First Day Hike draws hardiest for 7 miles in severe cold

Chuck and Linda Luther of Bucks County,Pa must really like hiking

Michelle Brunetti Post reports for the Atlantic City Press:


BASS RIVER STATE FOREST — Chuck and Linda Luther of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, drove to the Pinelands on Monday morning in bitter cold to hike for several hours through its famous pygmy pine forest.


“It’s exciting to be out in the cold,” said Chuck Luther. “It’s our goal this year to do more hiking.”


And in the evening on New Year’s Day they planned to take a moonlight hike back home in Pennsylvania.


They were part of a group of 14 of the area’s hardiest folks, who set out on an organized seven-mile hike early New Year’s Day morning, despite temperatures in the low teens and a steady wind.


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NJ Lawmakers ready to override DEP on Highlands septics

For the first time, the Legislature appears poised to revoke a controversial environmental rule that opens up some of the sensitive lands in the Highlands to more development.
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
Both houses are expected Thursday to vote on a resolution to rescind the new regulation adopted by the state Department of Environmental Protection this past summer, a change in rules that increases the density of septic tanks allowed in forested parts of the more than 800,000-acre region.
If approved, the resolution (SCR-163) would mark an unusual rebuke to the Christie administration in its final days, and a rare victory in fighting the executive branch’s efforts to ease protections in an expanse providing drinking water to six million residents.
Previously, lawmakers approved a similar resolution calling on the DEP to amend, rescind, or withdraw the rule as being inconsistent with the legislative intent of a 2004 law establishing wide protections for the Highlands region.
DEP officials have repeatedly defended the new rule, saying it is consistent with the Highlands Regional Master Plan and arguing it will not degrade water supplies, but merely provide a reasonable opportunity for economic growth.
The controversy revives an ongoing debate over the Highlands Act, a law enacted in a bitter legislative dispute more than a decade ago. In this instance, the issues involve highly technical disputes over how much leaks from septic tanks end up contaminating groundwater supplies with nitrates.
The change in rules allows 1,100 more septic systems on 69,000 acres of protected land in the Highlands, an expansion department officials and some local residents insist will not impact water quality. The DEP cited a U.S. Geological Survey of drinking-water wells to justify the new rule.
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Feds poke a hole in revived NJ/NY Gateway Tunnel plan

Karen Yi reports for NJ.com:


A crucial infrastructure deal to fund a multi-billion-dollar rail tunnel under the Hudson River suffered a major setback Friday, after the Trump Administration announced the project relied on a “non-existent” agreement to secure federal funding. 


The tunnel is part of the larger Gateway Project and would build a two-track commuter tube for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains traveling between New Jersey and New York Penn Station — among the busiest transit hubs in the country.


But the Federal Transit Administration said Friday it did not recognize the agreement struck under former President Obama that would have the federal government kick in half of the bill, according to a letter sent to New York and New Jersey officials.


“There is no such agreement,” FTA Deputy Administrator K. Jane Williams wrote. “We consider it unhelpful to reference a non-existent ‘agreement’ rather than directly address the responsibility for funding a local project where 9 out of 10 passengers are local transit riders.”


A copy of the letter was published online by Crain’s New York. 


Williams wrote she had “serious concerns” about the first phase of the project that asked for $11.1 billion from the federal government. “Your proposal also overlooks that 50% would be considerably higher than much existing precedent for past ‘mega projects,'” she said. 


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Incoming NJ Assembly Speaker names his staff members

Alyana Alfaro reports for Observer:


Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) on Thursday announced senior staff members that will join the Assembly Leadership Office and the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee in January after he takes the helm as New Jersey’s next Assembly speaker.
“This experienced team will help lead our caucus and our state towards a better future for New Jersey’s working middle-class families,” said Coughlin in a statement. “As our state grapples with the many issues before us in the years ahead, I could not be more proud to have assembled a team that will meet those challenges head on to ensure a better future for New Jersey.”
Francisco Maldonado-Ramirez will remain the deputy executive director of the Majority Office after Coughlin is sworn in as speaker. Mickey Quinn, a current member of the leadership staff, will also be bumped up to deputy executive director.
Coughlin’s senior advisor will be Daniel Smith, most recently a staff member of the Communications Workers of America Local 1036. Laurie McCabe will be another of Couglin’s senior advisors. She will also continue her chief of staff role in Coughlin’s 19th legislative district, a post she has held since 2014.
Under Coughlin’s leadership, Iris Delgado will serve as the executive director of the DACC. Delgado has worked with the New Jersey Democratic Party and was the National Campaign Operations Director for SEIU.
Coughlin will be sworn in on January 9, 2018 the start of the next legislative session. Prieto began his tenure as speaker in 2014 but, despite initial efforts to keep his post ahead of the new session, was unable to stave off Coughlin and lock of up the necessary votes to remain in his post. Coughlin has been a member of the Assembly since 2010.
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Can Iceland regrow the forests that the Vikings razed?

A reforestation site in southern Iceland. The amount of land in the country covered in forest is still tiny.

Henry Fountain reports for The New York Times:

GUNNARSHOLT, Iceland — With his flats of saplings and a red planting tool, Jon Asgeir Jonsson is a foot soldier in the fight to reforest Iceland, working to bring new life to largely barren landscapes.


Jon Asgeir Jonsson, who works for a private forestry association, with larch saplings in western Iceland.

The country lost most of its trees more than a thousand years ago, when Viking settlers took their axes to the forests that covered one-quarter of the countryside. Now Icelanders would like to get some of those forests back, to improve and stabilize the country’s harsh soils, help agriculture and fight climate change.

But restoring even a portion of Iceland’s once-vast forests is a slow and seemingly endless task. Despite the planting of three million or more trees in recent years, the amount of land that is covered in forest — estimated at about 1 percent at the turn of the 20th century, when reforestation was made a priority — has barely increased.

“It’s definitely a struggle,” said Mr. Jonsson, a forester who works for
the private Icelandic Forestry Association and plants saplings with volunteers from the many local forestry groups in this island nation of 350,000 people. “We have gained maybe half a percent in the last century.”

Even in a small country like Iceland, a few million trees a year is just
a drop in the bucket.

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