Rutgers Enviro-Notes
Current environmental research, news, and activities from the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the Rutgers communityContents
Rutgers Recycles!!
Did you know that we recycled over 62% of our solid waste during the 2002 calendar year? We need your help in determining our 2003 rate. Please fill out the interactive Data Form accounting for any recycling your department may have taken part in: http://www.fms.rutgers.edu/FMSPrograms/RutgersRecycles.html
-Thanks to Antonio M. Calcado, Executive Director, Facilities Operations & Services, 732-445-2155 ext.529
Seen any good gentian web sites lately?
You bet…try Dr. Lena Struwe’s Gentian Research Network: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~struwe/gentnet/index.htm
Dr. Struwe is an evolutionary plant biologist who uses phylogenetic, evolutionary and ecological studies to address fundamental questions of plant evolution and systematics. In other words she answers questions like “where does this plant come from?”
Her site is a free, not-for-profit, web-based forum for
worldwide research on the natural history and evolution of the flowering plant
family
Gentianaceae (gentians).
You will find information on current research
projects in
the Gentianaceae, focusing on their systematics,
evolution,
molecular
systematics,
classification,
ecology,
biogeography, endangered and threatened species, biodiversity, distribution,
anatomy,
morphology,
palynology,
ethnobotany, and nomenclature. We also have a link to a large
reference list,
floristic works,
images,
research
projects, and contact information for
researchers
and photographers
And how many gentian cartoons have you seen on other websites?
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(illustrations used with permission of the artist)
Rutgers Environmental Career Fair
On Wednesday, April 7, 2004 from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. at the Cook College Campus Center in New Brunswick the 10th annual Environmental Career Fair will take place. This event will give students that are graduating in May or that may be searching for a summer position the opportunity to meet with environmental businesses throughout the metropolitan area. The Students for Environmental Awareness (SEA) and the Rutgers Environmental Council are presently searching for companies, organizations, and institutions who are in the job market for potential employees in the following curriculum based majors: environmental policy, natural resource management, and environmental science. You can expect to have 200-300 students present. Representatives can also expect a light dinner for coming out and participating.
If interested or for more information contact Rob Rodriguez at robrod@eden.rutgers.edu
Our man (Jeff Potent) at EPA reports…
The request for proposals (RFP) for projects to be funded under the Clean Water Act, Section 104(b)(3) Water Quality Cooperative Agreement Grant Program has been published on the internet at the following web-site: http://www.epa.gov/region02/cgp/rfp/water04_104b3.htm .
This year, EPA Region 2 has approximately $600,000 available for the grant program. Individual grants will range from $10,000 to $150,000. Proposals must be submitted by April 2, 2004.
Please contact Jeff Potent if you require additional information or if you plan to submit a proposal.
Jeffrey Potent, USDA CSREES Regional Water Quality Program Coordinator and US EPA Region 2 / Cooperative Extension Liaison. potent.jeffrey@epa.gov
The Rutgers Gardens Native and Regional Plant Garden
Did you know that Rutgers has it's own native plants garden? It was developed by the Garden Club of New Jersey, http://www33.brinkster.com/gcnjrgl/ , and is part of the Rutgers Gardens at Cook College http://www.cook.rutgers.edu/~rugardens/ . Follow the links below for additional description, news and events.
The Rutgers Gardens, comprised of a series of botanical collections arranged in garden settings and spread over fifty acres, are located just east of U.S. Route 1 off of Ryders Lane in New Brunswick, New Jersey. These collections, the oldest of which dates back to 1932, feature an extensively diverse variety of landscape plants with origins that span the globe.
Deer Fertility Control: recent research and future prospects
Deer have insinuated themselves into the daily life of most residents of the Garden State, whether on the road or at home. Carcasses litter the highway as unpleasant memorials to deer-vehicle interactions. Drivers pay sometimes in money, occasionally with their life or well being in these accidents. Landowners and landscapers are driven to extraordinary protective measures to exclude or repel deer from landscape plantings and gardens. Farmers suffer perhaps the greatest economic loss as they struggle to include feeding or repelling deer as part of the cost of doing business in New Jersey. Managers of public and private lands have increasingly joined those voicing concern over the impact of New Jersey’s deer herd.
