Plankton are tiny floating organisms (living things) that are found in both the sea and ponds and lakes.
The word ‘plankton’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘wandering’.
Plankton is a general term that includes every marine organism too small and weak to swim for itself.
The smallest algae are called plankton, but large floating algae (seaweeds) are not called plankton.
Plankton can be divided into phytoplankton, which are tiny plants, and zooplankton, which are tiny animals, but the division is blurred.
Most phytoplankton is very tiny indeed and so called nannoplankton and microplankton. Zooplankton is generally bigger and called macroplankton.
Green algae that give many ponds a bright green floating carpet are kinds of plankton.
Phytoplankton get their energy by photosynthesis just like other plants.
Countless puffs of oxygen given out by plankton early in Earth’s history gave the air its vital oxygen.
Plankton is the basic food of all shellfish.
Gef would like to share this fascinating video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQ_fO2D7f0&feature=player_embedded#!
ReClam the Bay was awarded the 2012 US EPA Environmental Quality Award. Each April, EPA honors individuals and organizations who have contributed significantly to improving the environment during the prior year in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
RCTB is honored to receive this, EPA’s highest award for a Non-Profit Organization, Environmental or Community Group. To be selected, nominees must have:
· Significantly contributed to improving environmental quality in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands during the prior year.
· Demonstrated a high achievement level in the award category.
· Created unique or location-specific benefits, produced results that are sustainable or reproducible, or increased public involvement in environmental action.
Rick Bushnell President and one of the founders of RCTB said “The letter was addressed to me but it is the result of some truly amazing volunteers. In accepting the award we must point out that RCTB would not exist if it were not for the efforts of the Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Project and the special effort of Gef Flimlin and Cara Muscio the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Marine agents.” He went on to thank the many other organizations with whom RCTB partners to educate and INVOLVE residents and visitors to NJ. Special thanks to the Barnegat Bay Partnership who nominated RCTB.
For more Information about the award go to EPA.
Herb Segars has been diving and photographing marine life in New Jersey waters for the past thirty years. On Saturday he presented the summation of his life's work in a fascinating and educational presentation entitled “Beneath the Garden State” to a crowded room at the LBI Foundation of Arts and Science in Loveladies and also at the New Jersey Maritime Museum in Beach Haven. The photographs depict rarely seen images, up close and personal, of the varied and beautiful marine life found near coastal shipwrecks and reefs. He has just finished a beautiful book of his photograph called “Beneath the Garden State: Exploring Aquatic New Jersey” that will be available in bookstores next month.
The film “Ocean Frontiers: The Dawn of a New Era in Ocean Stewardship” will make its premier screening in New Jersey on Thursday April 5th at Wilson Hall Auditorium, Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute at 6:30 PM. The film is a documentay and outreach campaign to inspire and mobilize audiences to better care for the ocean for the good of all. It outlines a new way of cooperation to sustain the sea and our coastal and ocean economies. A panel discussion of distinquished advocates will follow the screening.
On Thursday, February 23th at the request of RCTB member Charlie Brandt, Congressman Jon Runyan toured MATES High School in Manahawkin. After the tour he addressed the students and took questions from those in attendance . For more on this story chick on the links below.
Asbury Park Press article
http://www.app.com/article/20120223/NJNEWS/302230070/Students-question-congressman-variety-issues
Patch article
http://manchester-nj.patch.com/articles/runyan-tours-m-a-t-e-s-school
Students from five different schools will be involved in our “Shellfish in the Classroom” program this school year. Three elementary schools, one middle school and one high school will take part in the program. The schools are Lanoka Harbor Elementary School, grade 3 with teacher RCTB member Ms. Darlene Price, Ambassador Christian Academy in Toms River, grade 6 with teacher Ms. Diane Andryshak, Mid-streams Elementary School in Brick grade 5 with teacher Ms. Tina Lucchetti, Pinelands Regional Junior High School in Little Egg Harbor with RCTB members Ms. Charlene Lentini and Ms Melinda Most and West Windsor - Plainsboro High School North with Ms Kristina Nicosia. The schools will given two small tanks and 20 – 30 live eight month old oysters. They will be responsible for the care and feeding of the animals and they will return the oysters to us at the end of the school year. We will then put them in our upweller for the rest of the summer to continue their grow out before they head to the reef.
The regular monthly meeting of RCTB was held in the education room at the Jenkinsen's Aquarium in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey on Tuesday February 21st. Staff member Ms. Jenifer Zebrowski gave a brief history of the aquarium and detailed its mission of education and outreach for environmental stewardship. Jenifer and fellow staff member Ms. Meaghan Riccie than led small group tours of the aquarium high lighting the behind the scenes working and explaining the daily routine involved in the maintenance of a healthy habitat for all the animals living there. Their love of the animals and enthusiasm for their work was quite evident as they proudly showed us all the exhibits.
