The so-called Sunset Park concept plan includes a soccer field, riverfront boardwalk, kayak launch and other amenities. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank residents will get their first look Monday night at a concept plan for a new park on the town’s long-closed landfill site overlooking the Swimming River.
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.
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.
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.
The former landfill at West Sunset Avenue, as seen in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials took another step toward the creation of a long-anticipated new park on the site of the former landfill and incinerator this week.
They also got some promises of help.
Engineer Christine Ballard, above, discusses sampling for toxic substances at the former landfill site. One result of the tests: new warning signs, below. (Above photo by John T. Ward; photo below by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank is on track with testing for toxic substances at its former landfill and incinerator, but the painstaking process is unlikely to yield new parkland within the next five years, the town’s engineer said Wednesday.
Meantime, one immediate upshot of tests at the 8.6-acre West Side site: new warnings about eating fish and crabs caught from the adjoining Swimming River.
About a dozen members of Monmouth County sportsmen’s clubs turned out in a cold drizzle to clear debris and phragmites from Red Bank’s Mohawk Pond Sunday morning, in anticipation of this week’s annual restocking of the pond with trout by the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Afterward, participants watched a pair of ospreys soar above the pond and a admired a blue heron, right, as it fed a the pond’s western edge. According to the state, the pond is slated to receive a total 960 rainbow and brown trout this season, which opens Saturday at 8 a.m. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Boris Kofman, above, and Michael Paul Raspanti, below, during Saturday’s riverfront cleanup on Red Bank’s West Side. (Photos by Wil Fulton, above, and Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)
By SARAH KLEPNER
Duane Bowker stood in the wooded area above the Swimming River in Red Bank and pointed.
“Some roofer, this is his favorite place to throw his crap and drink beer,” he said. “Over here is a plumber’s favorite place to throw his crap.”
The occasion was Saturday’s cleanup effort by members of the borough Environmental Commission and the environmental nonprofit Clean Ocean Action. They teamed up to tackle a riverbank full of tires and construction debris at the western end of Drs. James Parker Boulevard.
For the second time in four days, Sea Bright residents gathered in a stadium, this time in West Long Branch, to get updates on the storm cleanup Sunday. Below, Mayor Dina Long and Councilman James LoBiondo. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Sea Bright residents were to begin getting greater access to their homes Monday morning, town officials told them at another packed-grandstand meeting Sunday.
Though a massive cleanup and repair of public works infrastructure is proceeding more quickly than initially anticipated, “Sea Bright is not ready to be reoccupied,” Mayor Dina Long said at a townwide meeting held at Shore Regional High’s football field in West Long Branch.
Still, officials hope to allow unimpeded access to residents as early as Friday, said Councilman James LoBiondo, who has headed up the effort to cap leaking natural gas lines and remove hundreds of tons of sand from roadways.
Our beautiful Navesink, as seen from Marine Park in Red Bank Wednesday evening. (Photo by Danielle Tepper. Click to enlarge)
By DANIELLE TEPPER
This weekend, area residents will take to the water as part of two individual cleanup events in an effort to keep the Navesink River beautiful and litter-free.
Those who are proud to call Red Bank and Rumson home based on the rivers picturesque expanse are asked to give a couple hours worth of time and exertion in order to protect it.
Both events are rain or shine, except in the case of thunder and lightning. All volunteers must wear closed-toed shoes; unlike a beach cleanup, volunteers may have to walk through bushes and shallow parts of the river to retrieve garbage.
A snow plow on East River Road Monday. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
While other towns continue trying to dig out from massive amounts of snow, it’s down to a cleanup effort in Rumson.
Public Works crews worked through the night Monday plowing through the borough’s seven-square-miles, and by Tuesday morning all streets were open, “which, I don’t think, a lot of the neighboring towns can say,” Mayor John Ekdahl said.
No they can’t.
About a dozen Red Bank adults and their children turned out for a site cleanup organized by board of education member Carrie Ludwikowski at the Red Bank Primary School last Saturday.
At right, Diana Archila-Donohue of Red Bank shows off a turtle that she released into the wetlands. Her husband, Brian, had rescued the turtle from the Garden State Parkway. (Photos by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge.)