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.
For the second day in a row, a wildlife officer was called out to the corner of Brown Place and South Street in Red Bank to care for a raccoon pup that had fallen from a nest about 20 feet above the ground.
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.”
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.
A “community internet intensity map” showed light intensity across much of New Jersey. (USGS graphic. Click to enlarge)
An earthquake centered near Freehold shook the Greater Red Bank Green early Wednesday morning.
No damage is known to have occurred in and around Red Bank. But the temblor lit up social media.
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.
After years of controversy, plan changes and environmental issues, a combination play area and viewing stand in Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area is finally nearing completion. redbankgreen got a sneak preview Thursday morning.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
Like the rest of New Jersey, Red Bank may be on near-lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but work on a trio of closely watched municipal projects continues.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
A sign alerting the public to an environmental cleanup appeared at Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area a few weeks ago.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
After years of discussion, some of it quite heated, Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area is about to get a makeover.
A ban on single-use plastic bags will go into effect in September, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank stores will be barred from giving customers plastic bags and styrofoam food containers under an ordinance adopted by the council Wednesday night.
The ban was approved without any opposition voiced, though supermarket executive lamented that such laws are being adopted town-by-town, rather than at the state level.
Borough officials will try to come up with a “reasonable” alternative to the aborted plan, said Mayor Menna. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council has scrapped a plan to implement alternate-side parking that found little public support.
At its regular meeting Wednesday night, the council voted to kill an already-introduced ordinance that would have mandated the parked-car switcheroo on a weekly basis, in conjunction with more frequent street sweeping.
Single-use plastic bags and more would be banned under an ordinance up for introduction. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council has street-sweeping, green roofs, single-use plastics and cranes on its plate when it meets this week for its only regular meeting of July.
Here are some of the expected highlights: Read More
Work on the primary school emergency access road, seen here from Locust Avenue, is nearly complete. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
While most of America is cracking open its first cold beverages of the July 4 holiday Wednesday evening, the Red Bank council plans to hold a workshop session.
Yep.
Affecting the air of a thuggish gang, a group of vultures loitered outside Les Gertrude apartments on Broad Street in Red Bank Thursday morning. One enjoyed a sidewalk breakfast of fresh kill.
Any ornithologists out there who can identify these gray-headed birds? (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
Consulting engineer Christine Ballard details the Bellhaven plan for the council last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After years of revisions, and no small amount of controversy, changes to the Bellhaven Natural Area in Red Bank could be completed by this summer, officials said last week.
Once again, the project has been scaled-back from a version of a plan that called for a spray park and triggered loud protests four years ago, they said.
A lone sunflower looked a bit disappointed under gray skies behind the 7-Eleven store at Maple Avenue and West Front Street in Red Bank Tuesday. (Photo by Alan Placer. Click to enlarge)
After some possible morning rain, our sun-hungry friend can expect partly sunny conditions Wednesday, along with high humidity and temperatures in the mid-80s, before ample sunshine returns Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
Here’s the forecast through next Tuesday:
Trees were taken down recently at Bellhaven Natural Area in preparation for an observation deck being built there, according to Business Administrator Ziad Shehady. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials have quietly started prep work for a project at a site once mired in controversy: the Bellhaven Natural Area overlooking the Swimming River.
The end result, however will be a “scaled-back” version of a plan that once called for a spray park and triggered loud protests three years ago.
For the past week, Lisa Keele of Red Bank and her family have cared for a fledgling robin they found lying in the road outside their Branch Avenue home. Named ‘Sam,’ the bird cannot fly and was born without a right eye.
