Moths in the Great Swamp Watershed, Part I
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The Great Swamp Watershed Association ACROSS THE WATERSHED Spring-Summer 2013 Protecting our Waters and our Land for more than 30 Years Moths in the Great Swamp Watershed, Part I By Blaine Rothauser, Naturalist, Photographer, and GSWA Member and Volunteer h the moths! Curio life forms that panopoda, showy emerald, and luna, how surround our daily lives unnoticed, can anyone with naturalistic tendencies unseen, and sadly disregarded, not be intrigued. But names alone are Onocturnal and hidden, winged-dryads that mere gossamer films to what really gets surround us in profusion, their existence my Thoreau on when talking LEP (short barely acknowledged. for Lepidoptera—the order to which With names like flame-shouldered butterflies and moths hail, or my personal dart, rosy hooktip, beautiful wood acronym for Light, Ephemeral, Pleasures). nymph, delicate cynia, rainbow lichen, Moths have become my new nature- lemon plagodis, dirty notocelia, green drug (as if I wasn’t O-D-ing enough); I marvel, goldenrod stowaway, red-lined logged in over a hundred nights of moth- watching last year. Each night brought me new friends to play with and a greater understanding that the biosphere we’re swimming in is a bottomless wellspring of mind-boggling delights. GSWA Headquarters was one of my favorite hangouts for “mothing” (my term for attracting moths amid a bright light and an old white bed sheet—the repository of my pleasure). The Great Swamp Watershed with its Luna moth (Actias luna) on lichen tree. ©2012 Blaine Rothauser (continued on page 14) From the Desk of the Executive Director A Thousand Small Acts of Consideration by Sally Rubin urricane Sandy was ferocious. will change. The trees and birds you find in Because of the catastrophic the forest will change. Growing seasons will flooding it caused—along with a change. And sea level will continue to rise. Hhundred thousand downed trees, billions in We can act and adapt, or we can ignore damage to homes and businesses, and the the evidence. interminable power outages—it has focused We can no longer build whatever we want, our minds intensely on global climate wherever we want. I recently read a great change. article from wnyc.org entitled, Causes of Sandy Sandy, it seems, offered us a teachable Flooding Rooted in Overdevelopment by Bob moment. Because our lives are short, while Hennelly (February 12, 2013). One quote environmental trends are long, we humans caught my attention. “Environmentalists, have a hard time perceiving changes that land-use planning advocates, and even the unfold over decades and centuries. A big US Army Corps of Engineers say inland event can focus the public mind, and Sandy flooding is a consequence of decades of has focused our minds on climate. local building decisions that have filled in There will be more Sandy-like storms. wetlands, clear cut forests, and paved over There will be more devastating heat waves farms—oftentimes sending water away from and droughts worldwide. Slowly, but one town and flooding another.” The more noticeably if we are paying attention, streams catastrophic storms we have, the more clear will change. Water tables will change. Crops this becomes. The effects of climate change are global, regional, and local. The response must be the same. Every environmental issue you can name—water supply, air pollution, energy, mining and drilling, habitat loss—is affected by, or helps cause, climate change, and every one of these issues has a local dimension. Hurricane Sandy ravages the east coast of the United States on Tuesday, October 30, 2012 at 6:02 a.m. Credit: NASA-NOAA GOES Project 2 Protecting our waters and our land for more than 30 years www.GreatSwamp.org Many of us feel that even by employing all the best practices in the world on our ACROSS THE WATERSHED properties, we cannot make a difference in is a publication of the Great Swamp such a global problem. Watershed Association. GSWA is a member-supported non- It’s been said that there are no silver profit organization that has been protecting bullets, only silver buckshot. One big action our waters and our land for more than 30 won’t fix global climate change or restore years. our watershed. But, many small actions just Editor: Steven Reynolds might. If our watershed—our environment, Designer: Ann Campbell our climate—is threatened by death from Contributors: a thousand cuts, it can be restored by a Cathie Coultas thousand small acts of consideration. Hazel England There is no one dramatic solution, but Mary Fisher there are a lot of little things we can do to Laura Kelm improve the situation. Everything we try is Justin Monetti “silver buckshot.” Removing invasive species, James Northrop planting native buffer and recharge strips, Blaine Rothauser installing rain