Chapter 9: The woodlands is about the various lands of forestry that make up parts of New Jersey. The forests of New Jersey a in other states, if not protected, are in danger of being torn down by the government's want to have open lang for suburbanization or urbanization, similarly to what happened in Philadelphia and New York City. Being a Philadelphia resident I have seen this myself. It is a big city with not too many areas of trees. We have some parks, but they are mostly open land and some are areas with many trees such as the Pennypack park. The park covers more than 1,600 acres of woodlands, meadows, wetlands and fields. Below you can see two images of the park. It is a beautiful and large area, but Philadelphia lacks in these areas, although Pennsylvania as a whole does not.
Despite the government's want to knock down many trees, the Forest Service of NJ and other fellow New Jersian's are trying to preserve what they have of its forestry. "As a result there are many huge forest tracts in New Jersey filled with more than ninety species of trees. Most of these are protected in parks or wildlife preserves purchased by prescient legislators to keep the state's uplands pristine and its lowland swamps shaded and covered with pine needles and cedar bark" (151). Because of the groups of people willing to fight and protect their beautiful lands, New Jersey has such a unique set of forestry with many different species that can't be found in some other states. Forests cover much of the state of New Jersey, but still it "is less than half of what it was in 1956, a loss of more than a million acres" (152). The need for the forestry is great and not just that alone, but healthy forests. They are vital to a multitude of life sustaining processes. They "protect water quality, supply recreation activities, and protect historical, aesthetic, and cultural resources present within the forests" (153). They also remain home to tons of tiny critters and larger animals as well, so they are of great importance. The Pinelands International Biosphere Reserve is one of the protected lands; internationally protected and spans more than a million acres in NJ and occupies 22% of the state's landmass. The Pinelands was given this protection because houses were being built and it was taking away from the land. To keep the land within its boundaries and as a fire management tool, the New Jersey Forest Service would have prescribed burns. A prescribed burn is defined as "the skillful application of fire under exacting conditions of weather and fuel in a predetermined area, for a specific purpose to achieve specific results" (157). I found this interesting that they basically fight fire with fire. The burn creates an area of dead ground in the forest and if a wildfire breaks out, the tactic is to set backfires that push it into the dead ground, thus killing its energy and dying it out. Threats to Forests go beyond forest fires and include various pollutants and changes in climate. These make it difficult to change New Jersey's forestry and even sometimes to maintain it. "Without biological integrity, without protection against invasive species that choke our woodlands, without a biological mosaic of preserved habitats to match our state’s natural needs, we will all live in a concrete jungle of our own design, devoid of wildlife and trees" (169). This would destroy us all (animals and humans) as trees and plant help clean the air and protect our water from various pollutants as well. Fortunately there are wildlife biologists to protect the wildlife within the forests and NJ Forest Services that help protect the trees. Many people take part in trying to help protect and maintain the biodiversity of not only New Jersey, but the world.
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Chapter 8: Environmental Justice. This chapter really discusses the injustices done to the poor and mostly minority communities. As a minority myself, who finds home right across the bridge from Camden in Philadelphia, is concerned with this notion that these hazardous waste sites are being put into these communities on a bias. I do believe that gentrification exists heavily, but I'm not sure if I believe that regionalism is about race. It sure seemed that way at first. As the brownfields were located in predominate minority poor neighborhoods. In Cramer Hill (a section of Camden) revitalization plans were put into place to renovate the area by the water front, but the governor was not straightforward with the members of the community until it was said that the state planed to use its power of "eminent domain" to seize properties and displace more than 1000 families. They wanted to remediate the brownfields for replacement with upper- to middle income housing, a golf course and a marina - gentrification. Essentially removing all the lower class people (mostly minorities) and only leaving room for the people who can afford this new and more expensive lifestyle (mostly whites). Luckily, the community protested and fought for their neighbors and indicated that they liked their diversity and sense of community. Unfortunately this isn't always the case and the government chooses areas where the poor less educated live. These waste sites emitting higher levels of toxins which result in illness of some people in the community who already have inadequate health care. Its almost like they are trying to kill these people off or they at least don't care enough for their well being. The communities have no way to fight for themselves because they don't know how and its really disgraceful that the government doesn't care for its people.
