The Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College has settled into warm-weather mode, but with an upcoming slate of summer-class training sessions, outdoor theater, car shows and other special events, things can hardly be said to be getting sleepy.
Workers with the American Littoral Society drop a bag of recycled oyster shells into the river from the dock of a Red Bank home Friday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
An effort to restore a once-thriving oyster ecosystem in the Navesink River got off to a small start last week with the help of scraps from restaurant diners’ plates.
Father John Lock and sexton Alonzo Copeland of Trinity Church in Red Bank took it upon themselves to retrieve a heavy trash barrel and other debris from the Navesink River shoreline along Riverside Gardens Park at low tide Tuesday afternoon.
The audience at the Celestial Lodge Friday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank residents delivered a message to borough officials Friday night about a new park proposed at the town’s long-closed landfill site: not everyone wants it.
At a town-hall-style meeting held at the Celestial Lodge #36 on Drs. James Parker Boulevard, area residents expressed concerns that the dump might never be made safe for public use.
Thinking of going electric with your next car? The Red Bank Environmental Commission plans to host Red Bank Electric Car Day later this month to juice awareness of electric vehicles and other alternatives to fossil-fuel burners.
Left to right: Red Bank Regional teacher Federica Proietti Cesaretti is pictured with her award winning RBR World Language Italian students Taylor Adams , Sirenia Tochihuitl, Raymond Soya and Liam Tyler.
Press release from Red Bank Regional High School
Students and teachers at Red Bank Regional High School are always looking for opportunities to improve their skills through competitive engagements. To that end, RBR’s World Language teacher of Italian, Federica Proietti Cesaretti, entered her students in the 2017 competition sponsored by the Italian Teachers Association of New Jersey (ITANJ).
Red Bank Regional competed with with approximately 40 students from eight other high schools, submitting multi-media projects in Italian, tied to the theme of Italy’s response to climate change. When the winners were announced in April. RBR swept all three top awards, taking first, second and third place.
On Earth Day, April 22, an army of more than 60 volunteers descended upon Fair Haven Fields for a day of activity that included removal of trash and invasive vines, a clean-up of Dery’s Pond, and plantings of more than 50 seedlings in the Tree Nursery. Pictured left to right in the back row are borough councilman Christopher Rodriguez; Markus Onni (Den Leader, Cub Scouts Pack 127); Shervyn von Hoerl (Cubmaster, Pack 127); Carol Lang; Matt Lang (Den Leader, Pack 127), and Chris Kopacko, with a group of Cub Scout and youth volunteers pictured at front. A follow-up volunteer day at the Fields will be announced for fall.
Busted sanitary sewer lines in two locations along Marion Street in Red Bank were significant sources of bacteria winding up in the Navesink off Fair Haven, investigators said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Environmentalists and government officials have found two culprits, just yards apart in Red Bank, believed to be contributing to a spike in human waste bacteria in the Navesink River, they said Thursday night.
And the mystery could not have been solved without a trio of specially trained sniffing dogs, an ecstatic Clean Ocean Action leader Cindy Zipf told redbankgreen.
Amy Goldsmith of Clean Water Action.
Press release from Clean Water Action
On the evening of Tuesday, May 9, the nonprofit organization Clean Water Action will host a public-welcome presentation on its award-winning ReThink Disposable initiative, during the meeting of the Red Bank Environmental Commission.
Amy Goldsmith, NJ Director of National Clean Water Action and a Red Bank resident, will make the presentation at the commission’s 7 p.m. meeting inside Borough Hall.
Clean Ocean Action founder Cindy Zipf speaks at Bingham Hall during a June 2016 public meeting on degradation of the Navesink River. The nonprofit COA returns to the Rumson community center on April 27, for a followup forum on water quality monitoring and boat pumping stations. (Photo above by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
In 2016, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection condemned over 565 acres of shellfishing habitat due to bacterial pollution. In response, the nonprofit Clean Ocean Action established Rally for the Navesink — the name for an alliance of 32 locally based organizations, as well as for the series of events that the COA has conducted over the course of the past year.
On the evening of Thursday, April 27, Rally for the Navesink returns to historic Bingham Hall in Rumson — scene of a well-attended public forum in June of last year — for a “Find It, Fix It” presentation that seeks to provide information on pumping station facilities for boat owners, in addition to putting out a call to concerned citizens who wish to assist in the community-wide monitoring of water quality in the river.
Left to right: An April 19 “Tree Talk” conference drew the participation of William Gerth (Shrewsbury), Christian Burns (Fair Haven), Professor Jason Grabosky (Rutgers University), plus Wayne Greenleaf, Steve Barrett, and Kristen Hall (Rumson). (photo by Christopher Rodriguez)
Press release from Christopher Rodriguez, Fair Haven Borough Council
The local communities of Fair Haven, Rumson, Little Silver and Shrewsbury came together on April 19 as a broader group for a discussion about our trees — the ones that benefit our environment, as well as some we can avoid — in a public-welcome meeting of the Two Rivers Shade Tree Alliance.