At our meeting on January 16 Clint Lehman brought a wooden shell display box that he had designed and built. It was decided that we would like to have several more of these boxes built and Chis West had a great idea as to where this could be done. He brought the box to the Southern Regional Mainsail Manufacturing for Profit Class. The students constructed six display boxes which will be used for educational presentations at local schools, festivals and organizational talks. On Saturday January 28, Rick presented a check for the cost of the materials to members of the class. The students involved in the project (under the direction of teachers Don Graham and Joe Tomczuk) are seventh grade student Genaro Sanders; eight grade students Caroline Arcari, Taylor Cichocki and Brandon Bronman; and ninth grade students Dan Lombardi and Eli Mirth.
When comparing Gov. Chris Christie’s performance to that of his predecessors over the last three decades, it is impossible not to feel positively with respect to Barnegat Bay. Much has been accomplished.
An overview of the Christie administration’s policy toward New Jersey’s largest body of water, however, reveals gaps in his 10-point plan that must be filled if Barnegat Bay’s decline is to be reversed.
Most prominent on the positive side is Christie’s signing into law the strongest-in-the-nation fertilizer law whose basic concepts originated in Save Barnegat Bay’s Lavallette office. Starting in January 2013, any bag of lawn fertilizer a homeowner pulls off a store shelf will have at least 20 percent of its nitrogen in slow-release form. Less polluting nitrogen will be carried by groundwater and runoff to Barnegat Bay.
A second significant area of accomplishment is the increased funding of improved stormwater detention basins. Although the number of upgraded basins is but a tiny percentage of those in the bay’s watershed, these new initiatives will teach us much about how to capture the nitrogen in rainwater on land, before it can run to the bay to become food for harmful algae.
But these focused attempts to benefit Barnegat Bay need to be supplemented by other efforts if the bay’s decline is to be reversed.
The key contributor to the bay’s decline is nitrogen deposited from the atmosphere by rain. On account of excessive burning of fossil fuels, too much nitrogen is already in the rain as it falls. As a result, harmful algae proliferates and chokes out the healthy species in the bay.
By picturing a raindrop falling with too much nitrogen already in it, we can derive four basic policy goals for healing Barnegat Bay.
First, we need to burn less fossil fuel.
Second, we need to end overdevelopment so that forested areas remain to absorb nitrogen and prevent it from reaching the bay.
Third, we need to revamp Ocean County’s stormwater management so that every possible drop of rainwater passes through a planted area for nitrogen removal on land prior to reaching the bay
Fourth, we need to stop adding nitrogen to the bay through the ways we use fertilizer, clean up after our pets and de-ice our sidewalks.
The major and presumably inadvertent failing of Christie’s 10-point plan is that it is silent with regard to clean air policy. Without a concerted effort to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, Barnegat Bay cannot be saved.
The administration’s record on clean air is mixed. On the positive side it has sued the state of Pennsylvania to clean up a huge source of nitrogen emissions from a coal-powered plant across the Delaware River from Warren County.
To the bay’s detriment, however, the Christie administration has withdrawn New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative of 10 northeastern states. This retrograde action can only harm Barnegat Bay.
In the area of land use, the administration has supported a bill in the Legislature that would allow sanitary sewers — and the overdevelopment they enable — to be extended to vast areas of Ocean County. Lakewood, for example, could soon become the third-largest city in the state. Barnegat Bay simply cannot survive such intensive overdevelopment.
A further disappointment is the administration’s allowing the Fukushima-style nuclear reactor at Oyster Creek — America’s oldest — to continue operating without cooling towers until 2019. Between now and then, Oyster Creek will strain a volume of water equal to 2.3 percent of the bay’s total volume of life every day. This is simply unsupportable.
The state Department of Environmental Protection must also acknowledge what the rest of the world knows: Barnegat Bay is environmentally “impaired.” Officially declaring that obvious fact will strengthen regulators’ power to reduce nitrogen inputs.
Finally, the governor must abandon his legally questionable initiative to allow bureaucrats discretion to issue waivers to our state’s fundamental environmental laws. Barnegat Bay deserves to be protected without the threat of behind-the-scenes power brokers pushing through harmful regulatory waivers.
These deficiencies can all be remedied. There are many different ways to address and readdress such problems as air pollution, overdevelopment and the permitting process.
If the Christie administration can fill these gaps with meaningful initiatives, Christie may leave a legacy as a benefactor to Barnegat Bay alongside Gov. Alfred Driscoll, who conserved Island Beach; Gov. William Cahill, who signed the Tidal Wetlands Act; and Gov. Brendan Byrne, who signed the Pinelands Act.
But there is work to be done, and there are strong forces that must be stood up to.
. Have you been to Jenkinson’s Aquarium lately? It is really a great place to visit. Now it has “spat on shell” and baby clams thanks to RCTB. If you go there, stop by the second floor to see the display. Thanks to Wes there is a beautiful, informative sign to tell about them. The two kids in the picture are Rick’s grandsons.
The Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program’s 2011 class of volunteers completed their requirements and earned their certificates as official shellfish gardeners. Gef Flimlin and Cara Musico presented the graduates with their certificates in a brief ceremony last night. Congratulations to all the new gardeners.
Pete Anwander Tyler Anwander Joe Bavosa
John Gibson Steven Hardeski Charlene Lentini
Melinda Most Ed Nowicki Darlene Price
Chirstopher Quinn Monica Shaw Mindy Voss