Many have noticed that forests and meadows are both being seriously harmed by over-grazing that is stopping natural forest re-generation and encouraging unwelcome replacements for the once-abundant and common native herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees. They even have a term for this; they call the new survivors of forest and field disturbance invasive species. The replacement of native plant species with exotic invasive ones reduces habitat for birds, small mammals and pollinating insects.
So with all this trouble why has nothing been done to lower the deer herd? It’s a long story; well known to much of the public, who have heard wildlife managers claim they cannot get access to enough hunting land for public hunts. Animal rights groups are appalled by the concept of hunts and oppose them. Rapid development continues to segment farms and forests into smaller and smaller privately owned parcels, limiting access to all but the deer. These smaller parcels support the proliferation of transition plants, such as woody shrubs, which offers deer even more bountiful forage.
So with this background how soon can we expect deer birth control, which is often cited as the cost effective and humane alternative to hunting? No time soon according to Dr. Anthony DeNicola, owner of White Buffalo Inc and a participating researcher in reproductive control experiments for wildlife in New Jersey. At his recent seminar at Rutgers Cook College in New Brunswick, Dr. DeNicola described fertility control work being conducted in Princeton, N.J. over the past three years. In order to achieve a hoped-for reduction in herd size over a 5-10 year period, the fertility control drugs must be administered to a high percentage of the female population. Administration of the drug by passive measures such as medicated salt licks is not feasible or effective with currently available drugs. While injection with a dart gun type of device is possible, the researchers found that animals must be captured and tagged to prevent double dosing and to achieve the high percentage level of treatment required in any event. This makes the process labor intensive, averaging 7.5 person-hours per deer handled. Add to this an average materials cost of $400 per deer for the vaccine, radio collar, tags, sedative and trapping equipment, and the total cost per deer handled approaches $800. By comparison the same company also engages in herd reduction by sharp shooting and the estimated cost for this program runs $200-300 per animal
Potential drug manufacturers are interested in the costs of drug delivery because the cost to register a birth control material for deer is conservatively estimated to be approximately $5 million. This cost, in conjunction with concerns about the ultimate market for such products have kept manufacturers from making a serious commitment. According to Dr. DeNicola no company has even begun the formal registration process for any birth control vaccine for any wild species. All work on fertility control for deer to date has been done under experimental use permits.
The prognosis for deer birth control as a significant population management tool in the near future appears to be slim. Even if you assume that some company will jump into the registration process tomorrow (estimated time to achieve a registration is 3-4 years) and that it’s product will be effective and that your community would fund the cost of an on-going vaccine administration effort, you would expect to wait 8 to 12 years, altogether, to actually see a significant herd reduction in the absence of other control measures and predation.
This writer’s conclusion: given the ecological, economic and human costs resulting from a deer population out of balance; we need to get serious about other ways to control deer population and modify deer behavior in order to limit the adverse impact on humans and nature to acceptable, and more historically normal levels.
-BB
Governor Forms Invasive Species Council
On March 5, noting the serious threats posed to our state’s natural and agricultural resources by harmful invasive plants, insects and other organisms not native to our own state, Governor McGreevey established a New Jersey Invasive Species Council charged to develop comprehensive measures to combat these dangerous invaders and protect the state’s biological diversity. The Council must give the Governor a plan by June 2005.
The press release is available at http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/governor/njnewsline/view_article.pl?id=1786 ; a companion document "An Overview of Nonindigenous Plant Species in New Jersey", is available at: http://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/natural/heritage/InvasiveReport.pdf
Proposed DEP Budget Highlights
* Governor McGreevey's budget reinforces vital environmental protection initiatives implemented over the past two years, including clean water protections and clean air initiatives. The budget emphasizes making polluters pay and holding them accountable for the costs of protecting New Jersey's public and environment.
