Re-sending: Some good news for all you lighthouse fans














[Editor’s Note: Some of you were unable to access this post when it was sent originally, so we’re resending it. Sorry for any confusion.]


 Chris Franklin reports for NJ.com

The second oldest lighthouse in the state — dangerously exposed to elements along the Delaware Bay —  received some help by way of a nonprofit organization. And it was just in time for National Lighthouse Day.

The New Jersey Conservation Foundation recently sold 8.8 acres of land to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to provide additional access and protection for the lighthouse, which is more than 150 years old.

The land will become part of the Heislerville Wildlife Management Area, which is where the lighthouse is located, adjacent to the Delaware Bay in Maurice River. The sale price was a “bargain” price of $8,668, according to the foundation.

“East Point Lighthouse is a valuable cultural resource, and we are grateful to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation for partnering with the NJDEP as we explore long-term solutions that will protect the structure,” NJDEP Assistant Commissioner for Natural and Historic Resources Ray Bukowski said in a statement.

The lighthouse, built in 1849, has survived a fire, but weather-related issues from a number of storms in recent years have caused a significant amount of erosion. State, county, township and lighthouse officials are looking at ways to protect the lighthouse from damage and to keep the lighthouse open for years to come.

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NYC approves Inwood rezoning, despite resident protests

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez tried to allay community concerns about the new zoning changes for Inwood, saying, “This rezoning is not about pushing tenants out,” but about “millions of dollars in investment.” Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Jeffery C. Mays reports for the New York Times:

After three years of planning, meetings and protests, the City Council overwhelmingly approved a plan on Wednesday to rezone a large swath of Inwood, often referred to as the last affordable neighborhood in Manhattan.The proposal is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to rezone up to 15 neighborhoods across the city and create and preserve 300,000 units of affordable housing by 2026. Inwood became the fifth neighborhood, all low-income and largely minority, to be rezoned under the plan.

The rezoning will create and preserve 4,100 units of affordable housing, including 925 units on city-owned land and 675 units that will be established in market-rate buildings under housing rules that require developers to build affordable housing in projects made possible by rezoning.

“The approval of the Inwood neighborhood rezoning means a fairer, stronger future for a community that has experienced decades of disinvestment,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement. “It means affordability, security and opportunity for residents and new immigrants alike.”

But a coalition of Inwood residents has opposed the plan because they fear that even with new affordable units, an influx of market-rate apartments will increase rents and displace longtime residents.

[Residents of Inwood talk of a way of life there, a sense of place, order and community that they fear will be threatened if the new zoning changes the character of the neighborhood. Read more here about the fight for Inwood’s future.]



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New Jersey no longer begging for new gas-energy plants

CPV seeks approvals to build a second plant adjacent to its current unit in Woodbridge. It’s the fourth plant seeking state and local approvals.

Competitive Power Ventre natural gas plant in Woodbridge, NJ

Competitive Power Venture’s Woodbridge Energy Center




Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

At one time, the state was practically begging the energy sector to build new natural-gas plants. Not anymore.
Competitive Power Ventures, the owner of a 725-megawatt power plant in Woodbridge Township, is seeking approval to build another natural-gas plant adjacent to its existing unit in the Keasbey section of the community.
The project is the latest seeking to cash in on the cheap natural gas provided by plentiful supplies that have been exploited in the Marcellus Shale formation of Pennsylvania, a trend that has driven down both electricity and heating costs for consumers and businesses.

Four plants seeking approvals

The proposal is the fourth natural-gas plant seeking necessary approvals from local and state permitting authorities. But it also raises questions about whether the sector has absorbed the message from the Murphy administration that it wants to have 100 percent clean energy by 2050.
Besides the new plant in Woodbridge, there are proposals to build gas-fired units in Cape May, in the Meadowlands in North Bergen, and along the Musconetcong River in Holland Township.
During the Christie administration, the state was so anxious to get power plants built and thus bring down high energy prices that it proposed subsidizing three new facilities to the tune of more than $1 billion. The plan was scrapped once it was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.



