Jeff Dement loved fish and the natural world since he started fishing in Monmouth County at the age of five. He was the Program Director for Marine and Fish Tagging Program at the American Littoral Society. Jeff narrates his life through the bodies of water that he lived by and that were important to him.

ANNOTATIONS

Annotations coming soon.

TRANSCRIPT

Interview conducted by Daniel Swern

Sandy Hook, New Jersey

July 30, 2019

Transcription by Hannah M’Lynn

[Editor’s Note: Jeff Dement passed away on January 27, 2021]

[RECORDING ONE]

00:00:00

Uh, this is Dan Swern. It’s 2:48 p.m. I’m here at American Littoral Society out in Sandy Hook and I’m here with? 

My name is Jeff Dement. 

Um, so Jeff, uh, whenever you’re ready, just start from the very beginning. Sure. Um. So I guess my association with the Raritan River, and with the rivers in the natural world in general, fairly begins as a child when I remember catchin’ my first fish. Um, I grew up in Ocean Township, Monmouth County in the Wayside section, and there was a little pond that used to function as a retention base down the street. And I’d been fishin’ there unsuccessfully for a couple days. And one day, using’ an earthworm I dug up right there next to the pond, I caught– I was about 5 years old, I caught a brown bullhead catfish. And I was so happy and elated. Came home and told my family. I guess from then on it’s been a– it’s been a love affair with fish. And fish is usually– that’s my gateway to the natural world. Um. And it’s also why I’m working here at the Society today as its Program Director for Marine and Fish Tagging Program. Um. So then, yeah, I had a rather uneventful elementary school run. I did get some trouble little bit when I was in sixth grade, sowin’ some oats and my dad was the, uh, had some trouble with the– with the vice principal there. This woman was very big here, Mrs. Cranton. And I told her that the perfume that she wears stinks to high heaven and could she not wear that anymore? Is– is an affront to my nose. And, uh, my dad, a former marine corps, well– Uh, member of the marine corps, so my dad’s a military school kid. So seventh and eighth grade I was sent to another river, the Toms River. You know. And I did like that river, but I was also not– not too happy about being in military school. It was very gel like and a very traumatic experience for, but what could be sometimes for a 13 to 14 year old. Um. You know, I was actually in the military at 13. We were carrying rifles after school, marchin’ around down by the river. I learned to– Naval science was one of the classes. I had to learn how to sail when I was 13, safety on the water. So Toms River, I got very familiar with that. It was pretty much my first experience with a marine river, or say an estuary, a practice river of which a lot of the Raritan is. Um, some of it. Um– So when I was, uh, getting ready to go to high school, I just told my father, “No way, I’m not goin’ back to this school. Absolutely not.” Um. I wanted to go to public school with all my friends. And he goes, “No. Well, you have two choices.” He goes, “You can stay here, or you can take the test at Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft”. I said, “Where’s the test?” They showed me right in.

00:03:10

So I aced the test and then I was– came home for– for, uh– Um, yeah, to go to school instead of being away at– at military school. And my parents had moved in the interim, and they moved to the reservoir in Colts Neck, Swimming River Reservoir. So once again I was blessed with living near water and the fish were abundant. The, the reservoir in Colts Neck is probably one of the most abundant freshwater fisheries in the state. The reason being, most of it is no trespassing. It’s owned by American Consolidated Water and no trespassing, but we had the access ‘cause we lived there. I built a dock, we had canoes and kayaks. And I would very often come home from school, almost every day and seize– just jump in the boat and I’d fish until– ‘til dusk. Um. And yet, while you’re fishing you observe other things– ospreys, eagles, trees, snakes, birds, butterflies. And so all these were apparent to me. Um, so yes. It came time to go to college and I kind of, you know, I wasn’t a great student. You know. I’d rather go fishin’ than– than sit in a chair in physics class, or chemistry class. And so, uh, I delayed applying to colleges until almost the last minute and I wound up going to this college out in Pennsylvania now called DeSales University but then it was called Allentown College. Um, and they didn’t really have, um, you know my interest was Bio, I majored in Bio. But their Bio class was pretty much geared towards pre-med and it wasn’t what I was lookin’ for, which was natural world Bio, and nat resourcing– an ecology type evolution course. Um. So I was out of here, uh, six months. I tried to go to Brookdale another six months. At the same time I began working for my father in his shop. And then that following summer, I– his– my father was involved in, uh, steel erection, heavy construction. Um, I had worked in his shop, you know, sortin’ nuts and bolts, gettin’ cables ready, for every summer since I was 11. My mother would say, “Take him with you, John! Take him to the office. Get him out of the house.” And so I did, I, you know, so I had a long history of learning. You know, I already knew, I was already a very skilled welder by the time I was 16. I did pretty much house, trucks from buildings went up. I’d put crates together, I’d take’m apart. So after I came back from Allentown College in Brooksdale, my dad say, “Hey, you wanna make some extra money? And maybe you get a place off-campus, you know, for college? I’ll get ya a union book and you can go work on one of my jobs!” And so I said, “Sure, let’s do that!” And I began working at, uh, my first job ever was, um, Elizabeth General Hospital. And I was hookin’ on with the crane.

00:06:08

So I was on the ground, you know, as the crane came down, hook the beams on. But mainly my main job was I was the college kid in the crew, was to make sure the right number beam went up in the right sequence. So everything has to go up as it goes in the building, it’s all marked. [cough] Excuse me. Um. So then I was, um, September rolls around, and then I– I got on a job in Port City Mall in Jersey City, right next to another beautiful river, the Hudson. I could see that all day from the job. Hudson River was right there, and the Manhattan Skyline. And, uh, so September rolls around and I was workin’ in Jersey City New– Newport City Mall. Sometimes we were workin’ seven hours– seven days a week, twelve hours a day. So at 19 years old I was bringin’ home like two grand cash a week, and so I says, “You know what, Dad? We’re gonna put that college thing on hold and see how this thing plays out.” And before you know it, geez, twenty-one years goes by. Um. It wasn’t twenty-one, it was– it was about, at the end I– I had wound up having– I have twenty-one years credit in ironworking. Um. But I hurt my shoulder riding a bicycle of all things. You know, here I am, an ironworker. I work like cranes 150 feet over the cranes down in Port Elizabeth, swinging ten ton beams around at a height. And here I hurt myself on a bicycle. So I was– bicycles are dangerous! Um. So I threw my shoulder out, multiple surgeries on the shoulder. So I knew I was gonna be home and out of work for six months. And I actually, I had an, [inaudible] I’m married. Um, and I have two small children, two infant children. I’m a homeowner in Neptune. Um. And, uh– Near the Jumping Brook, that’s a cool little piece of water. Um, which– which just like Swimming River, the Jumping Brook feeds our drinking water here in Monmouth County.  Swimming River Reservoir and Gwendola Reservoir in Wells Township. Um. So– We were talking about the– Jersey City– Oh! So I had an epiphany! So I hurt my shoulder, right? And I’m sitting home and I’m actually waiting for the mailman to come and bring my disability check. And I’m watching Jerry Springer on the TV. Who’s the baby daddy? And I just took a minute and I says, “Is this how you’re gonna live your life for the next six months while you convoless over this injury? This is ridiculous, this is pathetic.” [coughs] Sorry– so I went down to Brookdale, which we call UCLA, University Closest to the Lakecroft Area, and, uh, I signed up there for– for two courses: Bio and like a world civ course or something. And I said, “Well, I have the time to do this and I’d– I’ll be able to clip through a semester. Beats sittin’ home watchin’ Jerry Springer.” 

