April 15, 2020

New Podcast Episode Features Jersey-Friendly Yards

by S-FX.com

Native Plants Podcast-meet JFY

Pinelands Nursery, a wholesale native plant nursery located in Burlington County, has started a new podcast, Native Plants, Healthy Planet. The podcast’s hosts, Tom Knezick and Fran Chismar, are aiming to educate listeners about the benefits of native plants and connect “native plant enthusiasts with non-profit organizations specializing in pollinator habitat, restoration, clean water, and native plants.”

During Episode 5, “Meet Jersey-Friendly Yards,” Tom and Fran interview Karen Walzer (BBP’s Public Outreach Coordinator) and Becky Laboy (Ocean County Soil Conservation District’s Education Specialist) about landscaping for a healthy environment in New Jersey using the resources and tools on the Jersey-Friendly Yards website.

Jersey-Friendly Yards is a Barnegat Bay Partnership website created through a grant from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. Designed for use by all New Jersey property owners, the site is a one-stop source of information about environmentally-friendly landscaping practices that anyone can follow at home. It features two great tools: a searchable Plant Database for finding “the right plants for the right place” in your yard and an Interactive Yard to practice the 8 steps to a Jersey-Friendly Yard.

Native plants are a key component of a Jersey-Friendly Yard. They offer a long list of benefits from conserving water and eliminating the use of fertilizers and pesticides to providing critical habitat for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. For a list of nurseries selling native plants in our region, including online nurseries that will ship plants to you, visit the Where to Buy Native Plants page on the website.

For more information about Jersey-Friendly Yards, contact Karen Walzer at kwalzer@ocean.edu or Becky Laboy at education@soildistrict.org.

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UNKNOWN

There is limited data available to quantify Wetland and Riparian Buffer Preservation, or updated data to quantify Wetland Acreage. The BBP has obtained funding and will begin assessment efforts for both targets, in the next few years.

 

 Hard Clam abundance has not been updated since 2012. Recovery of the stock will be guided by the Fishery Management Plan for Hard Clams, which is under development with the NJDEP, BBP, and other organizations. Reclam the Bay and other partners have continued to plant clams for restoration purposes. Continued plantings in strategic locations which maximize survival and reproduction is one strategy to pursue in the coming years. This work can use a model developed by Rutgers with BBP funding which identified areas where planted clams could have the greatest dispersal of their larvae and thus potentially maximally contribute to the recovery of the stock.

 Water Withdrawals were over the target in the 2021 report; USGS has not yet completed its latest update, so a definitive determination of status is not available. However, additional NJDEP data show that it is likely that we continue to not meet the target. Per capita water use has gone down, demonstrating the effectiveness of water-saving appliances and practices, but that decrease has been offset by population gains. 


IN PROGRESS

New maps quantifying Submerged Aquatic Vegetation extent were developed, but poor image clarity resulted in a high degree of uncertainty in the total acreage. NJDEP and Rutgers are working to resolve the uncertainty of these maps, and improve the total acreage estimate. Funding has also been obtained for further research and restoration activities. Several groups are developing potential restoration actions.

The USGS has completed the first phase of its study to identify minimum ecological flows in select Barnegat Bay tributaries. USGS scientists compared streamflow statistics between historical and current time periods to better understand trends in watershed flow conditions. This work provides a foundation for developing ecological flow targets in the Barnegat Bay watershed.  Similar to SAV extent, funding (approximately $450K) has been obtained by the BBP to complete the remaining phases necessary for threshold determination.

 

TARGETS ACHIEVED

No targets can be considered “Achieved” at this time.

 

NOT ACHIEVING

Several Public Swimming Beaches exceeded their safe swimming standards more frequently than during their baseline time period (2016-2018).

While most beaches are routinely safe for swimming, several problematic areas such as Beachwood, Hancock, Windward, and several lake beaches need track-down studies and restoration to pinpoint and address sources of bacteria.

Acres of Approved Shellfish Waters decreased from the last report. While this decrease was small, it represents a loss of previously approved waters. Similar to public beaches, track-down studies and restoration work are needed to pinpoint and address sources of bacteria.

 

New Podcast Episode Features Jersey-Friendly Yards

Pinelands Nursery, a wholesale native plant nursery located in Burlington County, has started a new podcast, Native Plants, Healthy Planet. The podcast’s hosts, Tom Knezick and Fran Chismar, are aiming to educate listeners about the benefits of native plants and connect “native plant enthusiasts with non-profit organizations specializing in pollinator habitat, restoration, clean water, and native plants.”

During Episode 5, “Meet Jersey-Friendly Yards,” Tom and Fran interview Karen Walzer (BBP’s Public Outreach Coordinator) and Becky Laboy (Ocean County Soil Conservation District’s Education Specialist) about landscaping for a healthy environment in New Jersey using the resources and tools on the Jersey-Friendly Yards website.

Jersey-Friendly Yards is a Barnegat Bay Partnership website created through a grant from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. Designed for use by all New Jersey property owners, the site is a one-stop source of information about environmentally-friendly landscaping practices that anyone can follow at home. It features two great tools: a searchable Plant Database for finding “the right plants for the right place” in your yard and an Interactive Yard to practice the 8 steps to a Jersey-Friendly Yard.

Native plants are a key component of a Jersey-Friendly Yard. They offer a long list of benefits from conserving water and eliminating the use of fertilizers and pesticides to providing critical habitat for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. For a list of nurseries selling native plants in our region, including online nurseries that will ship plants to you, visit the Where to Buy Native Plants page on the website.

For more information about Jersey-Friendly Yards, contact Karen Walzer at kwalzer@ocean.edu or Becky Laboy at education@soildistrict.org.

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Native Plants Podcast-meet JFY