Beaches along the Jersey Shore and lakes will be open with some restrictions this summer as the state continues to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak as Memorial Day weekend nears, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday.
Beaches and lakefronts must limit the amount of people given access so people can properly socially distance. Families and households are allowed to cluster together, but otherwise people need to be six feet apart, the governor said.
The opening goes into effect on May 22.
“The Jersey Shore, after all, is where memories are made. The last thing any of us wanted was for a summertime down the shore to be a memory,” Murphy said at his daily COVID-19 briefing Thursday in Trenton.
Organized games and contact sports are still banned.
Local towns will decide how to limit access by measures like cutting back on the number of beach tags for any given day. But Murphy warned officials cannot limit beaches to people of a particular town.
“Every beach will be required to establish capacity limitations, but we will leave it to local leaders to determine the method that would be best for their community,” he said. “No community can turn a public beach into a de facto private one. All visitors must have the ability to enjoy our state’s greatest natural resource.”
Swimming will be allowed along the shore, though lifeguards will likely be spaced out rather than sitting two guards to a post, officials said. It’s more likely that there will be one lifeguard per stand so they can also spread out swimmers.
As the virus surged in the state after the first case was reported at the beginning of March, local officials closed beaches up and down the Jersey Shore and asked people not to visit those towns, even if they owned a second home there.
EnviroPolitics Blog is working to keep you informed about all aspects of the coronavirus — the status of confirmed cases, disease spread, death toll–and also how Americans are coping. Like this story, for instance. If you like what we are doing, Click to receive free EP Blog updates and please tell your friends about us.
A red knot among a flock of migratory shorebirds foraging along the Delaware Bayshore. Photo credit: Brian Schumm
Newswise — Oyster farming as currently practiced along the Delaware Bayshore does not significantly impact four shorebirds, including the federally threatened red knot, which migrates thousands of miles from Chile annually, according to a Rutgers-led study.
The findings, published in the journal Ecosphere, likely apply to other areas around the country including the West Coast and Gulf Coast, where oyster aquaculture is expanding, according to Rutgers experts who say the study can play a key role in identifying and resolving potential conflict between the oyster aquaculture industry and red knot conservation groups.
We’re always looking for stories that might interest our readers. If you come across something so interesting that it cries out to be shared, please send it to editor@enviropolitics.com If we agree, you’ll see it here soon.
Aquaculture is a burgeoning industry along the Delaware Bayshore, infusing millions of dollars into local economies annually, and the production of oysters within the intertidal flats on Delaware Bay has grown in the last decade.
Although a relatively small endeavor now, rising public interest in boutique oysters for the half-shell market (known as the Oyster Renaissance) and the “low-tech” nature of oyster tending make oyster farming an attractive investment for small-business entrepreneurs.
“Oyster farming has many ecological benefits and is widely recognized as one of the most ecologically sustainable forms of food production,” said co-author David Bushek, a professor and director of Rutgers’ Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in Port Norris, New Jersey. “Farmers appreciate the ecology around them as they depend on it to produce their crop. The idea that oyster farming might be negatively impacting a threatened species concerns them deeply, so they’ve voluntarily taken on many precautionary measures. They’d like to know which of these measures help and which don’t as they all inhibit their ability to operate efficiently.”
Delaware Bay is a critical stopover area for the red knot, a reddish, robin-sized sandpiper. Every spring, the species feasts on horseshoe crab eggs after journeying from wintering grounds at the southern tip of South America. Red knots then fly to breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic.
Researchers assessed the impact of oyster aquaculture along the Delaware Bay on red knots and three other migratory birds of conservation concern: ruddy turnstones, semipalmated sandpipers and sanderlings. The scientists found that oyster tending reduced the probability of shorebird presence by 1 percent to 7 percent, while untended aquaculture structures had no detectable impact.
The study showed foraging rates were mostly influenced by environmental conditions, especially the presence of gulls or other shorebirds. None of the four bird species of concern substantially altered their foraging behavior due to the presence of tended or untended oyster aquaculture.
Next steps include investigating how oyster aquaculture may influence interactions between red knots and their main food source, horseshoe crab eggs, as well as examining how the expansion of oyster aquaculture along the Delaware Bay may affect the availability of foraging habitat at this globally important stopover site.
New Jersey State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio says according to preliminary estimates that the state faces a $2.75 billion dollar budget shortfall in the current fiscal year, and a more than $7 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year as COVID-19 slams the economy. NJTV News
Environmental groups have decried the push for infrastructure funding as a “plastics bailout.” The picture is more complicated when factoring in other stances, including from glass and fiber groups.
Efforts to fold a recycling infrastructure bill into a potential “phase four” coronavirus relief package from Congress are meeting with resistance from environmental groups, as well as skepticism from some in the industry. An April 16 letter from a number of trade groups has been slammed by opponents as a “plastics bailout” that would see pandemic aid funneled into recycling infrastructure efforts.
But supporters of the bill’s inclusion span well beyond plastics, including groups with broader or different interests such as the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), The Recycling Partnership (TRP), and Glass Packaging Institute (GPI). Scott DeFife, president of GPI, told Waste Dive “addressing contamination in the system improves the quality of the material for many materials.”
Recycling legislation was in the midst of a major surge on Capitol Hill before the pandemic, for the first time in over a decade. A number of bills are before Congress that address the sector, but now that the pandemic has largely derailed momentum some players have argued the path forward could come hand-in-hand with relief aid.
That push has largely involved the RECOVER Act — a bill introduced last fall with significant backing from groups representing broader recycling interests, along with glass and plastics.