00:09:14

And before you know, I was captivated, I got the back-to-college energy, I was ready to be a student. I wasn’t ready when I was 19. So I had to go to do crazy stuff. I had to go climb on buildings and hang out with the boys. Um, but I was ready to focus on my serious education. And I did it! I went to Brookdale all– I was trying the ironwork at the– in the meantime, um, I tried to ironwork in the day and go to school at night. That– that proved after about a year to be impossible. Um. And so then I– I would– I would ironwork for six months, go to school the next semester, hit the summer semester. And I eventually– I got my degree in the Associate’s Degree of Biology from Brookdale, got, Organic Chem, Chem 1, Chem 2, Organic Chem 1, Organic Chem 2, Microbiology, Inverts Zoology. So it was a– it was a lot of –ologies. And that’s where I transferred into Rutgers. That was my ideal candidate. Um. Cook College specifically that’s, you know, half the DP ‘cause they work for the New Jersey DP. They’re in charge of protecting the environment are graduates of Cook College. So I transferred there with trepidation, “I hope I get in, I hope.” And I was nervous– I wasn’t a– I still wasn’t a straight A student. I was especially lacking mathematics. Um. But I prayed to God and got in, um, and, uh– I was elated. I went down to orientation day to Rutgers and, uh, just started there and I basically– the– the one part about the– I had to fund the whole operation, so I had a bunch of money in my annuity. Um, with the ironworkers. The annuity program and our pension program, you know. So basically robbed the annuity fund to pay for the college and to keep my house and the kids and the wife runnin’. Um. [pause] ‘Cause we were used to that iron money, it was very difficult to get off that big iron money and be a poor student. But the drive was there, the one desire was there, and I said, “I’m– I’m doing this. I’m going to be– I’m going to get my college degree and I’m hopefully gonna change my career and do somethin’, a passion that I really like.” And what was that always? Fish. But I didn’t think that at the time I looked at employment opportunities while I was at Rutgers, one of my favorite classes, the one that just about changed my– my– did change my life, was dendrology. The study of trees and woody vines. Um. ‘Cause no longer after that, I could no longer walk through the forest and say, “Oh, this is a beautiful– look at all these lovely trees and look at the color of that mundane tree.” No, now I knew all the names. And I had to name them when I went through. “That’s a sweetgum. There’s a silver maple. Oh, that’s a fired bush!” So it– and then you understand about why this tree’s growing in this specific area, so. One of my favorites is when you go down to the banks of the Raritan River, especially up north when you get closer to Boundbrook and you see those massive Sycamore trees, just lining the side of them, you know, the ones with the peely bark? There’s like half of them peeling off. So those are your sycamore trees that have the big spiny balls of seed which floats, right? Being that it’s near the river. We call that a hydrochory. It’s like, anemochory is wind distributes the seeds? Hydrochory, they float along the river. Um the– the buck bush does that as well. Um. It adapted to be near the river. So maybe, uh, God just I love those big sycamores up there. Um. Okay, so then, uh, I grad– so yeah, so the dendrology class changed my life. Um. And– I was lookin’ at employment opportunities, you know, after graduation, I said I still have these kids and a mortgage. I gotta make all this happen, I can’t, you know, work for fourteen grand a year TAing dentrology that’s– it’s nice but I can maybe do it and eat that way but no, can’t carry that. Um, so I looked at forestry. I was originally goin’ forestry. So I have a lot of classes in civil culture, urban forest ecology, um, and I had actually I was gonna specialize in the variance of fungi. So there’s fungi that are associated with the roots of trees called mycorrhizae fungi. And I was gonna be the mycorrhizae fungi forest expect. That’s where I was going to niche myself, that was the plan.  Um. So I had about three mycology courses at Rutgers, too, amazing, the fungis. And they need wet! They– they thrive in the wet and they collect wet good. And that’s what they give to trees usually, that excess moisture. So the old-growth forests– you ever hear the story of the spotted owl?

00:14:16

And it was on the endangered species act? So that’s actually, that allows for a story between three animals: The spotted owl, the trees that use the mycorrhizae fungi to expend, they– that gets them through the dry summer. ‘Cause basically the fungi, if they die, they extend their root systems. And they use them to collect and maintain water. Then you have an animal, a vole, this little mouse-like guy that eats the fungi. The spotted owl, which is now listed under the Endangered Species Act, eats the vole, and as he drops his pellets through the forest, distributes the mycorrhizae fungi.  So the trees need all three, three of those things. They need the m– the fungi, they need the voles, and they need the distributor, the spotted owl. And so years ago you used to see bumper stickers: Spotted owl tastes like chicken. So forestry, I was going, right? Um. So I loved TAing dendrology for Dr., uh, Votak. At the time, Bert Votak, he’s um, passed– I mean, he’s retired now. And we very used to go over to the Raritan and use Rutgers Gardens as a teaching and testing area. And that’s got Lake Farrington right behind it, which eventually makes its way up and into the Raritan, hopefully.  So we, I used to go fishing there, and had a lot of, um, connection with that lake as well, and the cliffs that run through there. And the Indian presence as well, there’s a lot of Native American presence. You can feel it when you go out there in Rutgers Gardens. They’re– Well. And so I was, uh, also interested in marine science. You know, I was tak– so I’d take geology, marine ecology, oceanography. I had everything I needed to get to marine minor except Calc 2. And I said, “You know what? It’s just not worth it in the end, that kind of torture.” And so I didn’t take Calc 2, so I– so I wound up getting a certificate in geomatics, environmental geomatics, GIS. Um. So a lot of mapping of the– the Lawrence Proof Watershed and land use, land cover, and what does the– how does the drainage of– of small rivulets that– that empty into the– the Raritan? Um. And the same thing about the Raritan to me to is it’s– it’s a flood plain. It’s a huge flood plain. And if you ask people to live in Bound Brook and Manville, you say, “Is this a flood plain?” You’re darn right it is.  You think about down– you know, cross the river, um, that park there, what is it, Johnson Park? Underneath the band crack span there? That’s all flood plain in there. It’s made to be easily flooded. Um. Some of the GIS firm’s idea was just up the side of the hill there on Livingston Campus, you have the Rutgers Ecological Reserve. And there’s several streams that run through there which eventually come down and empty into Johnson Park right there, and empty into the Raritan. And pretty much right there, right at the Raritan, that’s where you get the chance from fresh to brackish, and it’s– when you first go further south you get more and more seaweed.

