WMA 5 Ambassador Update

We have a new Watershed Ambassador

 

By Tara Casella

Greetings. I am the new 2002-2003 Americorps Watershed Ambassador proudly taking up residence within the new home of Hackensack Riverkeeper.  I am originally from Belleville, NJ, a town bordering Nutley, Newark and Bloomfield.  It is an urban/suburban town that is pretty built-up, nearly devoid of open space and safe waterways, and somewhat contaminated in many areas leaving no real open space to play, especially for families who don’t have the luxury to travel and explore the great outdoors.  It’s one of the reasons why I became involved in environmental issues and am interested in stewardship of the environment.

When I found out about the Watershed Ambassador Program, I thought it was a wonderful way to get my feet wet in the environmental field—a position where I need to balance field work and administrative duties. While applying, I met with the Watershed Ambassador Program Coordinator Christine Hirt (former WMA-5 Ambassador) and decided immediately that this was the thing for me.  Her high regard for the position and for her former host agency, Hackensack Riverkeeper, intrigued me and left me feeling a renewed sense of hope for the environment of New Jersey, if indeed people like Christine Hirt and Bill Sheehan were on its side.

Tara explains the food web to a Solomon Schector student in Teaneck.

The area of the state in which I will be working is Area 5 which includes most of Bergen and Hudson Counties.  It is one the State’s 20 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs).  My goal as a Watershed Ambassador is to educate as many people as possible in the watershed community about what a watershed is and the important role that we human beings play in our local ecosystem.  Sometimes our daily habits and lifestyles threaten the health of the environment, and not many people acknowledge this nor take responsibility for the impacts we humans have on the environment, and they seem to forget how the environment affects us after it has unfortunately been altered for the worse.

So, for the next nine months, I will be doing lots of outreach and education, namely on watersheds.  I intend to empower interested stakeholders and the public at large by organizing and training these potential volunteers to perform ecological and biological evaluations of various tributaries of the watershed using the methods of the River Assessment Teams (RATS) and Biological Assessment Teams (BATS) programs of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.  Once trained, these community members will continue an honorable legacy of being true stewards of the environment.  The information collected by these assessments is very valuable to the NJDEP for monitoring NJ’s waterways.

I am very excited about working closely with children, community leaders, and interested citizens in conjunction with Hackensack Riverkeeper and the Division of Watershed Management to help restore and transform New Jersey’s environment and improve the health of its citizens.  I know that we can make a difference on a local level leading to global implications for sustainability, and I look forward to being instrumental in taking a step towards positive change, whether it is building community relations or preserving wild-land along the run of a river. 

I want to thank Bill Sheehan, Kathy Urffer, Hugh Carola, Jared Eudell, and the organization of Hackensack Riverkeeper, Inc. for being such gracious hosts to me and the Americorps Watershed Ambassador program.  It is an honor to be working side by side with such committed and passionate people dedicated to environmental, and thus human, sustainability.