Dear Members and Friends,
The Trustees and Officers of Citizens United hope you and your family had a happy and healthy holiday season. Is anyone already tired of hearing, “as we enter the next millennium”? Let us spare you the prophecy and review for you what has been an extremely productive year.
CU has been a charter member of the Stockton Alliance since its inception in 1994. This group seeks to build bridges of consensus between the environmental and business communities. This November New Jersey voters approved ballot question #1 thus allowing the dedication of tax dollars for the preservation of open space. The Stockton Alliance was instrumental in establishing the Coalition to Preserve Natural Resources in New Jersey. Friend of CU Mike Catania, the Director of the New Jersey Nature Conservancy, is one champion for the cause who stands out above the rest. Way to go, Mike! Congratulations to all on a vote well cast.
Our education consultant, Christine Raabe, has completed the draft of Down Jersey – Celebrating Our Sense of Place. This is the teachers’ curriculum designed to accompany the film “Down Jersey” which we produced last year with New Jersey Network and the National Park Service New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Office. An enormous collaboration of well over 55 individuals gathered lesson plans and materials in order to teach elements that depict the Delaware Bayshore in New Jersey. We hope to go to press with it during the first quarter of this year, and teachers’ workshops on utilizing the materials in class will begin in the spring. This project is made possible by a Watershed Management Public Education and Outreach Grant, distributed by the NJ DEP, NPS funds and your membership donations.
We committed dollars to The Natural Lands Trust that will enable them to construct a viewing platform at the Peek Preserve, where we intend to take school groups for interpretive field trips. We have also discussed helping the Gifted and Talented Program in Millville by involving the students in an interpretative program at the Preserve.
As we have done in previous years, we provided party boats for Delaware Bayday (since ’93) and the Annual Conference of Mayors’ Seafood Fest (since ’92) and offered educational tours to these visitors. Once again the artists represented among our membership led Bayday participants in “CU Paint a Landscape”.
Since 1994 CU has served on the Public Service Electric and Gas Management Plan Advisory Committee, which involves the world’s largest marsh restoration site. Our committee seat was at the direction of NJDEP Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife. A number of our members and supporters serve on municipal advisory groups to this same project.
CU continues to serve on the Shorebird Advisory Group coordinated by NJDEP Endangered and Nongame Species Program.
CU hosts guest lectures at regular meetings, which are open to the public, and press releases are distributed for each event.
This September over 25 volunteers made 6 platforms for the NJ Bureau of Emergency Management. The BER is placing pilings at entrances to tributaries along the NJ coast so that containment booms can be attached in the event of an oil spill. The osprey platforms were affixed to those pilings at the mouths of three creeks in the Delaware River. We also constructed 8 platforms for the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Program to use along the Atlantic coast to help out with the osprey productivity problems there. We added at least two new platforms to our colony, and helped student intern Peter Martin, of Wilmington Friend’s School, erect his platforms on the Cohansey River. In the Maurice River watershed thirty-nine chicks were banded in our Maurice River platforms vs. twenty-eight chicks in 1997 year. Six eggs were sent away to be analyzed for the presence of contaminants. Our colony has been doing extremely well for over five years and presently has at least 25 pairs. Forty-one percent of the total chicks banded in NJ were from the Maurice River colony. Because of the success of this project, numerous natural nests have also been constructed by the increasing osprey population on the rivers. CU assisted in recapturing an osprey that the Minnesota Raptor Center equipped with a transmitter, and we have enjoyed tracking the satellite-transmitted locations on the internet.
Our twelfth year 1998-99 winter waterfowl and raptor survey is well underway! The findings of the last 10 years were published in New Jersey Audubon’s Records of New Jersey Birds, Summer 1998, Vol. XXIV, No. 2. Congratulations once again to our consultants who have made this project possible: Robert Zappalorti, Clay Sutton, Vincent Elia and James Dowdell.
We testified in July before the Congressional Sub committee on National Parks, Forests and Lands supporting HR 2125, a bill reauthorizing the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route. The bill was passed out of committee but has failed to move in the House. However there was an appropriation earmarked for the work they do; go figure! The particular’s are complex at best. We shall keep you posted. We continue to partner with the NJ Coastal Heritage Trail Route on significant projects.
With CU input the City of Millville is constructing an information kiosk and developing a boater’s brochure for use at the public ramp. CU stressed the need to focus on the education and behavior of visitors, the proper use of watercraft, the fragility of the resource and concerns regarding carrying capacity of the waterways. Omni, the city’s consultant, did provide us with a model for assessing carrying capacity, which unfortunately appears to be a very subjective process. A Watershed Management Public Education and Outreach Grant is funding the brochure design and kiosk.
CU representatives attend, monitor and participate in South Jersey Transportation Organization meetings regarding the proposed southern extension of route 55. CU advocates improvements to the existing roadway as opposed to disrupting and destroying river corridors.
The NPS Coastal Heritage Trail, the State Historic Preservation Office and CU applied to the NPS for grant moneys derived from retired vessels in order to do a maritime study. Regrettably we were not selected. We have not given up hope and are working on a submission to NJ Historical Commission.
New Jersey Network and CU have a grant application into the National Endowment for the Arts to do a film about artists who depict wetlands in their works. The goal is to heighten public appreciation and awareness of estuarine habitats.
Citizens United received a Shore Quality Award, for which we were nominated by the City of Avalon.
For a number of years we have hosted the Rutgers Field Ecology class on an annual river field trip during which many students have once again seen their first eagle in the wild. Professor Roger Locandro will be retiring this year and it will be interesting to see if anyone carries on the tradition of visiting the Maurice.
The officers and trustees of Citizens United recognize the powerful advocacy role art plays in preserving our natural heritage. The appreciation of the aesthetic values of our surroundings has always contributed to their stewardship. We therefore established the Connie Jost Memorial Art Scholarship fund in the amount of $500-1000 for an artist-student who will be attending a college or school of art. The applicant must be a senior in high school in Cumberland County and have a recommendation from his or her art teacher. Ideally the applicant’s artwork should demonstrate a respect and concern for the open space or unique environment of our county. A group of artists reviewed young artists work and selected Jamie Cook of Bridgeton H.S. as the recipient of the first annual scholarship.
We begin the New Year with the following slate of:
| Officers President Jane Morton Galetto Vice President Berwyn Kirby Recording Secretary Gladis McGraw Corresponding Secretary Mary Lou Barbose Treasurer Steve Testa |
Trustees Ethan Aronoff Leslie Ficcaglia Robert Johnson Richard Jones Berwyn Kirby Gladis McGraw Joanne Murphine |
On July 3, 1998 past Trustee Trapper Tom Brown passed away. We mourn the loss of this very special member and individual. Many of us can remember the diminutive Tom standing tall at the Hazardous Waste Siting Commission hearing- a commission which intended to place a toxic waste facility in Maurice River Township. You may recall Tom’s ending membership meetings with a recitation of a poem committed to memory. Some of us had the honor of visiting Tom in his final weeks, when his small frame still had the ability to fill the room with the spirit of his convictions. Tom’s wife Muriel was his constant out of the woods companion. She shared her cheerful nature with a man of great passions. Tom represented a vanishing life style – a man who lived off the land. He loved the woods and its creatures. Tom was truly loved by his family, friends and even his opponents. His loss will always be felt.
Because Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and Its Tributaries, Inc. exists to provide continued enjoyment of our resources for future generations, we should be sure to make those who came before us, as well as those who will come after us, proud of our accomplishments both new and old. Have a happy and healthy new year.
Sincerely,
The Officers and Trustees
Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and Its Tributaries, Inc.