00:17:23

Until you make it out to here, and we’re about, uh, you know. Raritan River water is comin’ right down and it’s coming, it’s hitting these rocks right here. Um. That’s the way the water travels, in a circle like this. So when water comes out of the Hudson here in the Raritan Bay, it travels in a clockwise motion. And then some of it, some it comes right out. So that’s why Sandy Hook here is like a finger. And so if you throw litter in the Somerville or in Bound Brook, you throw your cigarette on the ground, it’s gonna go down the storm drain and it’s gonna go down into the river, and then it’s gonna dump it out here, and that cigarette butt is gonna end up on the back side of Sandy Hook. That’s why you can do beach sweeps here everyday and it’s just like collecting– Non-point source pollution will continually come here. Um, so it was neat to– to have the geomatics course. We did a lot of work in the eco reserve there, mapping those streams. There were already maps of them. It was a really cool tool in the mark map called Port Point? Where you could place a point on it, it uses digital elevation models basically, kind of like topographic lines digitized. Put a point on the– on the map and it’ll show you everything that drains to that point, and everywhere that that point can drain to. Really neat tool. So I guess it was my third year at Rutgers and I knew I had to do some type of internship to get out of the school to graduate in my major. And so I had to go see a professor, she was my marine ecology teacher. Judy Grayson. And her office was on the third floor of the, uh, Insti– Institute of Coastal Marine Sciences Building. Which I never was up there, I had no business up there at all. And I’m walkin’ past the bulletin board, and it says, “Internship: Sandy Hook Coastal Education, Marine Science.” And I was like “Wow! I could do that!” [cough] And before you knew it I was sittin’ at this table. And, uh, I was actually sittin’ there and Jim Peck, the Education Director was here, Eileen Kennedy the Deputy Director, and Derry Bennen who was the grandfather of the Raritan Littoral Society. Great amazing, ugh, very eclectic. We wouldn’t be here today without him. The Raritan River and Raritan Bay and the nearby ocean wouldn’t be nearly as clean if it wasn't for him. Um. He sat here, they interviewed me and I passed it and I got the internship. And so, that brought me much more into the marine sciences. I still teach trees. I still– I connect my love for that. And then, uh, I was handing in an article for a magazine called the Underwater Naturalist, and Derry had asked me to do an article about, um, my old anthology professor at Rutgers who died at Barnegat Bay tagging American Oyster Catchers, juveniles. And so I thought that was in for a couple weeks. I said, “Write that up for me, we’ll put it in the Underwater Nationalist as a– as a field tome.” And I said, “Sure.” So I was here in February before I was graduating and was handing in my article. Little did I know that the woman who ran the tagging program twenty-five years before me, uh, she decided to go spend time with her grandchildren, she was gonna retire. So I handed in the article and Tim, our executive director, goes, “Hey Jeff, can we speak to you for a minute?” He goes, “What are you doing after you graduate Rutgers?” And I go, “Well, I’m taking my family to Disney World!” [laughs] That’s what I told ’em.

00:20:54

And we did do that. It was a great trip. Uh, and he goes, “Well after that, what are you doing?” He goes, “Because this job– I’d like to offer you the job of tagging director because you have all the skills. You– you can speak to Joe-fishermen, and yet you can speak to the science side of it. You can speak to academia.” And that’s [inaudible] traditionally is a real bridge between the science, hard-core science, you know. Latin talkin-guys, and Joe-fishermen who just wants to utilize the resources as it’s been done for hundreds of years. And so I said, “Well, let me go home and talk to my wife, Tim, thank you very much. And see if that’s–” I drove out of here like “Yeaaaaah! I got a job!” [laughs] And so pretty much that’s been the past twelve years, that’s, I’ve been director of the fish tagging program here. I’m now the senior naturalist. So I lead most of the– the birds– so like this past weekend we just had our wild animals and shorebirds walk where we go lookin’ for beach plums and other interesting wild animals out here and then we look for all the– the shorebirds that are returning from nesting in the Arctic. You know, red knots, red eternstones. Clovers, we had piping clover out here.  Four different types of egrets. And. So. So, yeah, [inaudible] the Raritan, and also I see the Raritan, you know, very often the most view I’ve ever seen of the Raritan is when I was commuting as an ironworker. I was always over that bridge. And most of the work was over that bridge. That’s my definition of North Jersey by the way– some people say that there’s– there’s the South Jersey and a North Jersey only? Well, we’re in Central Jersey right now. I’m here to tell you I was born and raised in Central Jersey and when you cross that River, go over those big bridges, now you’re in North Jersey. So. People that live in– in the Raritan Watershed might disagree with that, they might not want to include themselves in South Jersey, but I see that river as a nice, a nice break point. [coughs] Um.

00:23:02

You know. So the river looks fairly industrial. I remember it’s at that point where you cross, you know, at the mouth of the Raritan. Um. There used to be a big steel plant there. It used to say “Carborundom” and would flash there. There’s still a small steel wire rope operation down there. You have Perth Amboy there, there’s– It’s less industrialized now when it was fairly, you know, factories all along the waterfront. You turn the corner there and you’re at the Carterett, sea warren where all that, uh– It’s all very industrialized. Petroleum operations and, uh. Just, there the Raritan is very industriali– it’s also very wide at that point? You know it’s– it’s almost, not even riverlike, like, almost like a bay or, um. Have you seen– ever seen the, when you get further up between– Between, uh, between the turnpike and the parkway? You ever see the big old steamship that lays up in there? Big old paddlewheel thing? [pause] If you see it, it’s laying up in the marsh kinda, this big old paddlewheel boat. So I always think of that when I think about, you know, that section, it’s almost like a boat graveyard. Um. Now, as an environmentalist conservationist, we’re heavily looking at that area, especially the South shore right there as it’s a huge construction project’s been goin’ on there for the past two years where they’re gonna build a mall and it’s gonna be, um, hotels. Convention centers. So that’s a huge project slated right where those, used to be what, Dutch Boy Paints or Silverstein Paints? And they used to have those tension bonds that– did you grow up around here, or– no? So comin’ over the bridge you could see these big retention bases for the paint operation, and they would be colored like, you know, strange greens and aquas and blues that. Unnatural. And so they’ve been workin’ there for about two to three years now, Cindy Ziffered, [inaudible] monitoring as closely, you know, closer than I– I am. But that’s huge construction that’s gonna take place right on the river right there. Whereas, but would Cindy and I rather– rather see it as? We’d rather see it as productive salt marsh. Then it would as, you know, another Menlo Park Mall. Um. [pause]

00:25:32

Also I remember the movie theater right there in South Amboy. There was a drive-in. And we would always want to, ”What movie’s playin’?” We would come back from my grandparents’ house. My grandparents lived in, uh, Brooklyn. So we would have to cross the Raritan River, go on to, down to Perth, down 287, and head over the outer bridge through Staten Island and over to [inaudible]. We’d always watch to see what was the movie at the movie theater right there. I think they tore that place down now, it’s gotta be. [coughs] Raritan Bay animals, I mean it’s a, right, it’s an amazing fishery, especially Raritan Bay if you just–  the one fish that’s really associated with is– is the American Shad. If you had to see one fish that would play the biggest role in the Raritan River in my mind? It would be an American Shad. And so there’s been a lot of recent focus about that fish. Um. Especially folks at Rutgers like, uh, Olaf Jetson? Um. And people over here at NOAH, like, uh, Carl Alderson? They’ve been focusing a lot on things like dam removal? And that’s to help out those anagereous fishes, so. Anagerous means fish that live in the ocean and spawn in freshwater. So you have American shad, number one, that’s almost like an American Fish, it’s– it’s an American shad. Then you have, what’s it called, River Herring? Which is collectively two species: blueback herring and elwife. They also would spawn up in the Raritan and up in the smaller trooperteries of large broken places like that. Um. And striped bass, don’t forget that. They go up, you know, they’ll go up, you know, above New Brunswick. Straight past, have to lay their eggs in fresh water. They have to float in freshwater for two days. So it has to be, the conditions have to be right, it can’t be too muddy, it can’t be saline. Um. You know, you gotta have the right current. Too fast a current, you push’em into saline water, the eggs are not viable. Um, I believe the state has data if you wanted to look at it on, um, they do what’s called “Under the Ear Staining” every year? And they look at abundance like what was the success of spawning for different species in the Raritan, or in other rivers. Um. 

