Careful sampling and analysis is crucial to maintaining clean water sources and cleaning up polluted ones, but keeping constant track of water quality across thousands of miles of rivers and streams in New Jersey is a daunting task - one that would be almost impossible to do properly without crowdsourcing the work to a largely volunteer network.
Read MoreHundreds of dams in NJ, built for various reasons over the centuries, have outlived their usefulness, fallen into disrepair, and are causing harm to the local ecosystems. CivicStory interviewed Jim Waltman, Executive Director of The Watershed Institute, about strategies for restoring the health of NJ waterways by removing dams.
Read MoreProtecting and restoring the waters that drain the Delaware River basin is a complex undertaking with multiple players from all the states that share the river as a resource. The Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed’s annual forum convened stakeholders on issues ranging from stream designation to cross-state policies and innovative partnerships.
Read MoreHow many events have you been to with plastic water bottles and eating utensils? Have you thought about the impact of all that trash on the environment? A growing number of event planners are becoming aware of their ability to minimize the environmental impact of these grand gatherings.
Read MoreLambertville’s “Ditching Disposables” campaign aims to clean up the plastic waste in their town, while leading the way for other NJ municipalities to do the same.
Read MoreSustainable Jersey and partners map out what it will take over the next ten years to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Read MoreThe 2019 Stormwater Utilities Symposium focused on upcoming changes in stormwater management rules, and the best ways to mitigate (mostly urban) flooding, a problem that threatens to get worse with climate change.
Read MoreWhat happens when over 300 people take part in more than 50 different conversations about how to improve life in their communities? That’s what happened last week in Newark, when Creative New Jersey convened its largest-ever Call to Collaboration.
Read MoreMSU’s PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies officially launched eight Green Teams last week, each made up of five students, and set to tackle separate areas of environmental study over the course of the summer.
Read MoreYou would think an organization called Creative New Jersey might be able to define what it means to be “creative”. But ask co-founder Larry Capo, and he’ll tell you they can’t - creativity defies definition. It’s too all-encompassing. That’s when Creative NJ realized it needed to include community change in ALL its forms, whether that be art or civics, collaboration or dialogue. So it comes as no surprise that Creative NJ’s 2019 Statewide Summit, held on May 20 at the Foundation for Educational Administration in Monroe Township, was actually made up of eight distinct presentations, each from one of Creative NJ’s community collaborations.
Read MoreTurning trash into treasure may seem to be an illogical business proposition, but those who know the recycling industry well point out that it has been an important part of the U.S. and N.J. economies for decades, and we are constantly looking for innovative ways to dispose of the volumes of waste that we generate every day.
Read MorePlastic waste is everywhere, even when we can’t see it. A Rutgers conference convened researchers, business, policymakers and communicators to evaluate the scale of the problem and work on solutions.
Read MoreClimate change will impact us all, and so it was appropriate that the panelists at the CivicStory forum on “Ecology & Economy: Resolving the Climate Crisis” should span the generations.
Read MoreEquity and inclusiveness were the themes of NJ Future’s annual Forum. But it was clear from the speeches and workshops that fairness in community redevelopment can’t be accomplished without some very, very hard work. (A sense of humor helps, too.)
Read MoreNJ ecologists compare notes on the changing profile of the state’s forests, and the threats to endangered plant species.
Read MoreWhat if, as the NJDOT Commissioner suggests, we call it a “mobility system” instead of a “transportation system”? By “mobility” we don’t mean phone service. We mean moving around by any means. That was the theme of this year’s NJ Bike & Walk Summit, and it must be noted, the attendees all looked pretty fit!
Read MoreThe human-driven loss of species is the subject of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The 6th Extinction: An Unnatural History, and the journalist and author addressed a packed lecture hall at Princeton University last week to talk about it.
Read MoreGreen infrastructure experts from Philadelphia, NYC and NJ describe the challenges of re-engineering decades of urban building practices.
Read MoreBroader access to the benefits of cheaper and cleaner solar power is the goal of a new pilot Community Solar program. CivicStory has more on the plan to deploy shared solar arrays throughout the state.
Read More“Digital transformation” was the theme of EdgeCon2019, a three-day gathering of CIOs (chief information officers) from New Jersey higher education institutions, as well as from public school boards and healthcare organizations. NJEdge, the host organization, is prototyping a new “Research As A Service” network.
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