Some people argue that regionalism was only perceived as racist because it was the more affluent middle class whites who could afford cars and move out of the city, leaving the minorities behind and a decaying infrastructure to support the city's tax base. Its a class issue that that no matter the color, the poor get the crap end of the stick. If environmental justice concerns were evaluated hundreds of years ago, they would be filled with poor working class white and similar outcomes would be shown. Although this is a good point, I think that its not fair to say hundreds of years ago because the demographic was way different. Minorities were slaves hundreds of years ago and were mostly present in the south. They lived in wealthy areas because of the people who bought them. As we moved away from slavery there was still loads of racial injustices to fight for which left minorities in the run down poor communities. They didn't have the chance to be wealthy or start out wealthy because the hand we were dealt. It wasn't until after the civil rights movement and anit-discrimination laws came about that things started changing and minorities had more opportunity to move up in society. So, I do think that race does play an aspect into this all. Chapter 7: The Lure of Brownfields discusses what they are and the remediation of the various brownfield sites. Brownfield land is land that was previously used for industrial purposes and has low levels of hazardous waste or pollution. This land has potential to be reused once cleaned up. Land that is more severely contaminated with high concentrations of pollution are Superfund sites and not considered Brownfield sites. Superfund sites are evaluated, ranked, and placed on the National Priorities List by USEPA, which qualifies for federal cleanup money. In 1955, there were an estimated 450,000 brownfields in the United States. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties would increase local tax bases, facilitate job growth, utilize existing infrastructure, and take development pressure off undeveloped open land. The brownfields initiative passed in 2001 and the initial clean up created 25,000 new jobs and cost around $6.5 billion. "The act rewarded voluntary cleanups and offered developers and investors incentives to build on blighted areas. To encourage participation, NJDEP offered to consolidate and expedite permit reviews, allowed less costly remediation through the use of the two-tier cleanup criteria, and permitted less restrictive cleanup remedies called 'institutional and engineering controls'" (123). The controls are legal measures intended to reduce exposure to contaminants by controlling the behavior of a future brownfield owner. This is to ensure that the owners know about the contamination that lies beneath their building and hopefully promote smart decision of what to remediate the site into.
In Camden sites were remediated and "The Victor" was changed into luxury buildings. Other developments included an aquarium, a minor league baseball stadium, an outdoor concert center, and the warf for the battleship New Jersey. All of which are on the Camden waterfront which divides Philadelphia and Camden. Being a Philadelphia resident, I know of all these places and have seen or been to each of them, the aquarium most recently. These site are successful examples of how economic, political, and environmental forces can come together to encourage and support urban renewal. Sometimes though, this isn't the case and "time and pressure" changes project time frames from months or years to weeks or months with a possibility of bypassing public health and ecological risks. Despite the successes, some owners have used their brownfields to dump unwanted and unhealthy facilities on the neighborhood which has caused concern for residents in the community. The placement of this waste is discriminatory to the majority black and hispanic community and a practice of environmental injustice on both a racial and socioeconomic scale. Chapter 6: Environmental Welfare discusses heavily upon a new chemical called Dioxin. When first introduced it wasn't clearly discussed what it was so I looked it up. Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants. They are found throughout the world in the environment and accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. It is the most toxic chemical known to science. Dioxins are produced through a variety of incineration processes, including improper waste incineration and burning of trash, and can be released into the air during natural processes, such as forest fires and volcanoes. Dioxin was found at the Diamond Alkali pesticide plant in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood in Newark, NJ. Present, were levels so high that the test couldn't properly measure it. 15% of the nations output was produced at this one site. Dioxin from this site would spread and contaminate the ocean contaminating tons of seafood with the most toxic synthetic substance known to humans. It can cause birth defects, mental issues, cancer and interact with other carcinogens to increase cancer severity.
Since the levels of toxin were too high to be measured, a sample was sent to the most reliable dioxin analytical laboratory run by Christopher Rappe at the University of Umea in Sweden. The sample was so highly contaminated with dioxin that it contaminated the entire laboratory which had to be shut down for a month to clean up all the residual background traces of the sample. It held one of the highest ambient levels of doxin ever recorded. The area had to be quickly cleaned, but still to this day there are laws that remain in effect because of the long lasting chemical. The sale and consumption of all fish, shellfish, and crustaceans from the Passaic River and Newark Bay is prohibited. Companies dumped chemicals and waste into the oceans just destroying the wildlife, not thinking about the consequences to the marine biology and how that will come back. Basically karma for their "out of sight, out of mind" thoughts. For years pollutant dredged sediments of the inner harbor were transported offshore and into the pathways of major fisheries. I don't even think it can be know exactly how far it traveled. The fish become contaminated and they migrate throughout the oceans - do they then pass the chemicals on to their off spring? Is it just one cycle of contaminated sea life? It took until 1988 for the government to pass an Ocean Dumping Ban Act. The lives of humans have to be directly in danger and that was seen when medical waste with vials of blood and syringes washed up on beaches in New Jersey and Long Island during the summer of 1988. However, the Mud Dump wasn't officially closed as a disposal until 1997. It is insane just how long they let things continue, even when decades of studies say that it is unsafe. |
Gabriella Brycea Junior at Seton Hall University studying Elementary and Special education with Environmental Studies. Archives
April 2018
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