00:27:54

By sailing and looking for juveniles, which should be present. And then they set up an index based on previous years. So they say, “Oh, so there’s nine this year, great! Last year was a four, we only got x amount of fish in the same net.” So that’s interesting data if you want to, um, see it. As far as habitat restoration goes? Um. Yeah. Taking those dams out is– crucial. I think I said– The other thing too which I think about the Raritan River is further up? Um, Doris Duke. Duke Farms. And how he changed– You know, the whole Manville area. A lot of those dams were his, to create power for Manville so that he could have workers on his farm. Um, so definitely Duke, Duke plays in there a bunch. And that’s a great educational place to have if you can ever get out there. Mm– I guess American eel, oh, I almost forgot that! So American eels are, uh, the opposite of shad, striped bass. They’re a freshwater fish that lives and spawns in the ocean. So those are called cotagerous. Um, one of the most amazing migration stories, God. All the American eels in all the American states pretty much west of the Mississippi, that’s their range. Mississippi and east. They all spawn in one place. And that’s how the Sorgasto Sea about 500 miles east of Puerto Rico in the middle of nowhere, where the currants between, see the horse latitudes, you know, between these two gires. And Sorgasto weed just collects there. And once a year so do the American eels, and so do the European eels in the same spot. Spawning takes place– it has never been observed. Spawning takes place, and all the adults die and the juveniles can go back up in the Gulf stream and just disperse randomly. So it’s amazing! It’s absolutely amazing. And even with dams, eels, eels can get over a dam the way a shad can. An eel can sliver right up the grass on the side of the dam, right up the dam feeds itself, you’ll see that. And it’s I guess part of the seasonality of the river.

00:30:15 

You know, right now the river’s hot, um. Low dissolved oxygen, about as low as it’s gonna get. Lot of bacteria traveling on planktons, sucking up the oxygen or creating it as the plankton dies, though, the bacteria eats the plankton, it creates an onoxic condition. And that’s why dissolved oxygen– and the hotter it gets the more rapid that process cures. So that’s why the dissolved oxygen levels generally will be as low as the yearly rate this time of year. Also temperature’s the highest. So what else? They say if you go further north up the river you’re gonna encounter, you know, all the resident freshwater fishes. You’re gonna see largemouth bass, you– you– see pickerel. You’re gonna see [yawn] a suite of, excuse me, you’re gonna see a suite of sunfishes. Um. Of which there are many. [pause] Um. [pause] Well, we’re gonna be talkin’ for a while now, right? [pause] So about the Hudson, um, I mean the, uh, Raritan. Two, I often compare rivers to each other and how different they are? Sometimes, um, they make similiar– similarities and differences. You know, definitely the Raritan River is a mighty river, similar to the Hudson or the Delaware. [coughs] Especially when you’re at its mouth and the wideness of it. It’s f– it’s fairly intimidating, you know. [pause] Um. I like to– I– I’m taking the train into New York City? That’s a nice trip over the train bridge too, over the bridge. That, you know, that’s the experience. Most people experience the river probably don’t get to experience it in the more natural setting upriver. Their experience with the Raritan River is gonna be in the urban sitting. You’re either comin’ over the Raritan Bridge and lookin’ down and seein’ it or comin’ across that train bridge on a commuter train heading to New York City, looking at, you know, and you’re low to the river at that point too, you’re very close, you’re about twenty foot, whereas if you’re comin’ over the other way you’ll be about ninety. [yawn] That’s a different experience within itself, you know. The clacking of the train. But that would be probably what I think how most people experience the Raritan River. I guess that you can get behind Raritan Center there. Um. The other thing I– that comes to mind with the Raritan River more than any other is the amount of phragmite reeds. It’s a type of reed, it’s that tall reed with like a bullrush on it? It’s fairly– it’s not very tolerant of salt water but when you get up into some of the lower splits say Edison right there? Alright, by the turnpike and that? It’s all phragmites in there. And there’s a certain– you have a type of phragmites that is invasive as well, so you’ll see it. It’ll grow as a monoculture all up, and just push out every other thing. You know, you’ll have a shaft every four inches. Um.

00:33:37

So it’s really not the greatest habitat for most wildlife. It’s certainly not a diverse plant community. Um, so I see that as well. The Raritan seems to have a lot of that. Um. [pause] [creeking] And, uh, I– I think we need to focus a lot more of our energies on restoring the health of that river. Um. [pause] Especially in the areas where the dams are. And especially in the areas where Hurricane Floyd came through. There’s– there’s– there’s many superflood sites right there in Manville where there’s, you know, just barrels stacked up with God knows what for years. And then Floyd came through and floated these things away. And, “Oh! They’re gone. They’re off into the river.” Well, what was that? Was it 500 gallons of dioxide, is it just gone now? So I think we need to, you know, how we cite dangerous things near the river, um– The river needs to be respected for what it is. [pause] It’s the lifeblood. [pause] I hope you get to talk to Clyde. So Clyde McKenzie, he’s a rather eclectic fellow. He’s been– he’s in his mid-80s I believe. He wrote the book on the fisheries of Raritan Bay. I would highly encourage you to read that. I’m sure if I look for five minutes I could find it here on the shelf. Um, or probably not, I probably loaned it out to some student. Um, I never get books back, it’s incredible– But that’s a great book, um, and Clyde, Clyde tends to focus on what is the– the largest commercial fishery in Raritan Bay? Not so much up in the river per se, at the mouth of the river, yes, but not really up here. Um, I believe actually the mouth of the river may actually be off limits because of high, uh, levels of heavy metals. There was, uh, there was some lead contamination over in Laurence Harbor, are you familiar with that? Um. Actually, yeah, they built a couple of levies over there out of slag lead, um, from a refinery there. Figured [inaudible] company– But if you go there today, it’s caged off. They sure don’t, they don’t know what to do, um, they’re worried, too. If they start moving the lead that they’re gonna flocculate and send it out, make a bigger problem. 

00:36:24

That’s actually something comin’ off as a hot button, uh, issue in regards to, um, a natural BS pipeline that’s being proposed underneath the Raritan Bay here that’s gonna connect over in Morganville which is closer to Naverdine. Close to the, uh– To the, well definitely, it’s– it’s– it’s trippitaries of the Cheesequake I believe. And, uh, so they wanna have electrical gas pipelines meeting from a node off Long Island here and coming through under Raritan Bay all the way back to– to the onshore site. Um, there’s a student at MAST here who did some studies last year, he took some sediment samples of where the proposed pipeline is gonna go? I believe the pipeline goes down three meters. [coughs] And he’s– he looked at it and many of those sites were contaminated with methyl-mercury. Um. Promimum. All sorts of serious contaminants that, you know, given that you start putting that pipeline in, at the very minimum of the damage, you’re gonna flocculate a lot of those now capped off, buried, uh, chemicals and heavy metals. So that was an interesting thing. That was one of the s– students here at Marine Academies of Science and Technology. So there’s a campaign right now to stop– and they believe that [yawn] you know, they’re saying right now to be used for, oh, for import of natural gas. But we all know that’s just not the case. If– if you put that pipeline there, you’re just makin’ it easier for them to get the shell cracked natural gas out of fracking, and that, import facility becomes an outport facility. [pause] There was an interesting story– if we go back in time, just remembering– I’m looking back here at the hills. So this one we called “The Highlands”– that’s the Highlands. So you have Highlands, that’s the Highlands, the town of Highlands is below it, and then over here the– the second largest marina in the state, Atlantic Commons. Um, so this hill in between there in the islands is called, uh, Hudson Springs. There’s a natural spring that comes out of the side of the mountain there. 

