It’s that time again. You know, that moment that I dread every year: “How in the heck am I going to keep the New Jersey Highlands News project alive for another year while paying my mortgage and other bills?”
Sadly, funding is again looking scarce for this project, so for the first time, I’m asking for your direct help. The good news, however, is that there is a generous, anonymous ‘Friend of the Highlands’ who is willing to match what you contribute!
For the coming year, the Musconetcong Mountain Conservancy has again received a $5,000 grant from the New Jersey Highlands Coalition Small Grants Program to help support the New Jersey Highlands News project. But in order to keep the project alive, the remainder of funding will need to come from the generosity and support of local conservation organizations, grassroots groups, planning and legal professionals, and individual activists like you.
“The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right.” –John Muir
This past year has seemed hellish for many of us involved with the protection of the precious natural resources of the New Jersey Highlands. Until now, the anti-Highlands zealots had inflicted some cuts – mostly flesh wounds. But once there was blood in the water, the crazies were whipped into a frenzy that – with minimal resistance from conservationists – has shifted the balance of power in the region for the worse.
We’ve gone from a Highlands Council chaired by a cognitive thinking, environmentally and politically savvy member of academia, to a Council chaired by an intransigent reactionary who is a manager and wine & spirits buyer for a chain of liquor stores.
We’ve gone from a Highlands Council staff managed by a recognized leader in land preservation, experienced as a state employee in smart growth and land use planning, to a Council now managed by a food-service equipment and distribution consultant.
We’ve gone from a reasonably-balanced Council of members with differing opinions and ideologies who were able to reach compromise to create a workable Regional Master Plan (RMP), to a Council which now seems more polarized and dysfunctional than ever, and is dominated by a majority of business-friendly puppets of the Governor who are not only eager to gut the RMP, but the Highlands Act itself.
Oh, and let’s not forget this important fact. Should Governor Christie gets his way, and appoint someone like Sam Race to replace Tracy Carluccio on the Council, the dais will be populated by all middle-aged (and older) white men. Diversity? What diversity? Who needs experience, compromise and diversity when your ultimate goal is to muddy the waters of the process, and channel profits to your friends or their businesses, or enable patronage for political allies? The good old boys club has the monopoly on that market!
So just who is to blame? Governor Christie and his pro-business, anti-environment agenda? Governor Corzine for not filling expiring appointments during the last years of his term? Legislators from both sides of the aisle for promoting and confirming unqualified candidates put up by the Governor? Or ourselves, for becoming too complacent after the Act was passed and the RMP enacted, with municipalities lining up in droves for conformance?
I was e-conversing with a good friend tonight – someone whom I admire and respect and do not see often enough – and she mentioned that tomorrow is “Poem In Your Pocket” day, something I’d never heard of until tonight. Since the object of our conversation had been the seemingly endless and thankless work “saving the world” of late (more on that in my next post), she also offered this beautiful poem, and suggested I “put this in your pocket and pull it out when you need some strength or to remind yourself that others know and understand what you are bearing for the greater good.”
I. Have. Incredible. Friends.
For that I am extremely thankful.
To Be of Use
The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who stand in the line and haul in their places, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
[Editors note: This piece originally ran as the lead article in the April 14, 2012 NJ Highlands News email newsletter, and is being posted “retroactively” to the blog on August 2, 2012, since it did not post as intended at the time it was written. With apologies for that oversight.]
I’m straying a little from my normal format today, and including links to an important pair of related ‘Long Read’ articles that you should definitely read. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist addresses the issue of environmentalism vs. ‘sustainability,’ through the eyes of Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. In it, Kingsnorth states that “We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called ‘sustainability’,” and then asks “What does this curious, plastic word mean?” He then goes on to profoundly describe his ‘withdrawal’ from modern environmentalism and the reasoning behind it.
The second article, Hope in the Age of Collapse, by Wen Stephenson from the Thoreau Farm Blog, delves deeper into Kingsnorth’s essay, offering an analysis from a differing viewpoint through a series of communications between Kingsnorth and Stephenson. It also contains links and references to another handful of excellent ‘Long Reads’ well worth digging into.
Both articles hit home hard to me. Like some of you, I’m questioning just where we are heading currently as environmentalists. I’m beginning to feel that ‘sustainability’ has become synonymous with ‘mediocrity’ and that the foundational forces funding our movement are pressuring NGOs – using philanthropic social engineering – to buy into this ‘sustainability’ bullshit. Let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya while the environment burns!
While New Jersey’s environmental resources in general – and the Highlands in particular – are being hacked and shredded by the current administration, foundational funders and mega-corporate monsters like WalMart, PSE&G, Covanta, NJ American Water and others are enabling soccer Mom’s in SUVs to be green-brain-washed into thinking that their ‘sustainable Green Team points’(link updated March 7, 2013) or recycling or shopping at farmers markets or changing lightbulbs are making a difference, all the while deflecting focus (and desperately needed funding) from the real, pressing environmental issues of the State that need serious fighting at the grassroots level. Energy policy. Land use policy and the State Plan. Water quality. Air quality. It’s all suffering, and absolutely no amount of accumulated ‘points’ is going to change that.
There, I said it out loud. There’s no taking it back now.
I know this is true – I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes. I’ve heard it with my own ears. Something must be done now to address this dilemma. I know that many leaders in our environmental community feel the same way, but are afraid to speak up for fear of losing the precious and shrinking foundational funding they already receive. And what makes me even madder are the leaders and organizations who have sold out to corporate influences and ‘mediocrity’ for the almighty (mitigation) dollar, rather than stay true the causes for which they were formed. But that’s the topic of another day’s rant.