During the Tree Talk at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, Shade Tree Commissioners from the four towns hosted and engaging presentation by Rutgers University professor Jason Grabosky. The professor, a local expert in urban forestry, ecology and natural resources, conducted an interactive slideshow presentation, and entertained questions from the dozens of local residents in attendance.
A “Roving Naturalist” guided tour of Tatum Park’s hiking trails is among the activities scheduled at county parks throughout Middletown Township for Earth Day.
Saturday, April 22 marks the annual observance of Earth Day, and with our not-so-gently-used home planet in need of more TLC than at any time in its history, the Monmouth County Park System is offering several ways to raise awareness of local earth-friendly programs at its sites in Middletown Township.
In addition, Saturday marks the annual return of two popular events at neighboring facilities on Middletown’s Red Hill Road — both of them enhancing the Earth Day experience, and all of it designed to better acquaint local residents with several genuine public jewels of the Greater Red Bank Green.
The man police say has been mutilating trees in downtown Red Bank was spotted by redbankgreen doing exactly that on Monmouth Street Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank police have charged an Asbury Park man in a recent vandalism spree that targeted street trees downtown.
Edward Williams, 41, was arrested Friday after being identified from surveillance video yanking out a potted tree on Broad Street during Sunday’s Street Fair to benefit the Police Benevolent Association, when hundreds of people were present, according to Chief Darren McConnell.
An old house-turned-retail building in Fair Haven’s historic business district literally went up on blocks Thursday. What’s Going On Here? Read on.
A map showing the extended former landfill site outlined in green. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
We need a skatepark. We need a playgrounds for West Side kids. We need to remember that this is a neighborhood that can’t handle throngs of out-of-town visitors.
Red Bank residents offered those and other suggestions as the process of shaping a new waterfront park out of the former town dump got underway with a community brainstorming session last Thursday night.
Red Bank police are now investigating repeated acts of vandalism on street trees after young specimens on Monmouth Street were attacked a second time Wednesday night, just hours after a post-attack pruning by the Shade Tree Committee.
Members of Red Bank’s Shade Tree Committee were horrified to discover Wednesday that all six young Japanese tree lilacs planted on Monmouth Street three years ago had been mutilated.
As part of an annual spring planting, Red Bank’s tree inventory grew by 11 new Black Tupelo and Serviceberry trees Tuesday, including ones planted on Elm Place, above, and Leighton Avenue, right.
No fooling: on Saturday, April 1st, the folks at the Sandy Hook-based American Littoral Society will be planting dune grass — and everyone is invited to lend a hand.
Between the hours of 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., the Society will coordinate a “rain or shine” volunteer event in conjunction with their Beach Grasses in Classes program, involving students from area schools who raise and plant dune grass. The grasses play a big role in helping to stabilize beaches along the storm-battered coast; protecting the dunes that serve as barriers against flooding, and helping to prevent major erosion events.
Many in the crowd came with signs and wore stickers indicating the distance of their homes from the proposed power line. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Thwarted from speaking two months ago, hundreds of opponents of a proposed high-voltage electricity transmission line from Aberdeen to Red Bank came electrified with anger Tuesday night.
The occasion was a public comment session at Brookdale Community College on the Jersey Central Power & Light Company proposal, which calls for support poles as tall as 210 feet running for 10 miles along the North Jersey Coast Line railroad, ending at a substation in Red Bank.
Two months after an overflow crowd jammed a first hearing, opponents of a proposed high-voltage electricity transmission line from Aberdeen to Red Bank are expected to gather at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft Wednesday evening.
On Earth Day, April 22, residents of Fair Haven and other neighboring communities (Little Silver, Rumson and Red Bank) are invited to join members of the borough’s Natural Area Committee and Shade Tree Commission in a team opportunity to “care for a treasure that improves all of our lives.”
That treasure is the Fair Haven Fields Natural Area, the approximately 40 acre recreational facility whose trails regularly hosts a wide range of open-air activities for community members of all ages (in addition to the occasional warm-weather movie night). And beginning that Saturday morning, the community has a chance to give back to a resource that keeps on giving year-round.
With planning underway to transform the former Red Bank landfill at West Sunset Avenue into an 8.6-acre park, the borough Parks & Rec Committee has scheduled a “concept design kickoff” to solicit public input on the project.
A pile of rubble was all that remained Friday of a building at 812-814 River Road in Fair Haven.
What’s going on here?