* The proposal makes critical new investments and provides resources for vital programs such as new stormwater regulations, smart growth initiatives, and enforcement.
* New revenue sources will benefit the environment by both making the polluters pay and providing incentives for facilities to reduce their pollution levels.
* Budget includes money for key programs:
- $6 million in additional funds to help municipalities implement necessary stormwater improvements
- $4 million to address capital and maintenance backlogs in the state park system
- $20 million to strengthen site cleanup and redevelopment programs
- $12.3 million shared with DOT for snow removal and tire pile cleanup
- $800,000 for enhanced water monitoring
* Key revenue proposals in Governor McGreevey's budget include:
- $20 million generated through an increase in the Hazardous Discharge Site Cleanup Fund (Spill Fund). This will offset a current shortfall in the program, as well as providing General Fund budget relief. By providing more money for the site remediation program, whose case managers also are responsible for issues that affect natural resource damage claims, this will help bolster DEP's NRD initiatives.
- $329 million generated by delaying the phase out of certain Corporate Business Tax (CBT) exemptions. This action makes corporations pay their fair share, with a portion of this CBT funding dedicated to environmental programs.
- $24 million generated through a new "McMansion" tax on home purchases costing more than $1 million. The tax, paid by the home buyer, is 1percent of the cost of a home above $1 million.
- $12.3 million generated through a tax on tires to fund both DOT snow removal and DEP grants to cleanup tire piles around the state.
- $11 million generated through a new Hazardous Waste Disposal tax, of which approximately half of the money would be paid by out of state entities.
- $6 million generated through a new Air Toxics tax, capped at a maximum of $500,000 per facility.
- DEP will be able to use fees and fines that exceed budgeted targets to support environmental programs necessary to provide New Jersey with safe, healthy and attractive communities.
From: Debra Hoover {Debra.Hoover@dep.state.nj.us}
Garden State Enviro-News...A great local environmental news source
If you are not aware of it the Garden State Enviro News, www.gsenet.org ,is a neat spot to get a quick summary of most of what is going on environmentally from one end of the Garden State to the other. Phil Reynolds, publisher, and Ivan Kossak, Executive Editor, provide several useful, free service to the environmental community with the help of contributors and benefactors such as the Dodge Foundation. Free list serves, such as the one used to notify external audiences about this newsletter, and free “websites while you wait” are specialties of Mr. Reynolds. They say each month 40,000 use their web site and to top it off they publish their annual tax return on the site as well. You just can’t get much more open than that!
RC&D Offers Weather Data for Better Natural Resource Management
Steve Quesenberry steve@sjrcd.org, Project Coordinator of the South Jersey RC&D Council wrote to tell us about porject RISE. R.I.S.E. stands for Resource Information Serving Everyone. It started April 7, 1993 with the dedication of the first weather station in Gloucester County. It has grown from the original one weather station and dial-up BBS to 18 weatherstations in 8 counties with data posted to the Council's own web site at www.sjrcd.org . In January of 2004, this web site received 3174 visits representing 14,212 hits. Those individuals looked at 9,605 files. This represents visits from almost 50 different countries worldwide.
The R.I.S.E. system is a multi-level system providing various resource information files from erosion control to home pests. It has extensive weather data that is held secure behind a user-id/password system. This is a FEE-based area. This area does include an irrigation water management section that meets the needs of the USDA NRCS EQIP irrigation water management cost share program. R.I.S.E. is currently providing high-level weather data resolution to a number of researchers assisting various soil conservation districts attempting to develop watershed models.
