sept. 27, 1985, and seeing trees swaying back and forth on Route 18. I and many other newsroom staffers were in our new Neptune office as Gloria cruised north, just off the Jersey Shore. Two stories I wrote nearly a year later had prescient information that evokes superstorm Sandy. Here are excerpts from one than ran on Aug. 24, 1986. It was headlined Don't think Gloria means New Jersey can't be hit hard:
Track of Hurricane Gloria (Source: NOAA)
Although she heightened the awareness of emergency management personnel, "I'm afraid the general attitude of the public before and after Gloria is somewhat complacent," said Clark D. Gilman, New Jersey's flood hazard mitigation coordinator. Some Monmouth Beach residents, for instance, felt weather forecasters overreacted a bit to Gloria and "regretted having to leave" their homes, said Patrick J. McConville, a borough patrolman and emergency management coordinator. And that's not a healthy attitude, said Robert A. Case, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, Coral Gables, Fla. People who say, `"you don't have to worry in Jersey,' well that's foolish," Case said. "The best policy when you're dealing with hurricanes is to be on the safe side." The odds are very low, but hurricanes like Gloria could be blocked by a high pressure system over New England and then abruptly turn and head into the Jersey Shore with devastating results, he said. A low pressure system over the Great Lakes could draw a hurricane in that direction and through New Jersey, he said. Or, a hurricane "could very easily come in at an angle ... in a northwestern direction and slam into Cape May without any major changes in direction," Case said.
Another story, headlined Shore faced devastation if hurricane had veered, ran on Sept. 26, 1986. Excerpts:
IF HURRICANE GLORIA had passed last Sept. 27 during high tide and her eye had been just 40 miles west of her path, nearly all of Sandy Hook and most of New Jersey's barrier islands would have been under water, a new federal report says.... "The destruction would've been phenomenal," said David A. Wert, a weather service meteorologist in Newark and report co-author. "She probably would've been one of the most, if not the most, destructive storms of all time" because the metropolitan area is so densely populated and heavily developed, he said. Substantial flooding would have occurred even if Gloria had stayed on her actual track but arrived at high tide instead of nearly low tide, the report says. Sandy Hook, for example, would have become an island, it says.
A storm worse than superstorm Sandy?
4. Tours around New York-New Jersey Harbor: In the 1980s and 1990s, the Interstate Sanitation Commission hosted fascinating tours around the harbor for officials, journalists and environmental activists. We drove to Sheepshead Bay in New York City and boarded a large party fishing vessel for the hours-long tours. Here's an excerpt from a July 13, 1988, story I wrote headlined Group sees `common' problem during oily tour of waterways:
A sunken gasoline barge in the Arthur Kill in 2003 following an explosion while the vessel offloaded fuel at the Port Mobil terminal in Staten Island, New York (Photo by Jason Towlen)
ABOARD THE SUPER RANGER - The oily sheen appeared suddenly to the starboard side of this swift, 105-foot party fishing vessel. Then, the pungent odor of petroleum wafted into the nostrils. "Don't throw a match!" said Cynthia A. Zipf, coordinator of Clean Ocean Action, a Sea Bright-based coalition of nearly 400,000 people. "This is a major spill. ... This would heat my kiln for a couple of months." The Super Ranger, hired yesterday by the Interstate Sanitation Commission, a small tri-state environmental agency, was heading up the Arthur Kill past southern Staten Island. It was the first leg of the commission's annual tour of polluted waters and both breathtaking and disturbing vistas.... Ms. Zipf and others seemed surprised to see the oily slick, which appeared to be heading toward the Raritan Bay. But Alan I. Mytelka, the commission's director, estimated that probably several hundred of them a year can be seen on the grossly polluted kill. "It's not a massive spill," he said. "The problem we have here ... it's the hundreds of them added together that creates the degradation." Several other oily patches were spotted a short while later. "If that's a common occurrence, it's alarming to me because what it takes to call in the Coast Guard (and a private cleanup firm) would have to be much more significant than that," Ms. Zipf said.
Attack of the venomous jellyfish at Shore
5. Superstorm Sandy aftermath: A week after Sandy, I visited beaches in Asbury Park, Loch Arbour and Allenhurst and took lots of photos and video. In Asbury Park, a front-end loader piled up sand in a parking lot. Another loader was busy in Loch Arbour. A huge pile of debris was on the Loch Arbour beach and lots of debris was in the water near a bridge in Deal Lake. Mr. C's Beach Bistro in Allenhurst was a shell of its former self. Here's an excerpt from one of my recent stories, which ran in print last September and had this APP.com headline: The $100 billion hurricane:
Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 (Source: NOAA)
Imagine a major hurricane far more devastating than superstorm Sandy. The hurricane strikes Cape May, speeds up the Garden State Parkway area and hammers New York City, causing 50 percent more damage along the East Coast than the October 2012 storm. Losses linked to the hurricane's storm surge and wind damage potentially top $100 billion — roughly twice Sandy's toll. Such a storm already has hit us — in 1821 — and Tropical Storm Irene took a similar track in 2011, according to Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, which released its study Wednesday. "It very well could happen again," said Megan Linkin, a meteorologist and author of "The Big One: The East Coast's USD 100 Billion Hurricane Event." "People need to be prepared for a powerful storm-surge event and a powerful wind event at the same time impacting the East Coast," said Linkin, who rode out Sandy in Edison and is a natural hazards expert at Swiss Re, which is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
6. Rampant littering: I remain appalled at all the litter I see in New Jersey. As I've written before in this space, no one should ever throw anything out their car windows, especially burning cigarette butts, cigars or other flammable items. Here's an excerpt from an Aug. 27, 2000, story headlined Crusader: Anti-litter enforcement lax:
Litter off Stanley Blvd. in Howell in 2009 (Photo by Mary Frank)
CHRIS REIDEMEISTER eases his 22-foot Aquasport away from the dock at Bahrs Restaurant and Marina in Highlands and begins cruising down the Shrewsbury River. Soon, he spots a plastic bag and pulls it out of the water. It's one of several items Reidemeister, a muscular, 46-year-old Rumson resident, removes from the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers that day, including a life preserver, more plastic bags and a cookie wrapper. "Just the sight of anyone throwing garbage where there is no garbage makes me sick to my stomach," he said. "I try to pick up as much as possible, but I would be out there for my entire life doing this. It would be never-ending." Reidemeister said he's been on an anti-littering crusade for more than a decade, and he's extremely frustrated with the flagrant littering he sees and what he views as lax enforcement of littering laws. He's pressed littering charges against at least two dozen litterbugs, he said, but most of the cases were thrown out of municipal court. He's even seen three police officers toss cigarette butts out their patrol car windows, he said. It's a dangerous littering offense that could cause a fire and could bring fines of $200 to $1,000. "Like every time I drive, I can't go around the corner without seeing someone litter," said Reidemeister, a technician for Cablevision.
Dangerous jellyfish may come back to Jersey Shore
Please stop littering and Happy Earth Day!