00:38:56

And when Henry Hudson who was, I guess one of the first white people to, European people that we know about that reported it, to come and visit this area, he set up at the conflows of three great rivers. And at that time Sandy Hook was attached to the mainland. And the inland for Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers came through Seabright. Um. Clammers actually dug a trench there. There was an inland. He shows it– Hudson shows it on his chart, that there was eighteen feet of water in that inlet. Okay? So that’s pretty significant, there was a lot of water in Redbank and Longbranch. But to clammers and oystermen that wanted to– and oystering and clamming was certainly a huge part of this area historically at the time, um, they would– they didn’t want to have to go out to the ocean and come around Sandy Hook and then go clamming and shellfishing here, and then have to go back around and go through the inlet again– very dangerous, you could lose your stuff. So he dug a trench. And them digging that trench changed the hydrology here, and a storm or two came, closed the inlet, and that then now became the main order of transport. Um. Storms since then have opened the back– opened it up, but quickly then we have the army corps and engineers come right back in here so that, uh, we don’t let nature do what it wants to do. You know what, that’s the other thing too if you look at rivers– how much of the river– rivers want to bend, they want to go like this. They want to have fast sides on the outside and slow on the inner bar, drop their sediment. They keep doin’ that until they form an ox-bowl lake. And then, so, how much of the, you know, ‘specially then because the Raritan has to get out. How much of the actual river is channelized? Um. Straight. I mean, right. [laughs] Um, so a few of them are clammers into clamming. Yeah, so it’s the largest commercial fishing operation in Raritan Bay here, except that these are classified “condemned shellfish waters.” So, you or I can’t go here and rake clams up and eat them. We could go to Barnegat Bay, pick them up with our toes, eat them right there if you– I don’t eat clams raw ever. Certainly don’t eat clams raw if it’s not a month that doesn’t have “bar” in it.  Right. Only months that have “bar”. So July and August are out! That’s your highest bacteria months. Um. For anything you shell, oysters, anything. Mussels. But uh. So there’s a depuration plant back in the Highlands. So these clammers will come out, you’ll see’em, they’re the little boats out here with the big sails up sometimes. And they’re, pretty much Raritan Bay here is nineteen, twenty foot flat. Except for the channels which go seventy-five sometimes. And there’s a hole over here about ninety foot, scour hole right above light. [inaudible]

00:42:04

But other than that, nineteen foot, twenty foot. So these guys got their twenty-five foot reach and they’re down there and you’re scratchin’. And you’ll hear when you go over a clam– it goes, “ert ert ert ert.” The tines on the rake scratch the clam. It’s like chalkboard. “Ert ert.” So you take your little better bite, you can feel it actually. Little better bite, you grab that clam, shake off the mud, and keep scratchin’ for the next one. Um. So they take the clams back to the depuration plant. They put them in these huge tanks about the size of this room. And then for two or three days, they filter them in closed loop through ultraviolet light tubes, which kills bacteria. Then this thing comes in, they test to see if the meats are good, and if they’re good they can go to market. And that’s how that operates there. Um. Seasonally there is recreationally area down by the Navesink area, where you are with me, and as you can buy a license for twelve bucks, you can get 150 clams a day. Right. So we recreationally go out and clam. Um, I don’t think you can do that in the Raritan, um, you definitely can’t recreationally clam.  I’m not even sure if you can commercially clam, even with the depuration. There’s only– there’s only two plants that I know about: one in Seabright here and one in the Islands.  I think they might even be, they’re worried about more heavy metal contamination as you get towards the once industry in the Raritan Bay area. Um. [pause] What else? There’s a bunker fishery here, there’s a pound net. It’s one of the last pound-nets in New Jersey. So as you drive out you’ll see, there’s a bunch of sticks– you can’t see it from here, they used to put two out, now they just put one. There’s a bunch of sticks stickin’ up. And it has nets on it you’ll see. Basically it’s a funnel of weers. And it– it’s to catch the bunker [inaudible], which is the reason why all these whales are here. It’s the base of the food chain– stripers, blue fish, weakfish, everything wants to eat that fish. Ospreys, eels– Um. So those pound nets are set up specifically to catch many bunker. And so they just get caught up in there and they can’t get out, they swim around in circle in there. Every mornin’ the gulf come, and big net just loop around and very often you even go to a tackle shop here, used on a party boat or in recent year with the lack of herring in Maine, that’s the Raritan Bay menhaden? That’s the bait of choice up in Maine to catch lobster. So it has a far and wide reach, this, this area, you know?

00:44:49

Also, if you’re within 100 miles of here, maybe 150 miles, and you’re eatin’ clams on the halfshell or clams casino? I’d venture to say they came out of here. Um, and I like the model, too, so just briefly talk about fisheries. Um. The model of the co-op fishery? Um. And the gear restrictions. So easily me, you, and Clyde, we could get out here in a motorboat with a big trawl net, and we’ll trawl up as many clams as 35 guys could get all day in about 2 hours. You know. Um. But see, you put restrictions on you. You’re not allowed to trawl the bottom for clams in here like you are in the ocean for surf clams. So then it restricts the harvest to the guy, and sure the price of seafood goes up but maybe that’s where it needs to be. It’s the saddest conglomerate, you know, Mrs. Gordon’s Fishermen. You have these smaller co-op operations that employ more people, more families, different [inaudible] . So I think we need to look at this fishery as an example, as a model and take that to some of our off-shore fishers. Once she– once you get inland, though, like I said past Rutgers, you’re pretty much switching over to a freshwater environment. It’s a different animal. I definitely do lean towards this saline. [pause] What else? There’s a vibrant, um, that you would see right out the window there. There’s a lot of sailing going on, there’s some pleasure craft boating. There’s a lot of people fishing on the bank here. And you know, and it’s– not I’m– you know, not– not– not in part due to the– the inputs that the Raritan gives this system. If it was just a bay with no rivering input, well, it’d be very different. There’d be much less diversity, much less life abundance. So. The nutrients coming from upstream on the Raritan River feed the health of this bay which then in turn feed the health of the ocean. [pause] Let’s see. Another part, another problem that the Raritan’s probably got– and just about all our rivers have it, you know, is siltation. Siltation from uncontrolled– from uncontrolled soil erosion. 

00:47:24

Um. Upstream. So, next time we get a brutal, serious rainstorm? Drive down, look at the river. And note the color change. It happens real quick when it goes from you know, sort of like this, a green and a brownish to greenish and boom immediately chocolate milk. Pudding. So that shouldn’t happen, right? The vegetation should be holding that in. But not where we’ve scoured open the earth where we were gonna build our subdivision. You’ve got a new golf course goin’ in there. So. It’s– Mhm. [pause] If you’re runnin’ off of ramblin’s here, I tell ya.

Hm? 

I might be runnin’ out of’em or I’m just momentarily stumped for ramblings.

Um, if you’d want, if you’d like to share with me the anecdote or any personal experiences that you’ve had either on the Raritan on the bay.

[coughs] I like the really– I like the low bridge. You know the tiny bridge that goes across the Raritan? Just upstream of the Route 18 Bridge? That little bridge? I like goin’ in there and thinkin’. And that’s a really historic ferry landing right there. Um, I just like– like that little bridge. And I’d be, bein’ an ironworker– former ironworker. I have an affection for bridges, how they’re designed and how– like that low one. You know? [pause] Personal experiences– Listen, I have now done a lot of boating on the Raritan. Um, I guess one of things is access. Um, you know, it’s not, I guess the last marina is right there in New Brunswick. So if you’re accessing the river beyond that, you know, you gotta bring your own canoe, or– I don’t think it’s– it’– it’s– there’s no key rentals is there? Is there any deliveries? There’s no deliveries, right? So it’s not like in Delaware, or so the river has high barrens, “Hey, a three hour tour. I’ll drop you off here, you come back here.” Um. [pause] I do like the history of the canal. [pause] [yawn] I like seein’ that. Thinkin’ about mules, walkin’ along the shoreline. Callin’ a barge, talk to Coal or Chickenshit or whatever it might be. [pause] Well, I just have a strong, you know, for that whole area. And I am a Rutgers grad. You know, you do spend a lot of time by the Raritan when you are either crossing it or lookin’ at it or stuck in traffic next to it. When you go to Rutgers– [pause] [tapping] Um, I have a friend who does straight bass fishing. You know I could probably go and check the data base for you because he has the, what the recapture stories are in there. But [inaudible] it’s gonna be striped bass that are tagged at some other time, and there’s probably a two to three week window in the Raritan for when fishermen spawn. It’s keyed off by temperature and such. [pause] [tapping] I understand it’s some pretty good fishing [yawn] behind Raritan Center.

