In honor of Earth Day tomorrow, we’re taking a look at some past attempts at environmental protection in New Jersey.
While Earth Day is a relatively new holiday, its core message of taking care of the natural environment in which we live has been something that many New Jerseyans have valued, regardless of the era in which they lived. In particular, it is easy to find coverage of legislation and activism addressing the pollution of New Jersey’s rivers, lakes, and shores in New Jersey’s newspapers. Even as far back as the late nineteenth century, the pollution of New Jersey’s water was a significant concern. In an article from the August 15, 1898 issue of The Jersey City News, the establishment of a new commission to address “the pollution of the rivers and streams” of New Jersey was discussed.
Given the local focus of the paper, the article was particularly concerned with how the commission, whose purpose was to not only address the issues of those affected by present pollution but also to avert future pollution, would handle the Passaic River. Unfortunately, it appears that the work of this commission was ultimately not successful, as the Environmental Protection Agency still considers the river polluted, although there are efforts today to continue to clean the river and restore the communities that live along it.
Beyond the pollution of rivers, New Jerseyans were also concerned about the pollution of their beaches. An article in the Penns Grove Record‘s August 17, 1923 issue covered both Governor George Sebastian Silzer’s anti-pollution plan and the support it received from the National Coast Anti-Pollution League.
As the article explained, the Governor’s plan addressed both garbage and oil pollution on New Jersey’s shores; the article also noted the complexity of dealing with oil waste coming from foreign ships and the legislative difficulties facing environmental protection bills. Regardless, as the article made clear, this was an important issue to many New Jerseyans, with a quote from the National Coast Anti-Pollution League summarizing the harm of polluted shores: “financial losses, the denial to the public of a pleasurable recreation and even serious damage to health from bathing in polluted waters.” Unsurprisingly, these concerns resonate with those who live in New Jersey’s shore towns today.
These were not isolated calls to address the pollution of New Jersey’s waters. These issues were raised time and time again, as can be seen in an article from the July 16, 1920 issue of the Penns Grove Record.
The article’s main focus was on the effects of pollution on fishing, noting that a lobster caught in Sandy Hook “has a taste of oil in its flesh” and that a “few years ago a catch of seventy-five weakfish at Sewaren caused absolutely no comment, while the catching of one there today would be counted wonderful.” Unfortunately, these issues persist in some of New Jersey’s bodies of water; the EPA has decades-old fishing and crabbing advisories for the Passaic River and Newark Bay. However, the article also covered some of the points mentioned above, including the “considerable financial loss” shore towns were facing with their shores clogged with oil and tar. One particularly unpleasant story they shared was from a week prior at Raritan Bay, where beachgoers “had to wash with kerosene oil in order to remove the tar from their bodies after a few minutes in the water.” Clearly, the issue of pollution was unavoidable.
These same complaints were echoed in a March 10, 1922 article in the Five Mile Beach Weekly Journal, covering State Fish and Game Commissioner H. J. Burlington’s push for conservation legislation. According to Commissioner Burlington, pollution killed more fish in New Jersey than all of the state’s “licensed anglers take from the streams.” Furthermore, according to Burlington, “seashore resorts face tremendous financial losses from pollution by the waste of oil burning steamers, which clean their tanks off New York harbor.”
Pollution was a big enough problem that politicians, like Commissioner Burlington above, devoted significant amount of time to it. One such example is Congressman T. Frank Appleby of New Jersey’s 3rd district, who, according to a Perth Amboy Evening News article from December 5, 1923, “devoted almost his entire time in his two years service in the sixty-seventh congress to trying to get the Appleby-Frelinghuysen anti pollution bill passed,” although he was unfortunately unsuccessful. Still, the effort he expended on the bill highlights just how significant an issue many felt this was.
While many of the attempts at curbing pollution mentioned earlier were not entirely successful, conservation efforts were not doomed to failure. An article in the July 27, 1923 issue of the Penns Grove Record explores the success pollution-fighting efforts had on restoring fish populations in the Delaware River.
According to the paper, a survey demonstrated that shad fishing on the river in the spring prior “showed a fifty percent improvement over recent years.” This was largely attributed to efforts by New Jersey and Pennsylvania officials to “stop sewage pollution of the river.” Evidently, while not every environmental protection effort was successful, there were some that achieved positive results. However, it should be noted that this success in the Delaware was only temporary, and that it returned to a state of pollution that would not be addressed until the formation of the Delaware River Basin Commission in 1961. According to the commission, while great progress has been made to clean the river and it now “supports year-round fish populations,” some parts are still not “fishable and swimmable,” so work remains to be done. Ultimately, this highlights the importance of Earth Day’s message: our need to be vigilant in protecting the natural environment we call home.
(Contributed by Tristan Smith)
Sources:
Delaware River Basin Commission. “Brief Overview of Water Quality in the DRB.” Last modified November 19, 2021. https://www.nj.gov/drbc/programs/quality/history.html.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Urban Waters and the Passaic River/Newark (New Jersey).” Urban Waters Partnership. Last modified November 28, 2022. https://www.epa.gov/urbanwaterspartners/urban-waters-and-passaic-rivernewark-new-jersey.