Canoes and kayaks of every color speckled the Raritan River Sunday during the Raritan River Collaborative’s inaugural “Fall Float.”
As the official Sustainable Raritan River Initiative kick-off event to protect and restore the river, more than 60 floaters boarded their boats in Riverside/Bakelite Park and set out for a six-mile course before landing at the Rutgers Boathouse in Boyd Park, said Judy Shaw, the initiative project manager.
“I think people will really get the idea that this is a place that you can have recreation,” Shaw said. “There are some underutilized entry points, there are 10 in this region and it looks like Rutgers is thinking about starting the Raritan River Boat Club, and the folks at the Edison Wetlands are starting to do a canoe and kayak club, so we’re going to get some more people out. It’s the beginning of some good stuff.”
Faculty and students of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences are leading the initiative, in cooperation with the Raritan River Collaborative, according to University Media Relations press release.
The Raritan River begins in Budd Lake in northern New Jersey and flows down to Raritan Bay and into the Atlantic Ocean, said Shaw, an Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Shaw senior research assistant.
More than 200 state Department of Environmental Protection brownfields sites and more than 20 federal Superfund sites are close to the river, according to a Raritan Initiative press release. The region has seen improvement but is still considered “degraded” by the DEP.
“[A Superfund site is] a toxic waste site along the river where there is some sort of major chemical or biological pollutant. Usually, the chemical pollutants are well beyond natural means of cleaning up,” New Jersey Water Watch Event Organizer Eric Struble, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences senior.
Piscataway resident Richard Sroczynsky relished the ride from Riverside Park to Boyd Park.
“It was beautiful. It was fun. The early part had a few rapids [but] it was great,” Sroczynsku said.
The region could bring attention to the river by making canoe and kayak services more readily available and making the entry points more widely known, Sroczynsky said.
Chairman of the New Brunswick Environmental Commission Scott Yaede said the river is underutilized.
“Folks don’t realize how nice it is out here,” Yaede said.
David Schreier, a New Jersey resident, said he enjoyed the hour and a half long ride and hoped the event would bring attention to the river.
“It’s certainly much cleaner than a lot of other rivers in North Jersey or in the industrial or metropolitan areas,” Schreier said. “It’s got a lot going for it. I think that if there were more people out along the Banks, obviously that would bring it more attention.”
Toxics Coordinator for Edison Wetlands Association Dana Patterson said the river is an often-ignored resource.
“Most people are like, ‘Oh yeah, the Raritan? I cross that when I get on the Garden State Parkway,’” Patterson said.
Commuters on Route 18 might have seen the 60 kayaks and canoes out on the river and reconsidered their perception, Patterson said.
Edison resident Dan Sheehan said he was impressed by the turnout for the event.
“I think as more people get on the water, use the water, appreciate the water and learn how to respect it, they’ll clean things up, and the Raritan needs that,” Sheehan said.
Efforts to clean up and bring attention to the river would positively affect the University and New Brunswick, said School of Environmental and Biological Sciences junior Neha Gautam.
“It will build a reputation,” Gautam said. “We’re on an environmental mission.”
Shaw said the weather was perfect but she wished for a broader range of fall foliage.
“The only thing was the leaves hadn’t changed, but as we got closer to the campus, they got better,” Shaw said. “We got through everything and we didn’t lose anybody, so it’s all good.”
At the end of the event, Raritan Riverkeeper Bill Schultz paddled his kayak onto shore with a double-crested cormorant, a diving duck, nestled between his legs with a fishing hook jutted out of the bird’s mouth.
Carl Alderson, a marine restoration specialist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, gave hypothetical situations to explain how the bird wound up with a hook in its mouth.
“It eats by diving to great depths, spearing fish … maybe he got a fish that was on a hook because he was working near a fisherman, or he went down and saw something flashing in the water and grabbed it,” Alderson said.
An EMT clipped the protruding hook from the bird’s mouth and Schultz helped it out of the kayak.
Information for initiative events scheduled through the year can be found at http://www.blueraritan.org/events/.
Boats float down river to kick off renewal initiative
Published: Sunday, October 11, 2009
Updated: Sunday, October 11, 2009
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