Tag Archives: wetlands

My North Jersey, UnderWater

My dear Anna over at the Voice wrote to me about the flooding in New Jersey. I had heard something this morning about flooding in New Jersey, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was taking place in the area I love deeply… the Passaic River/Paterson, NJ.

I flipped through the pictures of flooded parts around the river, areas that I lived so near to and so often visited. Kept thinking of the subject heading of her email “when did New Jersey become New Orleans?” Then I thought about the Army Corps of Engineers, who not too long ago warned that New York, along with Miami and NEw Orleans, are the areas at the highest risk in the country for damage from extreme weather. I also remembered an article Wayne had in the Village Voice a few weeks ago on how under prepared NYC is. Clearly so is New Jersey, just across the river.

Besides extreme storms, such as the one that caused much of this flooding, over-development (they build houses anywhere and everywhere) and the destruction of the wetlands have already been cited as contributing factors to this disaster.

In so many places in the world, they just ignore all the warning signs and all the knowledge, and keep on destroying natural buffers and barriers… keep selling off land to developers.. anyone who will pay a good price for a plot of land.

How are my North Jerseyan readers faring today?

bm195 Fighting for the Wetlands

These days, you won’t often find the mainstream media talking about the rebuilding process in and around new olreans. There is even less of a chance they’ll bring up a widely known yet under reported issue: the destruction of the wetlands in Louisiana.
In this show, my guest Laura of the Common Ground Wetlands Restoration program, sat down with me in the upper nine-ward to talk about just how the relationship between the wetlands and the surrounding region has changed over the past decades and what the volunteers are doing in an effort to counter these changes.

We Discuss:
– The Mississippi River and flooding
– The bayou
– Canals, Levees…
– The oil and gas activity
– Government plans and actions
– What the organization is doing
– Who are the influential players
– What kind of progress has been made
– Information for those interested in volunteering

 

And I mention a book “Bayou Farewell” as recommended by a reader

bmtv42 Exploring the Bayou

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Many many issue-focused podcasts coming up, but as I’m not ready with them yet, I bring you something else. This vlog entry is from my first day in the New Orleans area.. at the Jean Lafitte natural park. Amazing to look at the wetlands, the animals, the vegetation. Makes me even more concerned about their decline and destruction.