00:50:49

They have a boat ramp down there, accessed in Edison. [pause] Anecdote– [tapping] [pause] Well, I do like fishing, you know, especially early in the spring? Fishing near the mouth of the river. You know. By Perth Amboy. Because you know that these fish are gonna go up there. Um– Why, the same way Spock has to return to Vulcan– Vulcan every seven years. Obviously you don’t know about that or you’d smile. Yeah, Spock has to go back to Vulcan every seven years to mate. That’s the Vulcan way. Otherwise you don’t show emotion. And yeah, you can imagine all the spawning activity. Oh! I’d love to talk about other fish too. Great– two other fish. Um. Atlantic sturgeon and shark– Atlantic sharpnose sturgeon– shortnose. [cough] [clears throat] They would both be other fishes that would be present. Um. Yeah, the Atlantic sturgeon being, you know, almost prehistoric with the big plates on its side and that pointy, um, rostra. The upturned mouth. Like, and probably another big component of freshwater is carp. There’s a lot of carp in the Raritan River. [inaudible] young carp, goldfish are a carp, part of the carp family. And carp is gefilte fish. That’s what the– the Jewish people eat during the holiday season, Hanukkah season. Um. Let’s just hope that don’t get any of the invasive carp like any of these, uh, Asian grass carp if you’ve seen those. They’re disturbed. Those are the ones that fly out of the water? There was a– there was a freshwater drum in Asian origin, freshwater drum that’s starting to enter the Hudson River from the Great Lakes, um, from canals, um, and a professor from UMASS approached me, he wanted–  he’s doing an acoustic study. Um, not actually taking a fish with acoustic tags but just passively listening to see if he can determine if there’s some type of abundance, and how big is the problem he’s up against to try and eradicate the, uh, those fish from the system. Um. [pause] We’ll see. We’ll see– Um. Another ane– deets story about, this is the Raritan River Estuary, my home river, I consider the– the Navesink River. But it’s the same water that’s flowin’ down the Hudson into the Raritan, um, tides sucks the Raritan River up into the Navesink.  Um, so yeah, the Navesink, I had a boat many years in Red Bank. I lived in Red Bank for many years. At least, wanted to stay and fish the Shrewsberry rocks? Which is about four or five miles south straight down the beach. We’d moan that that inlet wasn’t open because– That was all the way around and down and I could just get to work. It’s seven miles up, seven miles back, just back to the bridge. 

[END OF RECORDING ONE]

[BEGINNING OF RECORDING TWO]

00:00:00

Ready? 

Yup.

Um, which one was he? Inland, closing the inlet, boy, how we wish that were open. Darn clammers had to change the hydrology round here just to make their– their lives safer and easier. Um, but it did also have the effect of changing the salinity and probably both rivers, bays. Because the pressure against, you know, the head tide that’s comin’ back against the Raritan River, when it’s sendin’ fresh water down, and you have a flood tide pushing back against that, I wonder how– how the [inaudible] left open or closed would affect the [yawns, inaudible] water. It does certainly affect the salinity of the Navesink River and the Shrewsbury River. Which affects recent projects that’ve been going on, so. Projects to restore oysters to Oyster Point, Redbank. While I was the Bay Keeper tried that a couple’a years ago, one of the big problems was, that we said before was siltation from upstream. And that basically just covered any kind of reefs they tried to fill. The difference in change in salinity.  So the salinity when that inland was open would have been slightly higher than it is now, forcin’ the water to come around and go down. Um. You know [inaudible] talk about this, this is Hudson’s Springs here? There’s a freshwater spring comes outta there? So when Henry Hudson came here, he talked about the conflows of three great rivers. So one would have been the Shrewsbury and Navesink, two would have been the Raritan. Three would have been the Hudson. And so he was, was storing his freshwater here for his ship to have for him, and he sent out two longboats to go explore. One he sent up– up the Raritan River? And the other he sent up through the narrowest so the Hudson River. Um. Well, coming back, his first in command was in charge of the longboat that went through the Hudson? Coming back he took an arrow through the neck. So. [chuckles] From an Indian on Staten Island.  So you had a different type of area here. Tough. Tougher living. [yawns] You know the Penelope Stout story? So back here on the back side of Sandy Hook is an island that is locally known as Skeleton Hill Island. [tsk] So this is a true story, there was this Penelope and her husband were coming from Amsterdam, Dutch, and they wanted to get to New Amsterdam, New York City, and start a life in the new world. So their ship wrecked here in Sandy Hook. And the husband had a slight injury. So the husband and the wife decided to stay and rest for a day and the rest of them decided to set out on foot, to start walkin’ to New York City. Um. 

00:02:59

They were– Penelope and her husband were besieged, as local [inaudible], Lenni Lenape. Uh. The husband was scalped and Penelope was gutted and left for dead and said that she crawled into a hollow tree. She packed her wounds with moss until several days later she encountered a friendlier Indian who took her back to the village, nursed her back to health and eventually got her to New Amsterdam. You know. Probably sold her. Er. For ransom, but I don’t know. She wound up coming back to Bomb’s Catty and marrying big land owner, Richard Stout. And so Penelope Stout wound up becoming one of the biggest landowners in this area in the 16th century. Um. Er. 15th century– In the 1600s. And I was actually doing a– I do a spooky walk here? So. Every year for the past five years, it’s wildly popular as well, ghosts and spooky stories and murders and all whatever. And a woman says, [inaudible] she goes, “That– that was my great-great grandmother!” I was like, “Really?” She has over 400 descendants in Monmouth County Right now. Um– And the other reason that’s Skeleton Hill Island is because when, you know, if you went to Ellis– if you had cholera, right, or similar incurable thing? That’s– that’s where you went. [pause] What? Don’t understand?

Well, uh, what– where did you, where would you go? I’m sorry. 

Well first I was thinkin’ about sw– well, say you died of cholera. They don’t want to bury you on the mainland up in the cemetery by everybody else, so they brought you out on Skeleton Hill Island. That’s the other reason it’s called Skeleton Hill Island. So. Full of skeletons, I’m sure. That’s on the spooky tour though, so, as well. Um– Yeah, that’s about– I’m fairly dedicated right now, just I– I work with, uh, maybe someone else who should be on your interview list is probably Bill Schultz. He’s there? Yeah? Have you talked to Bill yet? Ah, he’s hard to get a hold of. Yeah, he’s a little gruffer. He’s gruff, but, former fireman. But him and I had, we had, we share the same passion in that we want to see the Raritan River and the Raritan Bay– Healthier than it is every day. So we’re workin’ towards that. I just saw a new thing comin’ out too about pump out boats? About sewage, sewage areas, uh, so Hudson River Foundation made me throw in some money at increasing the amount of pump-out stations because the bacteria– I mean, fecal matter is essentially nitrogen which is plant food, and then plants bloom like crazy, sink to the bottom. Bacteria eats them up. That sucks oxygen out of the system, the respiration of that. And you get the toxic conditions. You get fishes like menny, peanut bunker which come through and [cough] schools by the tens of thousands and they’re sucking oxygen out of the water, so.

