Exec Director of NY/NJ Baykeeper to Speak at Brookdale June 25
Reporting on Health of NY/NJ Bays
Lincroft, NJ, June 13, 2012 – The June 25 “Science Mondays” at Brookdale Community College, Lincroft campus will host Executive Director of the NY/NJ Baykeeper, Debbie Mans reporting on the health of New York and New Jersey bays, especially the Raritan Bay. She will speak at 6:30 p.m. in the Warner Student Life Center, lower level, Twin Lights rooms 106 & 107. The meeting will include college students and members of the N.J. Friends of Clearwater and the Jersey Shore (Monmouth) Group of the Sierra Club and is open to the general public.
The program is free and open to everyone; a cash buffet will begin at 6:00 p.m. before the program and includes a question and answer session with the speaker following the main presentation.
Mans will also discuss the ups and downs of her organization’s disputes with the NJDEP over Baykeeper’s attempt to determine if ecologically important oysters can be repopulated in Raritan Bay.
The Bay had been an extremely rich and productive marine habitat until land-based pollution and habitat destruction in the latter half of the 20th Century contaminated its pristine waters and harmed or killed many marine species. State and federal pollution controls have improved the bay’s water quality, but the state recommends not eating fish caught in its waters and prohibits harvesting all shellfish.
The Baykeeper organization was formed in 1989 to work with state officials and citizens’ groups to end pollution in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary watershed, improve public access, conserve and restore public lands, restore aquatic habitats, discourage inappropriate development, and carry out public education. Its programs are not limited to the shorelines but extend inland throughout the Hudson-Raritan watershed, including a recent purchase of several wooded areas of wetlands along the Third River in Bloomfield.
The general meeting of NJ Friends of Clearwater and Monmouth Group of the Sierra Club is hosted by the college’s Environmental Science Field Station on Sandy Hook. The two clubs meet at the Lincroft campus to share speakers and involve environmentally concerned college students.
Directions to Brookdale coming from north or south: take Parkway Exit 109 to Route 520 West (Newman Springs Road, which becomes E. Main Street at the Lincroft campus). Take the traffic circle into the campus and follow the signs to the Warner Student Life Center (SLC), where the meeting will be in the Twin Lights 1 Room. Use parking lot 7. Walking towards the building complex, the Warner Student Life Centerwill be on the left. If lot 7 is full, use parking lots 5 or 6. A campus map can be found at: http://www.brookdalecc.edu/PDFFiles/MAPS/MAP_04_08.pdf .
Groups are welcome. Please advise of any special seating requests. For further information, call 732-857-5305.
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