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Raritan Basin Alliance Selects Three Major Initiatives The
Raritan
Basin Watershed Alliance (RBWA) Steering Committee selected its
first three major initiatives. The
Alliance will now begin working on Program Coordination, The Nonpoint
Source Pollution Cause and Identification Initiative, and The Raritan
Basin Stream Corridors / Riparian Restoration Project.
The Highway Stormwater Systems Initiative came in a close fourth. The Steering Committee members went through two rounds of selections to come up with a ranked list of the top ten potential projects. At the July 22, 2004 Steering Committee meeting, members discussed the top six ranking ideas and selected their top three priority projects. Several key changes were made to the initial proposals. The
Alliance Steering Committee will
coordinate meetings for federal, state, county, and municipal government
entities that are engaged in major actions for water resources
management, so that they can increase the potential for cooperative
projects and reduce the potential for incompatibility between projects.
The RBWA Steering Committee will coordinate these programs
instead of creating a Coordination Council, as proposed in the original
initiative, to avoid confusing matters. The
nonpoint pollution initiative will be a demonstration project of
nonpoint source pollution cause analysis in three to five watersheds or
subwatersheds of the Raritan River Basin.
The analysis will include intensive monitoring, models,
identification of indicators including innovative techniques (e.g.,
satellite reconnaissance), assessment of the viability of
non-governmental organization monitoring, and other techniques. Raritan
Basin Stream Corridors Project and Riparian Restoration Initiative were
considered so closely linked that they have been combined into one
initiative. This project
will create additional support from all government levels and
non-governmental organizations for creation of a linked network of
vegetated stream corridors and complete comprehensive stream and
riparian corridor habitat restorations.
The corridors will be on both parks and private lands, as
appropriate.
The intent is to protect
the stream ecosystems, with public access primarily through public open
space rather than private lands. Restoration
will include actions on public and private (non-agricultural) lands,
plus coordination with the current State/Federal Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program efforts on agricultural lands.
The initiative will cover costs of design and restoration, plus a
portion of any easement costs to address restoration project access and
maintenance. It
was agreed that the RBWA could not handle too many initiatives at one
time, but also would not actually run the projects.
The RBWA works as a catalyst and advocate; existing organizations
will actually run the projects. Therefore,
given the importance of stormwater management, the Highway Stormwater
Systems Initiative would begin as soon as funds and partnerships are
secured for either The
Nonpoint Source Pollution Cause Identification Initiative or
The Raritan Basin Stream Corridors Project/ Riparian Restoration
Initiative. For
more information about The Raritan Basin Watershed Alliance, please
contact Dan Van Abs, dvanabs@raritanbasin.org or (908) 685-0315 x 22.
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