EnviroPolitics Blog

Pinelands nonprofit thinks outside the barn to raise a bundle for restoration

Editor’s Note: Most nonprofit organizations spend a good deal of their time chasing after donations just to stay afloat. Raising money for ambitious projects like the one below require special effort and creativity. The Pinelands Alliance’s Executive Director, Carleton Montgomery, explains how and why it came about.

Barn Renovation Nears Completion

An innovative partnership allowed the Pinelands Preservation Alliance to renovate an old dairy barn

By Carleton Montgomery

Pinelands Preservation Alliance is close to completing the renovation of the historic barn at the Bishop Farmstead, our headquarters since 2004. The Robbins family built the barn in 1930 using a kit manufactured by the Louden Machinery Company that was shipped by train to Mount Holly. At 80 feet by 34 feet wide, the barn is huge, but so well built it has survived with no real damage for almost ninety years.

The current renovations, scheduled for completion in July, are needed to make the towering, beautiful hayloft usable for public events. We are installing a fire suppression (sprinkler) system, HVAC driven by our geothermal system, and an elevator. We also have to make changes on the property, like expanding the parking area. This allows us to meet municipal requirements for the larger events we will be able to hold and host in the barn. I hope you will agree that our renovations are very sensitive to the materials, look and structure of the original barn.

This phase of renovations will cost over $900,000 all in. How could PPA pay for that? Only by being creative!

PPA decided to enter into an agreement with a well-known caterer, Jeffrey Miller, who specializes in working at historic properties with nonprofits like us. Jeff works in numerous venues in Philadelphia and its suburbs and at Waterloo Village in New Jersey’s Allamuchy Mountain State Park. Under our agreement, PPA will rent the barn and grounds for catered events like weddings through Jeffrey A. Miller Catering.

You may ask, what is PPA doing hosting weddings?

A reception in the Pinelands Alliance’s Red Barn

I want to explain how this arrangement made the renovations possible and advances PPA’s mission:

First, it will generate revenue to take care of the Bishop Farmstead and to expand our outdoor recreation and education programs. We take school and community groups on guided nature trips regardless of their ability to cover the costs, and this program must be funded by grants, gifts and earned income. Our hope is that some of the happy couples and their guests will get interested in the Pinelands when they come here.

Second, the revenue-generating arrangement enabled PPA to raise funds from foundations and individuals who are interested in helping nonprofits diversify their fundraising base through earned income. The William Penn Foundation, in particular, gave PPA an extraordinary $500,000 grant for this project because they know it will support PPA’s work for many years to come. It’s like teaching a person to fish, rather than just giving them a fish!

Appetizers and refreshments at various stands on the grounds outside the Red Barn

Third, PPA and other organizations will now have an exceptional venue for larger events than we could do before, like lectures, symposia and film-showings. In fact, generous donors have endowed a fund in honor of Michael and Caroline Huber to pay for the costs of holding scientific and policy events in the barn. This will enable us to bring experts from around the country to discuss big policy issues like fire management, water supply protection and responses to climate change. (Michael Huber, who passed away several years ago, was PPA’s founding board chair, and Caroline remains an activist for the Pinelands.)

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Your chance to support a green group and build your writing creds

Editor’s Note: We received this job posting info from Lindsay McNamara on behalf of the Monmouth County Audubon Society. It looks like a nice opportunity for the right person. Is that you?

Ready to step into a writing opportunity with the Monmouth County Audubon Society?

Publicity Chair
This is a Volunteer Position. The Publicity Chairman maintains contact information for and contact with local and regional news media (print and online). Primary Responsibilities include: Write news releases for monthly programs, field trips and special events and opportunities (such as the Great Backyard Bird Count or MCAS scholarship program) and distribute them to news media outlets, usually by email; Post events to online calendars such as the Asbury Park Press and the Patch. The Publicity Chair also answers (infrequent) inquiries from the news media via phone and email; Participates in occasional media interviews, usually in writing but also via telephone or TV or other media; arranges interviews between media outlets and MCAS officers and representatives.

Newsletter Editor
This Volunteer Position includes a stipend for the editing and production of the Newsletter. Primary Responsibility: Produce a 4 page quarterly newsletter (currently three times per year); Write articles and solicit articles from Board members for newsletter; obtain and provide images for inclusion; Edit all content; Collect information and photos from local and national media sources for news summary items on Page 2; Update calendar information on Page 4. Produce PDF files of the final color version of the newsletter for MCAS website and black and white version for printing. Coordinate with and provide final B&W print file and mailing list to Printer for production. Once yearly, produce a Flyer with a schedule for MCAS Programs and Field Trips for inclusion in the Autumn newsletter. The newsletter has been produced using Adobe InDesign software, but any page layout program could be used. Excellent writing skills, proofreading and editing skills, and familiarity with basic newsletter publishing software are essential.

The Monmouth County Audubon Society, a chapter of the National Audubon Society, is a conservation organization dedicated to the enjoyment and study of nature, wildlife conservation, habitat protection, and education. Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month September through May at the Tower Hill Church, 255 Harding Road, Red Bank; guest speakers address a wide variety of nature-related topics, and refreshments are provided. In addition, the group sponsors at least one field trip per month, and members receive The Osprey, the club’s newsletter. Further information can be obtained by visiting our Website at http://www.monmouthaudubon.org

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Missing Mekong waters rouse suspicions of China

A fisherman scoops water out of his boat on the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand
July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

Panu Wongcha-um reports for Reuters

BAN NONG CHAN, Thailand (Reuters) – By this time of year, the Mekong River should have been rising steadily with the monsoon rains, bringing fishermen a bounty of fat fish.

Instead, the river water in Thailand has fallen further than anyone can remember and the only fish are tiny.