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New Fund to Support Delaware Watershed Conservation

The Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund will accelerate restoration and conservation of wildlife habitat across the Delaware River watershed while supporting local communities

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced the launch of the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund (DWCF), a competitive grant and technical assistance program of $4.3 million that will provide new support for the protection, restoration and conservation of fish and wildlife habitats in the Delaware River Watershed, which provides drinking water for more than 15 million people.

Congress provided funds to the FWS in fiscal year 2018 to leverage public and private funding to support the environmental and economic health of the Delaware River Watershed for boots-on-the-ground conservation projects — as outlined in the Delaware River Basin Restoration Partnership and Program Framework.

Covering 13,539 square miles of land and water, the Delaware River Watershed is home to native brook trout, red knots, river herring, freshwater mussels, oysters and other wildlife. Headwaters and streams located in rural, forested and agricultural areas play a major role in the entire ecosystem, as do urban and suburban waterways such as those in Trenton, Philadelphia, and Wilmington. 

“We are pleased to be partnering with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to launch this conservation grant program in the Delaware River Basin that will improve the natural environment, economic health and quality of life for all citizens in the watershed,” said Wendi Weber, northeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Work supported by the DWCF will take place in a variety of landscapes and habitats across the Delaware River Watershed, from the beaches and tidal salt marshes of the Delaware Bay to the farms, cities, and towns of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, to the cold-water rivers and streams of New York.

The DWCF will expand and further facilitate restoration and conservation efforts in the basin to:
  • Restore and conserve fish and wildlife habitat
  • Improve and maintain water quality for fish, wildlife, and people
  • Manage water volume and improve flood damage mitigation for fish and wildlife habitat
  • Improve recreational opportunities consistent with ecological needs



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How to make sense of Trump tweets on California wildfire

 0:52
This California wildfire is almost the size of L.A.
The Mendocino Complex Fire has burned 454 square miles of Northern California as of Aug. 6.(Patrick Martin /The Washington Post)


Dino Grandoni reports for The Energy 202 blog:

Between tweets about immigration and the economy, President Trump finally weighed in on the devastating forest fires ravaging California this summer.
But Trump did not have a word for the residents who lost their homes or firefighters who lost their lives. Instead, he wanted to talk about water politics in California, launching a series of tweets that baffled water experts and ignored the role climate change has played in exacerbating wildfires in the arid American West.
On Sunday, Trump blamed unnamed laws for worsening the wildfires. He reasoned “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”
He followed up with a Twitter message Monday faulting the state’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, for not providing enough water to fight the fires. That tweet came just a day after the president fulfilled the governor’s request to declare the Carr Fire near Redding a “major disaster,” allowing federal disaster dollars for housing and food aid to flow to the region.

Donald J. Trump


✔@realDonaldTrump


Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water – Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.
1:43 PM – Aug 6, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy
The tweets are perplexing in a number of ways. Indeed, years of drought have dried out California’s woodlands, making forests there more susceptible to wildfires. But the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says it has more than enough water to fight the blazes. “We’re having no issues with water supplies,” said Scott McLean, a deputy chief with the agency said.
In fact, some of the largest of the 17 wildfires in the state are burning near some of its largest lakes. Reservoirs like Trinity and Shasta lakes supply water for fighting the Carr Fire. And the Mendocino Complex Fire, now the largest wildfire on record in California, to the south is right on Clear Lake.
And dousing flames with water is only one way state and federal governments extinguish forest fires. Firefighters also deploy chemical fire retardants and clear lines of vegetation to contain blazes.
“I don’t understand it,” McLean added when asked about Trump’s tweets. “I was surprised like everybody else.”

Trump’s tweets demonstrate a misunderstanding about not only how fires are fought but about how rivers flow. California does divert water from its rivers, as Trump suggests — but not into the Pacific. As the state’s population has grown, its residents have redirected water to cities for drinking and to farmlands for irrigating. The water that remains in California’s rivers still does what it had always done — flow from their headwaters at higher elevations down into the ocean.
And Trump does not mention how a change actually occurring in California — high temperatures due to man-made warming worldwide in the atmosphere — are drying out forests and, as the Interior Department put it in a 2016 report, creating “a longer wildfire season with more intense wildfires.”

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