Jersey Coast Anglers Association Offers Student Internship
An undergraduate internship is available to work on a recreational fishing tournament survey. We are looking for a student with the following skills: can identify recreationally caught fish, exhibits people skills, can work some weekends, displays knowledge of recreational fishing, and posses computer skills. The internship is hourly, hours are flexible to fit an undergraduate schedule, and will run from April 2004 through January 2005. The Intern will be located at the Jersey Coast Anglers Association office in Toms River, NJ. This will be a paid internship. The intern will be under the supervision of Dr. Eleanor Bochenek, Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, Rutgers University. For further information, please contact Eleanor Bochenek at 609-898-0928 ext 12 or eboch@rci.rutgers.edu .
from - Tom Fote tfote@JCAA.org , http://www.jcaa.org
Next Meeting of the RCE Environmental Working Group is scheduled for March 30, 1:00 PM at the Rutgers Eco-Complex in Burlington County, but potential conflicts may necessitate re-scheduling. Check with Bruce Barbour, barbour@rce.rutgers.edu , to confirm closer to date.
2004 ANNUAL MEETING NORTHEASTERN BRANCH AMERICAN SOCIETY OF AGRONOMY AND SOIL SCIENCE SOCIETY OF AMERICA - July 11 to July 14, Rutgers EcoComplex, Bordentown, New Jersey.http://www.ecocomplex.rutgers.edu/nebasa/
Note the Monday, July 12 schedule will focus on Harvesting Renewable Energy from Agriculture. Featuring nationally know speakers on Ethanol, Biodiesel, and Biomass Crops, Wind Energy, Solar Energy and Methane from Manure. Full details are available at the web site!
The next Cook College Student Environmental General Council meeting will be Wednesday, March 24th at 7 pm in MPR C of the Cook Campus Center.
New Jersey Information Network for Pesticides and Alternative Strategies project...
has just completed it's third successful year under the leadership of Project Director Dr. George Hamilton. See http://www.pestmanagement.rutgers.edu/NJinPAS/Advisorycommittee.htm for a summary of the progress during this period (2001-2003) and proposed objectives for the upcoming year.
Recent and Soon to be Released Publications from the Cook Department of Environmental Science
Stenchikov, G., K. Hamilton, A. Robock, V. Ramaswamy, and
M. D. Schwarzkopf, Arctic
Oscillation response to the 1991 Pinatubo Eruption in the SKYHI GCM with a
realistic Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D03112,
doi:10.1029/2003JD003699, 2004.
Park, R. J., K. E. Pickering, D. J. Allen1, G. L. Stenchikov, M. S. Fox-Rabinovitz,
Global simulation of tropospheric ozone using the University of Maryland
Chemical Transport Model (UMD-CTM) Model description and evaluation,
J. Geophys. Res., in press, 2004.
Hamilton, K., A. Hertzog, F. Vial, G. Stenchikov, 2003, Longitudinal
variations of the stratospheric Qusi-Biennial Oscillation, J. Atmos. Res, in
press.
Schaake, John C., Qingyun Duan, Victor Koren, Kenneth E. Mitchell, Paul R.
Houser, Eric F. Wood, Alan Robock, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Dag Lohmann, Brian
Cosgrove, Justin Sheffield, Lifeng Luo, R. Wayne Higgins, Rachel T. Pinker, and
J. Dan Tarpley, 2004: An inter-comparison of soil moisture fields in the
North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). J. Geophys. Res., 109,
D01S90, doi:10.1029/2002JD003309.
Stenchikov, Georgiy, Kevin Hamilton, Alan Robock, V. Ramaswamy, and M. Daniel
Schwarzkopf, 2004: Arctic Oscillation response to the 1991 Pinatubo eruption
in the SKYHI GCM with a realistic Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. J. Geophys.
Res., 109, D03112, doi:10.1029/2003JD003699.
Totten, L. A.; Gigliotti, C. L.; VanRy, D. A.; Offenberg, J. H.; Nelson, E. D.;
Dachs, J.; Reinfelder, J. R.; Eisenreich, S. J. Atmospheric Concentrations
and Deposition of PCBs to the Hudson
River Estuary. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2004, In press.
