Some happy but wary about shads return to the Delaware

Steve Meserve shows off shad in Lambertville. Kim Weimer, staff photographer

A big shad run up the Delaware River this year has many excited the historic fish could be making a comeback. But others urge caution, saying the fish has a long way to go.

Kyle Bagenstose reports for the Bucks Courier-Times:
The number of shad — little-known but important fish — increased dramatically in the Delaware River in 2017, leading to the fish’s best migratory showing in decades.
That’s according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which netted 1,262 shad during its surveying this year, the most since 1995.
But some fish watchers are urging caution. They note that it’s just one year in a long history of declining shad populations along the Atlantic Coast.
“We don’t want to make too much of any one year, in any one place,” said Joseph Gordon, Northeast manager for U.S. oceans with the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Many area residents may best know the fish through Shad Fest, an event held each spring in New Hope and Lambertville.
Shad Fest gives participants a taste of the fish, as restaurants serve up shad hauled in by local fishermen. Like salmon, shad spend most of their lives at sea but migrate up fresh waterways to spawn once a year.
That makes them an integral part of the ecosystem, providing an important food source for saltwater and freshwater predators.
“They take important nutrients from off-shore ecosystems and bring them into rivers,” Gordon said. “There’s this crucial link that connects the ocean to river systems, which could be recovered but is mostly gone.”
Shad were once so abundant in the Delaware that numerous fisheries in Bucks County and beyond employed fishermen who caught and shipped them to restaurants in Philadelphia and New York City. But mid-20th-century pollution prevented shad from migrating up the Delaware, dropping their migratory numbers from the millions to zero, with a modest recovery in recent decades.
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Debate: Did Christie fetch Trump’s sandwiches or not?

Editor:
1st story: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was “a sort of manservant” who delivered orders from McDonald’s to then presidential candidate Donald Trump.  


2nd story: Nope, it was all made up and leaked by enemies within the campaign to embarrass Christie.


3rd story: Wrong again, Christie indeed was the sandwich fetcher


Expected follow-up stories:
If Christie was not the transporter, who was?
Is President Trump still getting fast-food takeouts?
What are his favorites? With fries? Supersized?
Who’s paying? The public? The RNC? Trump? Christie?

New Yorker reporter defends story that Christie fetched McDonalds for Trump

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After outcry, Trump backs off on elephant ‘trophies’

An elephant shot dead by British big game hunter David Barrett in 2009 in Zimbabwe. (Barcoft Media via Getty Images)
Ashley Parker and Juliet Eilperin report for The Washington Post:
President Trump abruptly reversed his administration’s Thursday decision to allow elephants shot for sport in Zimbabwe and Zambia to be imported back to the United States as trophies, saying in a tweet Friday night that he was putting the decision “on hold” until further review.
“Put big game trophy decision on hold until such time as I review all conservation facts,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Under study for years. Will update soon with Secretary Zinke. Thank you!”
Trump’s sudden tweet halted a decision by his own administration, announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday, to end a 2014 government ban on big-game trophy hunting in Zimbabwe and Zambia, saying it would help the conservation of the species. Under U.S. law the remains of African elephants, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, can only be imported if federal officials have determined that hunting them benefits the species more broadly.
But the Fish and Wildlife decision almost immediately was met with a fierce backlash and outcry from animal rights activists and environmentalists — as well as prominent conservatives, and a key House committee chairman.
Read the full story

Were you surprised by the administration’s original decision? What about the reversal? Click on the tiny ‘comments’ link below to share your opinion


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Water quality rule changes keep NJ testing labs busy



In our second of three video reports from the NJ State League of Municipalities Convention, we chat with Harvey Klein of Garden State Laboratories.


He discusses proposed, recent and future rule changes likely to affect commercial pools, public water treatment facilities, and even private wells. 

Do you have thoughts on water testing that you’d like to share? Just click on the tiny ‘comments’ link below


Previous: Was every local official in NJ in AC this week?
Next:  Beekeepers buzz the bonnets of local officials 


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Before you say adios to Gov. Chris Christie, read this


By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics editor
Between now and the end of 2017, you will encounter a truckload of recollections, reassessments and critiques of Chris Christie’s eight tumultuous–sometimes amazing and ultimately exhausting–years as New Jersey’s governor.
I’m not sure that I have the inclination or the stamina to read them all. Happily, there no longer may be a need.
In today’s Politico Magazine, the talented political observer, Josh Dawsey, offers up a tour of the Christie years, with insights from political combatants, comments from Christie’s closest advisors, and quotes from a sit-down with the governor himself that come as close to candid as a politician might allow. 
As for Dawsey, the writer, here’s what Vanity Fair‘s Chris Popeo has to say:
“In yet another Trump-beat newsroom raid, The Washington Post has hired rising-star White House reporter Josh Dawsey, from Politico. At the Post, he will join a six-person White House team following the recent departure of Abby Phillip for CNN. Politico recruited Dawsey, now 27, from The Wall Street Journal—where he was a well-respected but not terrifically well-known New York City Hall reporter—at the end of last year, moved him to Washington, and turned him loose on the West Wing. Dawsey, an energetic, ink-stained-wretch type with a hint of South Carolina drawl, had a gift for covering the soap opera, but also has notched more substantive scoops on Russia and on various policy developments.“


Save yourself a lot of reading time. Start with Dawsey’s piece on Christie. It’s really that good.
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LaGuardia AirTrain planning gets $55M PANYNJ boost



Dan Rivoli reports for the New York Daily News:

Planning for an AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport got another $55 million Thursday from the Port Authority, in a unanimous vote with no questions asked.
Agency board members approved the money for the Gov. Cuomo-backed project, supplementing the $20 million already allocated, to put an AirTrain between Mets-Willets Point and the airport.
The board heard a brief presentation about the next phase of the planning, but no members had any questions on it before voting.

The money for the new transportation — a modern necessity for supporters of Cuomo’s transformation of the city’s airports, and a potential boondoggle to its critics — would cover technical planning, design work and developing an environmental-impact report.


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