00:06:28

That can happen real quick. Usually when you get a fish-killed? It usually happens in the wee-hours of the morning because the– as soon as the sun goes down? The phytoplankton stop makin’ oxygen. And so we can watch DO start to go down down down down down. Um. Until tomorrow comes and they can start that machine back up? And they start oxygenating the pond. Um. Had Achilles, some killy fish? Um. They’re also definitely residents of the river. Come up and will suck the interstitial air in between, you know, just a little bubble on the surface of the water. Um. [pause] [tapping] [inaudible] Wait. [pause] [whistle] Oh well. Gettin’ tired– That’s how it, in shield– sometimes when we’re– when I was down by the s– s– uh, we were in Johnson Park, is very cool. And I remember a kid was asking me, one of my students, we were lookin’ at trees and stuff, talking about how this connects to the ocean and how this connects, [cough] and he said, “Are there any sharks in this water?” And I said, “Well, there’s a test that I know that goes back to Native American times and it still works to this day, you gotta use a spoon and it’s gotta be a wooden spoon ‘cause they didn’t have plastic, plastic does not work. Wood or even certain metals will work, replace silver, or. And you shine shine shine real shiny. Even the wooden ones, take some grease here. Shine it up, and that little layer where the water laps the beach. The tiniest of surface area. You just take some of that and you taste it, and if it tastes salty at all? There’s a chance there could be sharks nearby.”  So anywhere you have saltwater, there could be sharks. The other thing I was gonna say was that, so the birds, egrets, tarons? They know that in the f– in the morning, in, during low DO, sometimes killy fish will come up and they have the ability to take oxygen directly off the surface of the water. Um. Yeah, it doesn’t have to go through their gills. And so the birds know that. They know that first thing in the mornin’ is the DO is gonna be the lowest it’s gonna get. And there they are, standin’ around in these little salt ponds, outside by the rubber’s Marine Field Station. Bam! You come up, you gotta breathe, and then they get you. You know?  I think that’s all I got, Dan, right? Is that enough, or? 

00:09:09

Well, talk a little bit about the tagging program, and [overlapping, inaudible] 

Oh right, right. Um. Yeah so, I’m really pleased and honored to be the fourth steward of the tagging program. Not really, its director– It was directed long before me. Um. I like it to herding cats? Yeah, you try to keep 1000 guys all lined up, doin’ the right thing with wild animals in an extended geographic location. So that’s also the other thing for the federal government, right, state government? To duplicate the effort that our anglers do? Because if we’re– if you gotta pay [tap] priv-[tap]-ate [tap] boats to go [tap]  out, catch [tap] and tag [tap] , and [tap]– If you could afford it, it wouldn’t be worth it. So. These guys do it on their own nickel. And they give that ticket away freely. [pause] Um. So [inaudible] since 1965, it was our 50th anniversary. Um. It originally started out as a shark tagging program, but given concerns about striped bass populations and the ensuing moratorium–

[inaudible]  

Oh, I’m sorry. The– the ensuing moratorium– I forgot all about the riverfall. 

[laughs] 

Um. So in the 1980s we had a– there was a moratorium on striped bass. No fish at all. Nobody’s fishing. So no striped bass for business, I mean, it’s a huge driver of our economy. Even in the Raritan Bay, I mean, and in the Raritan River. I mean, charter boat industries, they use that for– consistently. Um. So there was a moratorium. And if we don’t do something about it, the way they’re estimating it, that our population is being overfished. Overfishing is still occuring. Um. So they’re, they’re tied. Conservation managers will be put in next year. What those are is there’s a meeting. There’s a meeting in Manahawkin on the 12th I think, so it’s Thursday? Um. If you want to see how crazy I can get– [pause] There’s not a whole lot to argue about, I mean– [pause] You know, it’s all pollutant. Probably why [inaudible], don’t empty your head inside the Raritan Bay. [inaudible, shuffling] [pause] [sigh] Yep. [pause] Well, if anyhow, I’m looking out here out the window, huge user group in Raritan Bay. The Navy. So we have this three mile long pier right here called Earl Day Lux Station Pier. And that– there’s cars and traf– train tracks and road. Goes twenty-five to twenty-seven miles back to Clifflake. And the reason was, this pier’s almost three miles long. The reason being that, this was build ‘round 1943 and World War II was after them. There was ships being sunk right out here. People could see’m at night. There was U-boats gettin’ up into the harbor, I mean it was, it was spooky. Um. And so just in case, while we’re loadin’ ship out there? If it blew up it wouldn’t kill anybody on the shoreline. They’d just blow the ship up.

00:12:29

And the other logic which explains why the depot is twenty-six miles away? Is because that is just outside of the range of German battleship guns. So if they did get in here, they couldn’t get to the depot. They’d just get to the pier. Um, and a lot of what goes on around here is, you know, World War II, even earlier, this building was Spanish American War. 19, uh, 1892. Um. A lot of guns here. [inaudible] They were protected entrances to New York Harbor. And they were working in conjunction here with Fort Wallsworth, Staten Island, and Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. And with those three guns and the guns up on top of the filament. Those were the fanciest guns of all. They were like sixteen inches and they could fire like, pew, miles, fifteen miles. If that hit ya, you’d just blow, this whole house just blows up. [chuckles] You know, that’s a nice field trip if you could ever go up there, it’s a– The State of New Jersey, that’s the fortress I’d want. This is run by the Coast Guard. A lot of federal property. [pause] What else can I tell you about?

00:13:44

How does the, uh, tag program work? ‘Cause we’ve, we’ve talked about it but at [inaudible]? 

So the tag department works like, you know, we, our– our taggers go out and create what she does. And, uh, they become key– society members. And then, um, they purchase tickets– and this is on their own nickel, they catch fish, they record data, they mark the fish, they fill out the tag hard, they let the fish go, they send the data card back to me. Hopefully we get a letter back from me, and then I– there’s a little jacket patch too, uh, you didn’t see those yet. IT’s a stupid little thing, it’s called, it’s a goldfish holdin’ a flag called Fishwood Flag. It was designed by, uh, the first vice-president tagger, James McBellin. Graham McBellin. That would sell out for 1000 dollars. The only way to get that patch is either your fish gets recaptured or you recapture a fish. Um. So it’s, yes, neat in that way, and I give all that data to the United States Marine Fisher Commission. I give them basal wood-salt once a year, April 15th is the imposed deadline. Uh. Um. [inaudible] Well I was late, dreadfully late last year. [pause] Usually during the summer it’s hectic, right when our college interns start here, and I try to give them a great experience, you know? [pause] 

Who are these, uh,  fishermen mainly? Are they recreational, are they commercial? 

Our guys? Um, predominantly recreation. I’d say 94% or better are recreational. 

You wanna–

Oh, I’m just gettin’ sleepy–

Yeah, alright, let’s, let’s, pause it here. 

Yeah, alright. 

Thank you. 

‘Cause, these–

[END OF RECORDING TWO]

[BEGINNING RECORDING THREE]

[Editor’s Note: This section was recorded outside. Ambient noise such as the wind blowing occurs sporadically throughout.]

00:00:00

It’s like a bad habit, left over from– Construction.

No, you’re fine. Mind if I record, while we’re out here? 

No, you can record. Sure. [pause] Yeah there’s, that’s, they’re done right now, but normally you come out here in the mornings and all little boats out here. And those are individual fishermen, clammers that [inaudible]. 

Uh huh. 

