Monmouth U. to study water pollution at surfing beaches
(From a Monmouth University press release)
Surfing at the Jersey Shore – Asbury Park Press photo
WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – Monmouth University scientists and students have begun a yearlong study on the linkage between rainfall and microbial pollution at surfing beaches in New Jersey including Asbury Park, Deal and Long Branch. The work will be conducted through a $30,000 contract with the Surfers’ Environmental Alliance [1] (SEA).
Microbial pollution, the contamination of water with pathogens that can make people sick, is a problem in densely populated coastal areas around the world. At some of Monmouth County’s most popular surfing beaches, municipal storm drains and outflow pipes discharge directly into the surf zone.
“We’ve heard stories from surfers about how the water sometimes smells and looks different at these beaches after heavy rainstorms,” said Endowed Associate Professor of Marine Science Jason Adolf of Monmouth University’s School of Science and Urban Coast Institute. “However, no data have been gathered to back up the anecdotal evidence about the magnitude of the problem.”
Monmouth University Specialist Professor Jeff Weisburg, the project co-lead, added that there is a significant gap in the state’s sampling program because it is primarily focused on the busiest bathing beaches in the summer tourism season.
Marjorie Preston reports for the Atlantic City Press
Visitors to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville will find lots of airborne companions: flocks of water fowl and warbling songbirds, egrets and eagles, hawks and hummingbirds.
This unspoiled sanctuary — more than 47,000 acres of it, stretching from Atlantic County to Brick Township — offers a glimpse of what local coastal landscapes may have looked like a century ago, before the region was developed (and overdeveloped).
Season to season, the vast expanse of saltmarshes, isolated shores, and wooded trails is a favorite stopover for migratory birds like snowy owls, snow geese, Canada geese, mallards and others, some of which flock here by the tens of thousands to rest and feed before taking flight again.
Naturalist Kyle Chelius of Mullica Hill, who leads bird walks at the refuge every Friday morning, says Forsythe is “one of the greatest places in New Jersey to see birds,” as popular among avid birders as its friendly rival, Cape May. Both are key links in the 3,000-mile Atlantic Flyway, a sort of expressway for migrating birds that ranges from the Arctic tundra of Baffin Island to the fair climes of the Caribbean.
Walk on the wild side
Conveniently located along Route 9 in Galloway Township, Forsythe Wildlife Refuge—part of the National Wildlife Refuge System — is remarkably untouched by the tumult of modern life. This is a world of shimmering waters, waving grasses, native greenery and abundant wildlife, in the air, on foot and in the water. There’s a kind of hush about the place, punctuated only by birdsong and the occasional rustle of wings.
The Pacific Northwest is experiencing surging spring heat that is prompting red-flag warnings for fire risks in southwest Washington. With statewide snowpack only 58 percent of the median, state officials are preparing for summer drought, which can raise the potential for wildfires, reduce irrigation flows to farmers and make life difficult for salmon.
Editor’s Note: As a former student journalist, I find the headline to be disturbing. But I’m too far removed from any college campus–in age or location–to understand how this happened. So, we’re asking Rutgers students, recent grads, and faculty for their opinions. Why has the student newspaper lost the support of its readers? Inferior or irrelevant product? A generation of students disinterested in print news? A reaction to college fees? Please click on the ‘comment’ line or use our Facebook page to respond. We also welcome comment from students at other colleges and universities–Frank Brill
The future of Rutgers University’s independent student newspaper is in question after losing all of its funding from student fees, the primary source of revenue for the 151-year-old The Daily Targum.
Not enough students voted to continue supporting an $11.25 student fee in a recent campus referendum, gutting the paper of its largest and most reliable source of revenue, the paper announced on Monday night.
“It’s kind of up in the air right now,” Sandy Giacobbe, The Daily Targum’s business manager, said of the future. “The Targum is in uncharted territory.”
Giacobbe, a junior, wouldn’t say what percentage of total revenue will be lost or speculate about whether the paper may reduce its current five-day print schedule.
The failed referendum is the the first complete loss of student fee funding since the paper became independent of the university in 1980, he said.
In a statement, The Daily Targum pledged to continue serving the Rutgers community.
“We do not know what the future holds, but the Targum Publishing Company’s Board of Trustees and staff will be working to address this funding crisis,” the paper tweeted.
The paper began printing at Rutgers in 1869 and has been a training ground for thousands of professional journalists ever since. But many independent college newspapers, like media companies, have struggled to stay afloat amid declining print circulation and advertising revenue, leading them to scale back print operations and focus on their websites.