The question I keep coming back to for myself is this: is it really worth all this effort for ‘sustainable mediocrity,’ given the amount of personal time and mental well-being that needs to be sacrificed? I don’t know. I wish I had answers. So I keep looking for them in the thoughts and writings of others.
If you find yourself in a similar spot, take a break, check out these two “long reads” and see if you find some answers:
The National Park Service (NPS) is expected to announce its “preferred alternative” for the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line by the end of March. The transmission line which runs across the Delaware River and Appalachian Trail and through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is slated for a major expansion to bring more coal-fired energy into New Jersey. This project will place 195 foot towers on our National Park lands, scarring the scenic vistas of the parks, destroying wetlands and core forests, and forever changing the way we experience and enjoy two of America’s treasures. We cannot allow our public lands to be jeopardized to support outdated, polluting fossil fuels.
The NPS has already determined the “No Build” Alternative is the best route for the environment in its draft Environmental Impact Statement. We need them to follow the science and facts and select the “No Build” alternative as the “NPS-preferred alternative”.
Help out by making four phone calls today to stop this project!
Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar: (202) 208-7351
Senator Frank Lautenberg: (888) 398-1642
Senator Robert Menendez: (202) 224-4744
Congressman Rush Holt: (202) 225-5801
Tell these leaders:
The “No Build” Alternative to the Susquehanna-Roseland line is best for our environment, our Parks, and our clean energy future and must be the “NPS preferred- alternative” in the Final Environmental Impact Statement! The route that is best for the environment is best for our National Park Lands! Support the NPS is selecting the “No Build” alternative to keep this polluting project out of our National Parks.
Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, March 14th, International Day of Action for Rivers we will be launching a Virtual Rally to protect the Delaware River from the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line. All week we will be posting on Facebook, tweeting, and working to get 5,000 signatures on a petition to President Obama and Secretary Salazar opposing the Susquehanna-Roseland. We hope you can join us in the week of online action beginning March 14th!
Talking Points:
All action alternatives will result in an impairment of Park resources; Any “build” alternative would have serious, irreversible impacts on Park resources including endangered species, scenic vistas, forests, and visitor experience. This project will impair the scenic and cultural landscapes that these park units were created to preserve.
The mitigation plans do not go far enough to prevent the impairment of Park resources:
The “Mitigation Plan” is a list of Best Management Practices, NOT a plan by the applicant to truly protect our resources
Construction and access roads will still be in wetlands and wetlands buffers along the entire ROW
No firm plan in place to combat invasive species or for direct impacts to threatened and endangered species habitats
Significant roads and sites would be closed to the public as part of the mitigation plan
Demand response programs, energy efficiency and conservation, and renewable local energy generation can obviate the need for this line, and do not require the use of ratepayer money to construct obsolete infrastructure projects. Energy demand in New Jersey has dropped over the past three years in part due to such programs and this project has not been updated to reflect that change in energy use.
Impairment of Park resources would not be “temporary.” Construction of access roads, staging areas, widening rights-of-way and the destruction of acres of forests will result in permanent destruction of park resources, especially core forests and landscape connectivity values.
The intensity at which the State’s legislators and Governor’s office seem driven to destroy (See especially Senate Bill S3156 and Assembly Bill A4335) or at the least emasculate, 41 years of the State’s hard won environmental protection laws, rules and regulations is not only unsettling, it’s mind boggling, and quite frankly one has to wonder if the state legislature and the executive branches of government have completely lost their minds. (Editors Note: Both S3156 and A4335 passed their respective Houses on January 9, 2012, and the bill now awaits the Governor’s signature.)
In 1987 Gordon Bishop, one of the state’s respected environmental journalists at the time, opined that;
“New Jersey is conspicuously perched at the tip of the population needle. More people, cars, buildings, roads, pipes and wires are crammed per square mile within this confined space than in any state in the nation. Wherever America is going in the 21st century, New Jersey will get there first on those indices that define the quality of life.”
Other states, and even some nations, much less densely populated, have looked to New Jersey for a glimpse of their own future. If Mr. Bishop’s prediction, that as New Jersey goes, so goes the Nation, proves accurate, then we all have significant reason to be alarmed over our future quality of life, especially given these latest, legislative initiatives designed, perhaps unwittingly, to unravel an already tattered and stressed life supporting ecological infrastructure combined as an intricate web of air, soil, water and geology.
During 37 of those 41 years of promulgation of the State’s environmentally protective legislation and consequent rules and regulations I worked for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, serving under everyone of the DEP’s Commissioners appointed since the DEP’s inception, including the current Mr. Martin, and 30-40 Deputy and Assistant Commissioners. Prior to that, in 1961 through 1963, I had the privilege of working for the NJDEP’s predecessor, the Department of Conservation and Economic Development, helping construct Spruce Run Reservoir. In those later three and one half decades of employment with NJDEP, I participated in various permitting, planning, enforcement, emergency response, inspection, and monitoring and assessment programs. In this same time period I collected and analyzed thousands of soil, sediment, water, air, sewage treatment plant, and industrial waste samples from throughout the State. The latter industrial waste samples often collected at sites later to become some of the state’s most toxic superfund sites.
In 2012, take the road less traveled, and make a difference.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood. And looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim. Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
