Kurt Poehler at the Red Bank Farmer’s Market in May, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The farmer who trigged a backlash over disposed produce at the Red Bank Farmer’s Market Sunday defended the practice as a normal result of sorting Wednesday.
In addition, an organization that puts surplus produce into the hands of those who need it backed him for donating carloads of fruit and vegetables weekly, including Sunday.
Customers of the Red Bank Farmer’s Market were alarmed to see good produce tossed into a dumpster Sunday.
Creating the turtle habitat at Bellhaven involved trucking in a special blend of sand. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Red Bank’s Environmental Commission has debuted a pair of completed projects spotlighting turtles and water conservation in recent weeks.
A cluster of dead bunker in the Red Bank borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive die-off of bunker fish in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers this spring poses no health threat to recreational users of those waters, environmental scientists said Thursday night.
Meantime, experts are still trying to determine what environmental “stressors” might have turned a bacteria that’s common to the species into a mass killer that has littered shores with tons of dead, putrid carcasses.
A cluster of dead bunker in the borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Clean Ocean Action and local officials, including Red Bank’s, will get the virtual town hall with New Jersey environmental officials they’ve been seeking to address the recent “severe” fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, the organization announced Friday.
Fish carcasses on the shoreline at Maple Cove in Red Bank Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials this week called on the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to host a virtual town hall meeting to address concerns about a fish kill the agency has called the “most severe” in recent memory.
Dead menhaden cluster at a Navesink River dock in Fair Haven last week. (Photo by Bernie McSherry. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers in recent weeks is “the most severe mortality event in recent memory,” but New Jersey environmental officials still don’t know why it’s targeting only one species, Clean Ocean Action reported Thursday.
The environmental advocacy group also pressed the state to remove at least some of the dead fish from Red Bank-area waters.
On an unseasonably nippy Earth Day 2021, volunteers marked the third anniversary on Thursday of Pick It Up, an effort to curb litter and single-use plastics pollution in downtown Red Bank.
Dead fish littered the Fair Haven boat launch on Battin Avenue last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Clean Ocean Action has called on New Jersey environmental and health officials to hold a virtual town hall to provide updates and guidance for towns along the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, where massive menhaden die-offs have occurred recently.
“The cause, extent, and magnitude of the die-off is deeply concerning and raising alarm throughout the region,” COA executive director Cindy Zipf and staff scientist Swarna Muthukrishnan wrote Friday. “Feeding the concern is the lack of answers, conflicting answers, and lack of proactive response to the ever-increasing dead fish.”
The sewage pump station at the foot of Cooper’s Bridge was once used as a gas manufacturing plant. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
More than a century after it served as a gas works, a riverfront Red Bank property may get some 20th-century environmental remediation.
Coal tar and other toxic wastes beneath the town’s Bodman Place sewage pumping station overlooking the Navesink are slated to be immobilized by technology known as ‘jet grouting,’ according to borough officials.
Yet another century-old building in Fair Haven’s historic downtown is up on blocks.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
Part of Buttonwood Drive in Fair Haven was closed to traffic Tuesday as workers in crane buckets worked up in the street’s famed canopy of sycamore trees.
An easterly view along River Road from Cedar Street earlier this week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See UPDATES below]
By JOHN T. WARD
Electricity supplier JCP&L may be unplugging itself from an agreement to install low-energy streetlamps in Fair Haven, Environmental Commission Chairman Ralph Wyndrum said Wednesday night.
That prompted some choice words about the utility from commission member and former councilman Jon Peters. Among them: “They are the princes and princesses of darkness.”
Thirteen months after it was abruptly closed over contamination concerns, Red Bank’s only community garden heads into autumn with a crop of periodically mown grass.
But what happened to the neighborhood soil testing that was supposed to be conducted? And will the garden reopen?
redbankgreen’s What’s Going On Here? has an update.
A long-vacant former gas station at the northern entrance to Red Bank was fenced off Wednesday for some site work.
DeLisa Demolition would continue to pick up waste and recycling under an interim contract that boosts its existing rate by $10,000 per month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s elected officials will be asked to authorize an “emergency” trash contract this week after no bids were received for a longterm pact, redbankgreen has learned.
A leak of emails, including correspondence between Councilman Ed Zipprich and a prospective bidder for the trash contract, is the subject of an investigation. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Councilman Ed Zipprich will get the investigation into a leak of emails he requested earlier this month.
Approval of the probe, as well as final adoption of the 2020 budget; extended hours of parking meter enforcement; and a half-dozen police department promotions are all on the council’s busy agenda for Wednesday night.
Councilman Ed Zipprich, left, at a press conference held by Governor Phil Murphy at Riverview Medical Center in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Councilman Ed Zipprich said he has asked for an investigation into a leak of emails in which Business Administrator Ziad Shehady suggested Zipprich was out to “sabotage” the bidding for a new trash hauling contract.
Separately, friction between Shehady and Councilman Michael Ballard flared up again at the council’s workshop meeting Wednesday.
DeLisa Demolition won the borough’s trash contract, now up for rebid, in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Business Administrator Ziad Shehady has asked elected officials to discuss, in private, what he calls an effort by a council member to “sabotage” the process of awarding a new trash-hauling contract, redbankgreen has learned.
With its first private trash contract winding down, Red Bank residents have an opportunity to weigh in on pickup frequency.
The borough switched to private garbage pickup in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five years after Red Bank privatized trash and recycling pickup, residents and business owners will soon be asked: how’s that working out for you?
More particularly, they’ll be asked how quickly their garbage cans and recycling bins fill up.
After four weeks as a pandemic-era drive-thru, the Red Bank Farmer’s Market plans to resume walk-thru shopping Sunday, its operators announced Tuesday.
For the second time in 13 years, a stretch of White Street in Red Bank is temporarily treeless.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
The Red Bank Farmer’s Market reopened Sunday, with some changes to limit the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.
The foremost modification: the market is now temporarily a drive-thru only, with customers encouraged to pre-order their purchases.
Kurt Poehler, above, and his crew from Spring House Farms were ready with arrays of colorful fruits and vegetables.
The popular Red Bank Farmer’s Market will be back sooner than expected, redbankgreen has learned.
Unfortunately, shoppers won’t be allowed out of their cars to squeeze, sniff and taste until the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer considered a threat.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.