Some college papers have recently turned to students fees as a solution, asking the student body to vote to approve new fees to support campus journalism.
Last week Washington became the eighth state to adopt a law that makes paint manufacturers responsible for the cost of collecting and recycling leftover house latex and oil paints.
“This new law will help protect the environment by making it easy for Washington residents and businesses to recycle leftover house paints that pile up in our basements, garages, and storage facilities,” said sponsor State Rep. Strom Peterson. “The program also will save money for towns and taxpayers by freeing up resources currently dedicated to processing unused paint through local household hazardous waste programs.”
The Association of New Jersey Household Hazardous Waste Coordinators (NJHHWC), which has been the lead organization pushing similar legislation in New Jersey, seized on news of the Washington State enactment. In a letter, Association president JoAnn Gemenden urged Governor Phil Murphy to endorse the ‘paint stewardship’ legislation that now is law in the eight other states.
New Jersey’s current paint bills, S2815, and A4382, offer a “vast improvement over the current disposal options of landfilling, incineration at waste-to-energy facilities, or the exorbitant expense of county household hazardous waste collection programs,” Gemenden wrote.
Angela Anderson, president of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers (ANJR) which also supports the legislation, agreed. “The beauty of the legislation is that paint manufacturers would be able to utilize a voluntary network of retailers for used-paint collection and/or New Jersey’s established system of municipal and county recycling centers, she said.
Model paint legislation, supported by the paint industry, has been enacted in Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia.
In New Jersey, the legislation has been heard and released by the environmental committees in the both the Senate and Assembly and currently sit in the finance committees in both houses.
Editor’s Note: If you ever lived or parked your car in the city, there’s a good chance you agree with those who call Lew Blum is the Most Hated Man in Philadelphia. After reading the story below, you may consider pinning that title on a guy with another well-known name..
Jonathan Valania writes in Philadelphia Magazine
Lew Blum at the West Philly impound garage where he might have towed your car. Gene Smirnov photo
Up until September 22, 2015, it was Lew Blum’s world; we just parked in it.
From behind the steel-reinforced walls of his fortified bunker in West Philly, Blum lorded over a vast and lucrative towing empire that specializes in removing unauthorized vehicles from private parking space across the city. His name is a household word in Philadelphia, where upwards of 10,000 LEW BLUM TOWING signs hang in ubiquity on the walls adjacent to more than 3,000 private parking lots, spaces and garage doors, warding off would-be illegal parkers the way scarecrows ward off crows. When that fails, Blum’s wreckers tow away those who ignore the warning, at the behest of irked private-parking-space owners and lessees. Nothing enrages us more than taking away something that belongs to us, especially our cars, which in America is tantamount to stealing our eternal souls. Blum was good at it, so good that he became The Most Hated Man in Philadelphia in the court of public opinion. Lew doesn’t take it personally — it’s just one of the many occupational hazards of being a tow-truck-drivin’ man. Besides, somebody’s gotta be the villain in this movie.
Raised on the dog-eared mean streets of the Bottom in the middle of the 20th century, Blum was born into a burgeoning towing dynasty. Towing was the family business going back generations. His grandfather, Lew Smith, more or less invented tow-truck enforcement of private parking in this city. Blum’s uncle was George Smith — of George Smith Towing fame — and between the two of them, they split the city in half. Sure, there were other towing companies in town — Jimmy’s, Earl’s, Empire — but they mostly nibbled around the edges of Blum’s and Smith’s respective fiefdoms. And yeah, some towers ran their businesses like pirate ships, but that wasn’t Lew Blum’s problem. He’s been saying for years that the city should be singling out and cracking down on the bad actors.
Blum says that in the past two years, his $2 million towing empire has lost 80 percent of its value. He’s exhausted his life savings just trying to keep his head above water.
In recent years, getting your car out of Blum’s impoundment lot would set you back $200, and up until 2017, his wreckers were hooking 20 cars a day. He estimates the value of his business back then in excess of $2 million. But all that began to change on or about September 22, 2015. That was when now-indicted and theretofore all-powerful union boss Johnny Doc emerged from an undisclosed location to discover that his illegally parked car was “on the hook” of a wrecker from an unnamed towing company, as spelled out on page 118 of the 109-count federal indictment of Johnny “Doc” Dougherty, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, and Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon. After telling the tow-truck driver who he was, Johnny Doc shelled out the requisite $200 to get his car off the hook. Further insult was added to injury when the tow-truck driver was unable to make change and Doc was shorted $10. Shortly thereafter, according to the indictment, Doc called Bobby Henon to vent and plot his revenge.