Mun, Y., and C.G. Uchrin. A MODFLOW Preprocessor for Fractured Media,
accepted for publication by J.Amer. Wat. Resources Assoc.
Vyas, V.M, G.P. Carter, S.N. Tong, C.G. Uchrin, and P.G. Georgopoulos.
Application of a Bayesian
Maximum Entropy Method for the Estimation of Horizontal Hydraulic Conductivity
in the Kirkwood
Cohansey Aquifer of New Jersey," accepted by J. Amer. Wat. Resources Assoc.
Uchrin, C.G., J.G. Hunter, S.S. Park, and T.M. Vadas. In-situ Measurement of
Macrophyte
Photosynthesis and Respiration in Shallow Lakes," accepted by J. Environ.
Engrg., ASCE.
Yu Z.; Xiao B.; Huang W. 2004 "Sorption of steroid estrogens to soils and
sediments" Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Vol.23 pp.531-539.
New Environmental Fact Sheets from Rutgers Cooperative Extension
These and more now available at the Recent Publication page of Rutgers Cooperative Extension: www.rce.rutgers.edu/pubs/subcategory.asp?cat=1000&sub=1000
FS036 - "Horses and Manure", authored by Dr. Michael Westendorf, Extension Specialist in Animal Sciences and Dr. Uta Krogmann, Extension Specialist in Solid Waste Management. This is a 4 page fact sheet.
FS001 - "Key Requirements of the New Jersey School IPM Act", authored by Dr. George C. Hamilton, Extension Specialist in Pest Management and Patricia D. Hastings, Program Associate in Pest Management.
FS025 - "Mole Management in Turf and Gardens", authored by Dr. Albrecht M. Koppenhoffer, Extension Specialist in Turfgrass Entomology.
FS032 - "New Jersey Stewardship Series Crop Tree Management Practice Standards", authored by Dr. Mark C. Vodak, Extension Specialist in Forestry, and Gina L. Fox, former Extension Assistant in Forestry
FS033 - "New Jersey Stewardship Series Wildlife Food Plots Practice Standards", authored by Dr. Mark C. Vodak, Extension Specialist in Forestry, Dr. David Drake, Extension Specialist in Wildlife, and Gina L. Fox, former Extension Assistant in Forestry.
FS034 - "New Jersey Stewardship Series Build Bird Nest Boxes Practice Standards", authored by Dr. Mark C. Vodak, Extension Specialist in Forestry, and Gina L. Fox, former Extension Assistant in Forestry.
FS035 - "New Jersey Stewardship Series Build Brush Piles for Wildlife Practice Standards", authored by Dr. Mark C. Vodak, Extension in Forestry, and Gina L. Fox, former Extension Assistant in Forestry.
Dear EN, I'm in the process of forming a non profit organization around this traffic flow system and would like to send some information to any particular departments dealing with traffic safety and traffic flow. If you would be so kind as to pass along to me an e mail address as to where I can start. If I may say my work here is entirely directed in and around the enviroment. If you want to reach me, feel free. I'm at 856 365 7590 or cfts1@aol.com Thank you, Good days & nights, Joe Di Medio
____________________
Dear EN, Been getting lots of requests for the water
projects document, from an
unusual variety of people inside Rutgers. That means your document has been
getting circulation. Congratulations and thanks. Jack Rabin
_________________
Dear EN, This is a great contribution. Here at CHEC I have
tried to find answers for parents concerned about environmental health risks to
young children. I have had to find the experts at Rutgers slowly but surely. I
for one and most appreciative of your efforts to improve outreach and public
education. Sincerely, Maureen Marchetta, Children's Health Environmental
Coalition,
www.checnet.org
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Rutgers Enviro-Notes is a publication of Rutgers Cooperative Extension.
Bruce Barbour, Editor. Contact: Barbour@rce.rutgers.edu.
Priscilla Hayes, Campus News. Contact: Hayes@aesop.rutgers.edu.
Use of items from this newsletter is freely permitted but attribution to Rutgers Cooperative Extension is requested.
