JBMDL Restaurant Guide
Joint Base McGuire/Dix/Lakehurst
Restaurant Guide to Browns Mills, New Jersey
ALBAS PIZZA – Acme Shopping Center – 893-6808 / 893-6809. (Since 1976) Italian – Pizza – Hoagies – Cheesesteaks, lunch specials, salads, antipastas, lasange, Sicilian specials.
BELLY BUSTERS (Formerly J.C.’s) – 98 Lakehurst Road. 893-7779. Delivers. Under new management, customers take over kitchen. Fresh soups, fried chicken, wings, ribs, hoagies, cheesteaks, poppers, potato logs, ¼ pound hot dogs, chili, French fries, burgers.
BEST BUFFET – Pine Grove Plaza (New Acme Shopping Center) – 735-9300. Chinese. Visa/MC.
BOBO’S CHINESE – Lakehurst Road. 893-1797. Country Lakes Shopping Center. Visa/MC. 11am – 10 pm.
BROTHER’S DINER – 127 Trenton Road – 893-5500. From 6am – 12 midnight. BYOB. Visa/MC. Sam & Cavit prop. [www.brothersdiner.com]
BURGER KING – Pemberton-Browns Mills-Lakehurst Road – 893-988.
CAROL’S SOUL FOOD – WaWa Shopping Center, Lakehurst Road. Take out Southern chicken, oxtail, collar greens, pies, baked beans, salads, fish, catfish.
CHINA KING – Midtown Plaza Shopping Center. Lakehurst Road. Take out.
CINCO DEMAYO – Pemberton-Browns Mills Road – Old Shopping Center – 735-9904. Mexican take out.
COUNTRY LAKES WAWA – Country Lakes Shopping Center.
COUNTRY LAKES PUB – Chris’ Irish Pub, beer and booze to go, cigars, grill, pool tables, English darts, heated outside smoke deck, spots on TV.
CROWN CHICKEN – Pemberton-Browns Mills Road – Old Shopping Center – 893-9500.
DOMINO’S PIZZA – 100 Lakehurst Road. 893-1600. Deliver.
DUNKIN’DONUTS – Trenton Road. Donuts. Breakfast, Coffee by the pound.
FAMILY PIZZA – Lakehurst Road. 735-0500. Italian pizza, wings, sandwiches. Delivers.
GREAT WALL – Browns Mills Shopping Center – Pemberton-Browns Mills Road . 893-1783
HORNETS NEST – Steak & Seafood House. Lakehurst Road.
JU JU’S – 7 Julistown Road (Wa Wa Shopping Center) Seafood & Soul food Take-Out. 893-2020
KO KO’S – Midtown Plaza Shopping Center – Breakfast, lunch grill. No Hurries here. Food is good and cheap. Service until 2pm. Closed Wednesdays.
LAKESIDE GRILL – (Formally Sonja’s) – Trenton Road. 893-03629. Breakfast Grill. German. Across from St. Ann’s “In the Pines” Catholic Church; Martucci family.
LEVILLA - Browns Mills Shopping Center, Pemberton-Browns Mills Road – 893-7760. Delivers. Visa/MC. Panzoritti.
MARTUCCI’S DELI – 396 Lakehurst Road. (Since 1979). 893-2400/Fax 893-2152. Homemade salads, Boar’s Head cold cuts, coffee, burgers, fried chicken, subs, seafood.
MCDONALDS – Trenton Road – 893-6992. Eat in Take Out, open late, drive through, hot spot for lap tops. Breakfast til ’11.
NO. 1 CHINESE – Mill Village Shopping Center (behind WaWa) 893-8868/893-1960 – (Visa, MC) 11am-10:30pm. Lunch specials.
PAPI’S PIZZA – 558 Lakehurst Road, Country Lakes Shopping Center. 893-5447. Fax. 893-3984. Delivers. Visa/MC/Disc. 11am-10pm.
PIG & WHISTLE – Cold beer and booze to go; Wa Wa Shoping Center – Lakehurst Road, Browns Mills.
QUICK STOP – HUNGRY PINEY DELI – 13 Browns Mills-Pemberton Road. 893-0555/893-0005. Fax 893-0559. Booze and Sandwiches. Delivers.
RICCARDO’S – 567 B Lakehurst Road (Country Lakes) 735-0162 /fax-735-1582. Visa/MC/Ax/Disc. Italian. Pizza, salads, pasta, club sandwiches, hoagies, cheesesteaks, oven baked grinders, wraps, Stromboli, calzones. Fish, veal.
SOPRANO’S PIZZA – Midtown Shopping Center, 519 B. Lakehurst Road. 735-9900. Deliver. Original Panzarotti.
SUBWAY – Lakehurst Road. Eat Fresh Franchise.