And they’re rakin’ away. There’s Ruth, she comes out here every day. Everyday she sits in her Cadillac and reads a book down there. She’s heard things every day. But you see change is wealth, see, that’s why I love it, sitting near the water. The one thing you don’t see this year? [pause] Where are the fluke? Normally, on a day like this, this bay would have been loaded with a fleek– a fleet of fluke fishermen. This year there’s an absolute darth of fluke inside the Raritan Bay. And they would have been well up into the river as well. As well up, you know, as the Parkway Ridge there. Just, where are these fluke? It’s unbelievable. [pause] And there’s whole communities that don’t even think about underneath this bay, like, you know, [wind begins to blow in background, causing microphone to crackle] what’s does the bottom of this bay look like? Sometimes we’ll go out with the students here at Marine Academy Science and Technology and we’ll do what’s called POLAR Grab. It’s a pushner graphic tool, drops down, grabs a piece of the mud, and then you can pull it up and it has a slide off so you can see exactly what the top looked like. What it actually looked like without, you know. Difference in takin’ a bucket and goin’ like that. [inaudible] [cars passing in background] Wouldn’t be able to get the gist of it. But little tube communities, especially in the spring you’ll see all these little tubes. And these are tubes of arthropods. Right, little, little crustaceans. That make these tubes and develop– [car passes] Inhabit the bottom. They eat smaller plankton, and in turn they’re preyed on by other larger organisms like mice and shrimps and– and shrimps are eaten by summer flounders. Summer flounders are eaten by people. There’s a whole little food chain here, certainly. Which could be disturbed. We’ve had whales inside the bay this year. Um. Frequently– frequently, you know, it’s not uncommon to see a forty-foot humpback right here. Right in– right in this channel here. Um. [pause] [car passes] And that we attribute to the abundance of many– um, this year’s probably one of the best years I’ve ever seen– Conversely, it’s one of– it’s probably the worst fluke year I’ve ever seen. So. People ask me, “Oh, you’re the fish guy, you’re the fish reef biologist, well, what do you think’s goin’ on?” And I say, “Well I have my work in theories.” And I actually think Hurricane Sandy played a huge role here in that, uh– [wind blows, microphone crackles] So summer flounder [inaudible over wind] ecologies, and juveniles, they spawn when they’re heading offshore. So. Summer flounder for the winter, they go three to four hundred miles offs– eighty miles offshore in three or four hundred feet of water. It’s because of the temperature– it’s way too cold for them. It’s much warmer underneath the gulf-stream upshore.

00:03:15

So they s– so they spawn when they’re headed out in October, September, October. So juveniles swim back into the estuary. They don’t go out with the rest of the guys their first year. They come in here and they spend the winter basically in hibernation. In the estuary. So when Sandy came through here, this would have been loaded with that whole year class. This and other estuaries, and it just threw this place apart. Absolutely wrecked it. And I don’t imagine the little fish like that had much chance. And so– Our keeper fish now which is eighteen, nineteen inches? That’s a– that’s a year Sandy fish. So I think we’re definitely seein’ a drop in, in the keeper year class fish because of Sandy. So that’s my theory, though. [pause] [inaudible] Coast guard station here in Sandy Hook? [wind blows] Probably one of the most important coast guard stations on the east coast. These guys are catchin’– See, he’s got one lined, big one. They’re catching skuck, otherwise known as porgy. Little silvery fish like this, that’s– [laughs] Very good table fare. Very good eatin’. [car passes] Um, this is all new after Sandy, the whole Coast Guard base? Completely devastated. Um, when Sandy hit here, uh, so the Coast Guard– The– the tide gauge broke fourteen feet above high tide. So I guess if that’s an indication. The only building that didn’t really see any damage here was this buildin’. Took a couple slates off the roof, no water in the basement. [inaudible]  is downhill, so we’re kinda a little hill here. And the, um, daycare over here. That’s up on a little bowl there. And of course the lighthouse is up on the hill, so. [pause] There was another lighthouse right here off Staten Island called, uh, Chapel Hill Lighthouse? Completely gone. Just into the bay, disappeared. So I imagine, you know, Hurricane Sandy had its drastic affects on the Raritan as well. I didn’t get up there much to see it post-Sandy. I was pretty much focused on here. I was livin’ up in Seabright. Had nine feet of water in my house. So. [pause] I live here in the Highlands though. Well this– this– this is the end of the story.

00:05:57

I lived there– so I was renting during Hurricane Sandy. I was renting right behind the sea wall with the beach on one side right behind me, what was it? This was Bay River. So I’ve always lived near the water. Oh! I forgot to tell you I lived [inaudible over wind blowing] Livin’ in up in New Jersey in Bayonne, right? Where we lived two blocks off the Kilbane Cull. She was a nursing student. I was workin’ in Jersey City out in all those projects? And we’d– I’d get up in the mornin’, go out, lock the door, see a ship comin’ through the Kilbane Cull? That’s all connected here. You can go back up into the Arthur Kill? Bang! You’re in the Arthur, you’re in the Kilbane Cull and then there’s Newark Bay up there. You can see the geography of it. It’s the same water. Well, I’d see [wind picks up] like, it looked like the whole block was movin’ around you, all like, “Holy shit! It’s a container ship!” Um, so yeah, I was attached to the river up there. And so then when I got this job, [wind continues to roar] well, I was livin’ [inaudible]. And like a lot of marriages these days, you get divorced, things don’t work out. Stress of money and the kids–  And, uh, so I took a place up here in Seabright with the river right behind me. I lived there for almost a year, and boom. Sandy came. So we were displaced. I was livin’, and then we went to live, a, Hilton Hotel in Longbranch. It was a FEMA hotel. And I found myself livin’ in the f– in the Hilton with half the park service and half the town of Seabright. And it was very surreal. It was like, we had all just got taken a blow to the head. We lost everything. All your personal possessions, and. And here you are, we’re in the Hilton. And I’d come home from work everyday. Um. We were displaced. We were in one of our board member’s homes, a– a building in [inaudible], I was forced to go to a cubicle. Couldn’t stand it. [wind picks up] And, uh, I’d come home from work to the Hilton and take– take a shower, make a cocktail, go down and sit in the hot tub with the– some of the rangers out there, be like, “Hey Ranger Steve! How you doin’, what’s goin’, how’s the Hook?”  Uh. We didn’t get back out here after Sandy until March. That was also a neat period in that part of it wasn’t open to the general public. So it was just us, the Park Service, and the National– and the Coast Guard and the National Registry of Fishers. So. The wild bush started comin’ back down around here. Started takin’ over here. Um. But everywhere you could see sides of the damage, like, all the boards pullin’ up all these porches, that’s all you’re seein’ and stuff. So let me put this out one minute– [wind roars] 

[END OF RECORDING THREE]

[BEGINNING OF RECORDING FOUR]

00:00:00

Here’s the, here’s the wrap-up, kids. [inaudible], river of eleven years, Sandy comes up the [inaudible] Shrewsbury, so now I’m lookin’ for a place to live. And I can keep my carbon footprint low, I were– I don’t want a big commute. And where do I find a place? Right in the Highlands. Right on the river. I cast off my balcony into the river. But I’m on the second floor. But I know I’m in the danger zone. So it’s not a question of– when, it’s a qu– it’s not a question of it, it’s a question of when. Um– But here again, I find myself living near water, and my connection to the water, you know, this water here touches Sandy Hook. It’s the same water that flows out of the Raritan. It’s the same water that came down from the Catskills. So. It’s all, it’s all the same water. So that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. 

00:00:55

[END OF RECORDING FOUR]