gardens: none of these things Sally Rubin will solve stormwater management issues or eradicate climate change on their own. Still, I like to remember the old Breck commercial; you know, the one where they say “you’ll tell two people and they’ll tell two people and so on and so on….” If we all do our part, cumulatively we will make a difference. In This Issue: So what do we do here at Great Swamp Moths in the Great Swamp Watershed 1 Watershed Association? From the Executive Director 2 Watershed Watch 4 • We can, and do, preserve land. Primrose Outdoor Programs 6 Farms in Harding Township was preserved Teacher Education Workshops 10 in the past few months thanks to GSWA’s Breakfast Briefings 12 and its partners’ leadership. It might Morristown NHP & GSWA 16 have become a large, carbon-producing Madison’s Tree Nursery 18 subdivision of homes, but will be 113 Every Drop Counts! 20 acres of carbon-sequestering forest and New Water Monitoring Equipment 23 green open space instead. Preservation Special Event-The Passaic 24 of the few small open-space parcels Changes to Board and Staff 25 remaining can be vital, especially if most of Got Some Time? Volunteer! 26 the large tracts of land in our region have either been developed or preserved. These small tracts preserve at least a part of the (continued on page 19) www.GreatSwamp.org Protecting our waters and our land for more than 30 years 3 Watershed Watch — Environmental Hot Spots by Sally Rubin, GSWA Executive Director he “environmental hot spots” $200,000 through a Green Acres grant to described below outline some the ultimate purchase. Harding Land Trust of GSWA’s advocacy activities is now the owner of property located off Tthroughout the Great Swamp Watershed of Brook Drive South in Harding. GSWA over recent months. Where appropriate, we is working hard to lay out trails which will continue to closely monitor each situation. provide opportunities for hiking, birding, We rely on you, our friends and supporters, and other passive recreation. Primrose Farms to keep us informed of pending development is one of the last remaining tracts of open issues in your town. space in Harding, and features wetlands, mature forest, open fields, steep slopes, and Harding Township: Primrose Farm Estates endangered species habitat. It is bordered by a GSWA is pleased to announce that the portion of the Upper Passaic classified as C-1 preservation of 113 environmentally sensitive waters, as well as by Primrose Brook which acres took place this past December. We have is classified C-1 along its entire length. Stay been working for more than three years to tuned for upcoming programs here, including facilitate this preservation and contributed a photography contest in June. GSWA Board members, staff, and volunteers visit the newly preserved Primrose Farm property in Harding Township, NJ. January 10, 2013. 4 Protecting our waters and our land for more than 30 years www.GreatSwamp.org Harding Township: Cell Tower to install additional recreational bubbles on The Harding Township Board of the property. This would be accomplished Adjustment has been listening to an by filling in the large existing pond on the application for a proposed cell tower located property which we believe is spring fed. at the corner of Route 202 and Tempe Wick This property is immediately adjacent to the Road at the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The original location was within 250 feet GSWA will be conducting a site of Primrose Brook, the only stream in the inspection of the property with a watershed designated C-1 along its entire representative from the Refuge and an length. C-1 is the most pristine designation environmental consultant, and will then be of water quality and prevents any measurable meeting with the developer of this property deterioration from existing conditions. The to evaluate proposed changes to both zoning proposed location for the new cell tower has and future development. We are pleased that now been modified. Although still located the developer has reached out to us to seek on Church property, the actual cell tower our input. GSWA continues to be vigilant site has been moved closer to Route 202 in ensuring that runoff to the Great Swamp and further away from Primrose Brook. National Wildlife Refuge is not degraded, It is anticipated that a vote has or will take increased, or impaired. place shortly. There is an alternate site which Morris Township: Seaton Hackney Stables, may be considered across Route 202 on Loantaka Reservation property owned by the NJ Department of GSWA has been working with Morris Transportation. Although that property is County Park Commission and environmental even further from the stream, there are other consultants at Princeton Hydro to remediate inherent problems with sighting a tower at severe water pollution on Loantaka Brook.