“The crisis has shown some additional challenges that the nation’s recycling system has,” said DeFife, who played a role in crafting federal legislation in his prior job at the Plastics Industry Association. “And so we thought it was particularly timely to reiterate our belief that waste management and recycling are as much an infrastructure priority as roads, bridges, and other traditional infrastructure needs.”
Under RECOVER, the federal government would allocate $500 million in matching funds to municipalities, tribes and states for infrastructure improvements like upgrading MRFs and drop-off sites. Still, despite fanfare from industry groups around its introduction, the bill has largely stalled since being referred to a House subcommittee in November 2019.
But some proponents feel aid efforts around the pandemic offer an opportunity to revive RECOVER. That push has gained attention largely because of its support from the plastics industry. The American Chemistry Council, the Association of Plastics Recyclers, and the Plastics Industry Association were among the signatories on the April letter sent to leading members of Congress asking for the bill’s inclusion in a future infrastructure package. The letter also included a significantly larger funding request over the original bill.
“While the current language in the RECOVER Act calls for $500 million over five years, we feel the time and need is right to seek a program of $1 billion,” the letter states. “This immediate investment would start to reverse the current trend of landfilling recyclable materials, which has only been exacerbated by this pandemic.”
Outside of plastics groups, other industry stakeholders also supported the request, including TRP, SWANA, and GPI. TRP receives funding from a diverse group of backers including plastics and oil companies, along with brands and both glass and fiber organizations. The increased dollar amount in the letter to Congress for RECOVER is attributed in the letter to TRP’s 2020 “State of Curbside Recycling” report, which found an investment of $9.8 billion is likely needed to overhaul recycling infrastructure nationwide, an estimate that came prior to the onslaught of the pandemic. While funds associated with RECOVER would be far shy of that total, proponents see the increased amount as a critical starting point
The nonprofit argues the upgrades are necessary to protect frontline workers and guarantee feedstock for items like toilet paper and healthcare products. “Protecting the health and safety of our solid waste and recycling workers by investing in innovative technologies will ensure America’s manufacturing industry has the feedstock of materials customers need,” Biser said.
SWANA has similarly pushed for congressional action on recycling and CEO David Biderman told Waste Dive in late April the organization has been in touch with federal lawmakers to ensure the sector’s inclusion in future relief legislation. “This could incorporate recent legislative efforts such as the RECOVER Act which have already been introduced and received bipartisan support,” Biderman said.
Some groups that have historically been wary of the bill, however, remain skeptical about its inclusion in any aid effort, while other notable players have been quiet. The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) did not comment about its stance on the RECOVER Act or the legislation’s possible inclusion in any future relief package. And Billy Johnson, chief lobbyist for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), meanwhile argued against drawing potentially negative attention to recycling, a sector that otherwise enjoys rare bipartisan and public backing.
The nonprofit argues the upgrades are necessary to protect frontline workers and guarantee feedstock for items like toilet paper and healthcare products. “Protecting the health and safety of our solid waste and recycling workers by investing in innovative technologies will ensure America’s manufacturing industry has the feedstock of materials customers need,” Biser said.
SWANA has similarly pushed for congressional action on recycling and CEO David Biderman told Waste Dive in late April the organization has been in touch with federal lawmakers to ensure the sector’s inclusion in future relief legislation. “This could incorporate recent legislative efforts such as the RECOVER Act which have already been introduced and received bipartisan support,” Biderman said.
Some groups that have historically been wary of the bill, however, remain skeptical about its inclusion in any aid effort, while other notable players have been quiet. The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) did not comment about its stance on the RECOVER Act or the legislation’s possible inclusion in any future relief package. And Billy Johnson, chief lobbyist for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), meanwhile argued against drawing potentially negative attention to recycling, a sector that otherwise enjoys rare bipartisan and public backing.
“The last thing I’d like to see is to see recycling being singled out,” he told Waste Dive, noting the scrutiny some companies and industries have drawn during the pandemic due to the funds and prioritization they have received.
ISRI has previously expressed qualms with RECOVER, arguing for an approach to recycling that prioritizes education and outreach before investing in infrastructure. “If you don’t put the wrong thing in the bin, you won’t contaminate the bin,” Johnson asserted.
Still, ISRI is not completely opposed to funding in an aid bill. While Johnson indicated the organization prefers to work through the congressional appropriations process, he noted lawmakers have reached out to ISRI about potentially including recycling funding in relief packages. Of all the pre-existing bills addressing recycling, Johnson argued the one best-suited for inclusion is the RECYCLE Act, which calls for a $75 million investment in education and outreach over the course of five years. That bill has among the most diverse support of any of the current recycling bills, with backing from glass, plastics, fiber, environmental organizations and other trade groups.
EPA is holding a rescheduled public meeting of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) from June 8 to 11, 2020, to review the draft risk evaluation for asbestos.
This public meeting will be virtual, with participation by phone and webcast only. There will be no in-person gathering for this meeting. The previously announced virtual meeting for the TSCA SACC to review the draft risk evaluation for asbestos (85 FR 18954) was postponed due to changes in the availability of members for this peer review.
The four-day meeting will be held from 10:00 a.m. to approximately 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, June 8 to 10, 2020; and from 11:30 am to approximately 5:00 pm Eastern Time on June 11, 2020 (as needed, updated times for each day may be provided in the meeting agenda that will be posted in the docket at http://www.regulations.gov [docket number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2019-0501] and the TSCA SACC website at http://www.epa.gov/tsca-peer-review).
You may register and participate as a listen-only attendee at any time up to the end of the meeting. Requests to make brief oral comments to the TSCA SACC during the virtual meeting should be submitted when registering online on or before noon (12:00 PM EDT) on June 2, 2020.For additional information, please contact the Designated Federal Official (DFO) for this meeting, Dr. Diana Wong at Wong.Diana-M@epa.gov.
