Keeping our forests healthy, whole and wild.
The trees that make up our forests are some of the oldest living things on Earth, many of them older than America itself. These forests provide crucial habitat for thousands of species. They provide limitless opportunities for recreation, exploration and wonder. What’s more, our forests absorb and store carbon dioxide, which makes them crucial allies in our race against climate change. Together we can protect our forests from road-building, logging, development and other threats.
The magnitude of change needed to halt the destruction of the world’s forests requires equally seismic innovation in the way we manufacture our products. The guitar industry's on it.
the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) announced at their virtual meeting decision this morning to delay a decision on whether or not to approve permits for the proposed controversial liquid natural gas (LNG) New Fortress Energy Gibbstown, NJ port so the Commissioners could further assess the voluminous record and take a “careful look” at complex issues involved; and stay any construction there until final permit decisions are made by the DRBC Commissioners with a public vote. The three votes needed for passage of the delay and stay were cast by the NY, NJ and Delaware representatives. Pennsylvania abstained and the Trump Administration voted against the delay and stay. In a storm of controversy, the public had weighed in with over 71,000 petition signatures to DRBC to stop the project.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection published a rule yesterday that it will apply one of its strongest clean water protections to 600 miles of rivers and streams throughout the state. The new Category One designations are the first made in over a decade and set strict limits on pollution and development for parts of the Salem River in South Jersey; the South Branch of the Raritan and Lamington Rivers and Jacob’s Creek in Central Jersey, and the Ramapo River in North Jersey among many others. The upgrades also include a two-mile stretch of the Cooper River, the first urban waterway in the state to be protected.
On the 47th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, advocates, elected officials and Camden County officials joined together on the banks of the Cooper River at Gateway Park, showing public support for the first ever designation of an urban waterway to Category One protection status by the NJDEP. The proposal was sparked by improving water quality, which led to the discovery of an endangered species, the Eastern Pond Mussel. This section of the Cooper River is part of a larger proposal calling for 749 miles of waterways to receive these upgrades.
With a deadline for Congress to approve a federal budget approaching in one month, public officials, environmentalists, public health advocates and business organizations joined the call for full funding of EPA to protect the Delaware River watershed around the release of a new report detailing the impacts of the Trump Administration’s full-frontal budget cuts on EPA’s mission.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) kicked off a whirlwind road show of sequestered hearings on the beleaguered proposed PennEast pipeline that would stretch 118 miles across Pennsylvania before bisecting Hunterdon and Mercer Counties on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River watershed. The hearings, in a response to the overwhelming show of public opposition to the PennEast pipeline during the scoping hearings, are intentionally designed to sequester off the public one by one and deprive the public of hearing the statements of their neighbors – as well as the arguments of PennEast company officials. The flawed public hearing process is symbiotic of an attempt to quell public input.