Scientists and people living along the river fear the impact of the worst drought in years has been exacerbated by upstream dams raising the prospect of irreversible change on the river that supports one of Southeast Asia’s most important rice-growing regions.

A Chinese promise to release more dam water to ease the crisis has only raised worries over the extent to which the river’s natural cycles – and the communities that have depended on it for generations – have been forever disrupted.

“Now China is completely in control of the water,” said Premrudee Deoruong of Laos Dam Investment Monitor, an environmental group.

“From now on, the concern is that the water will be controlled by the dam builders.”

In the northeastern Thai province of Nakhon Phanom, where the now sluggish river forms the border with Laos, the measured depth of the Mekong fell below 1.5 meters this week. The average depth there for the same time of year is 8 meters.

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Would you like your bagel buried or roasted?

Lawmakers grapple with how to deal with tons of food waste

Daniel J. Munoz reports for NJBIZ
July 22, 2019 9:44 pm

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that about 40 percent of food is never eaten and simply thrown away. That means tons of rotten, spoiled or just plain unwanted victuals must be disposed of. It’s a nationwide problem.

The Environmental Protection Agency recommends a variety of methods, which the agency ranks from most to least preferable, on how to get rid of excess food. For one, businesses could avoid creating excess food in the first place by reducing production.

Beyond that, the EPA suggests sending the food to soup kitchens and food banks, using it as animal feed and then using it as compost for plant soil.

The least-preferable option is sending the waste to incinerators or landfills — considered the dirtiest disposal methods.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature sent to Gov. Phil Murphy what could have been a landmark measure, Senate Bill 1206, aimed at curbing food waste and stimulating a market around greener technology. But an amendment tucked into the bill shortly before it was approved maintains incinerators and landfills as acceptable destinations.

That was never the intention of the legislation. But the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Bob Smith, D-17th District, said he needed to add in those provisions to secure the bill’s passage through the full Assembly and Senate

S1206 would require businesses producing more than 52 tons of food waste a year to separate it from other trash and recycle it.

Institution-level businesses – hospitals, supermarkets, prisons and government facilities – would be affected most. Additionally, starting in 2020 businesses within 25 miles of a “food waste facility” such as those that specialize in anaerobic digestion – which produces methane – or composting, would have to send the food there.

“What this will do is generate the market. This is a chicken and egg situation, where you’ve got to have a market, you’ve got to have the fuel in order to build the digesters,” said Smith, who chairs the Senate Environment Committee. “It’s guaranteeing that they’re going to have a product.”

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Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-36th District – who chairs the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, wanted to add in the provision for landfills – he could not be reached for comment on why.

Assemblyman James Kennedy, D-22nd District, added in the provision for incinerators. He contended that the incinerator in his city of Rahway produces a massive chunk of the region’s electricity.

“Forty percent of its waste is actually food waste, and you’re going to take that out, you have to make some sort of balance so you don’t bankrupt a good thing,” Kennedy said.

“The bill is far from perfect,” Smith conceded, but it “moves the ball forward.”

He acknowledged that the exemptions were unpopular — he did not want them, saying to put food in incinerators is “not a great public policy.”

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Did deadly gas cloud escape during Philly refinery fire?

Andrew Maykuth reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer
Updated: July 24, 2019- 6:33 PM

The Philadelphia Health Department measured an “elevated” level of deadly hydrogen fluoride gas outside the South Philadelphia refinery during a fiery accident last month, but the reading was dismissed as a “false positive” and no actions were taken to protect residents, according to a Drexel University environmental engineer.

A city inspector, using a handheld monitoring device, measured the elevated gas reading at a location near the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery complex, according to Peter DeCarlo, a Drexel environmental engineering professor, who submitted testimony to a state legislative committee that held a hearing Wednesday on the June 21 refinery explosion.

“The positive measurement should have been cause for proactive measures to protect residents,” DeCarlo said in his written testimony to the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, which conducted the hearing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Law School.

The incident was cited by several environmental and health advocates on Wednesday who suggested that regulators need to correct weaknesses in air-monitoring and response plans for industrial sites such as PES, which is surrounded by densely populated residential areas. They said the city’s current network of fixed air-monitoring equipment was not well-positioned to detect the impact of the huge smoke cloud that drifted eastward during the refinery fire.

The city’s health department downplayed the incident Wednesday, saying its Air Management Services (AMS) inspectors suspected the gas meter was not properly calibrated, and requested that the refinery and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency double-check the tests.

“Both confirmed that there was no HF present in the air,” James Garrow, the health department spokesperson, said in an email. “The AMS inspectors took the improperly calibrated meter out of service.”

At the time of the fire, a shelter-in-place order was put in place for residents near the refinery, but no evacuation ordered.

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Jersey Shore home rentals down. Airbnb tax blamed

By NJTV News correspondent Briana Vannozzi

Citing the short-term rental tax enacted last year, shore homeowners and businesses say they’re bringing in less money at the height of the summer season.

Despite being steps from the shore during the summer season, some shore rentals sit unused and empty. The owners say a tax on short-term rentals that went into effect in 2018 is to blame. The tax adds a nearly 12% surcharge on all short-term rentals lasting less than 90 days and was originally designed to make reservations made through home-sharing platforms like Airbnb and VRBO subject to the same taxes as hotels and motels.

Begging for action, shore rental owners sent a letter this week urging Gov. Phil Murphy to a sign a bipartisan bill to tweak the bill’s language. They’ve railed against the law requesting an exemption, saying it’s drastically hurt their ability to rent and unfairly carved out the tax for real estate brokers. And there’s a trickle-down effect, say business owners. Vacant weekly rentals mean less money spent at local shops.

Read the full print story here or watch the video above

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