September 19, 2017

Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly Yard

by S-FX.com

jfy jersey friendly yards

Clean drinking water and healthy waterways for fishing and swimming are important to all of us, but what can we do as individuals to help?  The best place to begin is in our own yards. To help you get started, the Barnegat Bay Partnership (BBP) developed Jersey-Friendly Yards, an online guide to healthy and eco-friendly landscaping in New Jersey.

The “Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly Yard” conference on October 14th will showcase the website’s resources and tools for a healthier yard. Join us to hear experts share their tips about how to create wildlife habitat, improve soil health, and conserve water in your yard.  The event’s inspirational keynote speaker will be Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware professor and author of “Bringing Nature Home” and “The Living Landscape,” books that have sparked a national conversation about sustaining wildlife by planting more native species at home.

wildflower garden

A native plant sale and exhibitors with plenty of free information will also be part of the conference. Visit Jersey-Friendly Yards for registration and additional information, including the conference agenda and speaker biographies.

This conference is made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors: Ocean County Soil Conservation District, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, Native Plant Society of New Jersey, Pinelands Direct, and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

Jersey-Friendly Yards was developed by the Barnegat Bay Partnership with funding provided by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. For more information about the conference, contact Karen Walzer, BBP’s Public Outreach Coordinator, at kwalzer@ocean.edu.

Explore More Insights from Barnegat Bay

Dive deeper into the ongoing efforts to protect and restore our environment with more updates and initiatives that you can take part in. Check out our latest blog posts for valuable tips and insights.

View All

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.

 

Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly Yard

Clean drinking water and healthy waterways for fishing and swimming are important to all of us, but what can we do as individuals to help?  The best place to begin is in our own yards. To help you get started, the Barnegat Bay Partnership (BBP) developed Jersey-Friendly Yards, an online guide to healthy and eco-friendly landscaping in New Jersey.

The “Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly Yard” conference on October 14th will showcase the website’s resources and tools for a healthier yard. Join us to hear experts share their tips about how to create wildlife habitat, improve soil health, and conserve water in your yard.  The event’s inspirational keynote speaker will be Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware professor and author of “Bringing Nature Home” and “The Living Landscape,” books that have sparked a national conversation about sustaining wildlife by planting more native species at home.

wildflower garden

A native plant sale and exhibitors with plenty of free information will also be part of the conference. Visit Jersey-Friendly Yards for registration and additional information, including the conference agenda and speaker biographies.

This conference is made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors: Ocean County Soil Conservation District, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, Native Plant Society of New Jersey, Pinelands Direct, and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

Jersey-Friendly Yards was developed by the Barnegat Bay Partnership with funding provided by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. For more information about the conference, contact Karen Walzer, BBP’s Public Outreach Coordinator, at kwalzer@ocean.edu.

Contact Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly YardContact Bringing Nature Home to Your Jersey-Friendly Yard
jfy jersey friendly yards