TOWN DELI – 336 Lakehurst Road. 893-3889. ATM. Phonecards. NJ Lottery. Best Italian hoagies in town.
PEMBERTON
BERGER KING – Eat in Take out. Rt. 38 and Bypass Road.
CHARLIE’S OTHER BROTHER – (Four Stars).
COUNTRY HOUSE – Anapa’s – (Five Stars)
DUNKIN’DONUTS – Rt. 38. And Bypass Road.
JAMESON’S – Bar & Grill.
SUPER WA WA –
MT. HOLLY
BUZZ’S TAVERN – Grill, draft beer, outside café, near courthouse.
CHARLIE BROWN’S – Burlington Road, 541.
DADZ BAR - & GRILL – Rt. 38. Classic bar, indoor outdoor.
DEMPSTER’S – Sports Bar & Grill. Rt. 38.
MILL STREET SALOON – (Oldest bar in NJ) -
JOHN & MOLLY’S – Bar & Grill. (Formerly Clarkes). Draft beer, good food. Live music on Friday nights.
CHESTERFIELD
CHESTERFIELD INN – (1710) 300 year old neighborhood tavern, bar Louisiana grill, fine dining, friendly ghost, former waitress.
COLUMBUS
CORNER HOUSE BAR – Grill -
COLUMBUS HOUSE – Historic
WRIGHTSTOWN
KELLY’S BAR & GRILL /SUBWAY
KFC – Kentucky Fried Chicken –
PAPA JOHN’S PIZZA –
SNITCHELHOUSE – German -
SUBWAY – (At KELLY’s BAR & GRILL)
TACO BELL
WENDYS
YARDONAS – Main Street – Italian.
NEW EGYPT –
AMERICA HOUSE BAR -
BROTHER’S DINER – (Old Plumbstead).
TOOTIE’S – Dining Inside. Best icecream, eat in, take out.
WA WA -
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Sensory Deprevation Experiments at Stockton
SENSORY DEPREVATION EXPERIMENTS AT STOCKTON – By William Kelly ]
Astronauts do it to prepare for space flight, casino workers do it to relax, athletes do it to refine their concentration, trainers use it to relieve muscle pressure and mental stress, doctors prescribe it to elevate pain, and students do it for college credit.
Originally called sensory deprivation, it has been a scientific research device for decades, and is now being marketed for public use at floatation-relaxation centers.
It is a coffin-like tank with a heavy concentration of Epson salts in a few inches of water that makes for a buoyancy that’s a close to weightlessness as you can get at sea level.
The Philadelphia Eagles used to have one in their locker room to take pressure off the muscles of injured players. Stockton students and teachers built one or academic studies, and Ken Bolis opened the “Float Center” in Atlantic City where most of his clients were anxiety riddled casino workers who have to cut off their sensory input before they short circuit.
Developed in the early 1950s in response to Korean Cold War communist brain washing techniques, isolation tanks were looked upon as a “magic box” cure-al for a number of maladys.
Dr. John C. Lilly began studying sensory deprivation after a Canadian researcher, Donald Habb, discovered that the brain begins to play tricks when a person stops receiving signals from the senses. Solitary confinement has always been recognized as an effective tool in brainwashing and punishment, and Habb’s subjects, lying in bed with their eyes, ears, hands and nose covered, began to hallucinate and became disoriented from laying four days without sensory input.
Lilly’s experiments however, were conducted in tanks of his own devising, with the subject sitting face up floating in a heavily salinated layer of water, which resulted in a not totally unpleasant experience. Subjects who cut off their senses and endured prolonged periods in “Lilly’s Pond” still suffered hallucinations, but durations of short terms were found to produce various positive effects that could be theroputic.
Lilly, a neurophysiologist, biophysicist and psychoanalyst, is better known for his work with dolphins. After performing an autopsy on a dolphin that washed ashore on the east coast, Lilly noticed how similar the marine mammal’s brain was in size and shape to the human brain. That explained the animal’s remarkable intelligence, and stimulated research into its language and inter-species communication.
But Lilly’s sensory deprivation experiments predated his dolphin research, and his theories went against the commonly held belief that sensory deprivation led to terrifying results, mental disturbance and disorientation. Lilly maintained that the hallucinations resulted from the brain trying to maintain an active level while being cut off from stimuli, and in the absence of direct stimuli, programed material stored away in memory banks were called up in the mind’s eye.
Rather than a threat to man’s reason and sanity, he saw it as an opportunity to study the brain and the sub-conscious mind, and possibly use the techniques in therapy, learning and liberating the spirit rather than destroying or controlling it for evil purposes.
Dr. Shelby Broughton, of Ocean City, New Jersey, a chemistry professor at Stockton State College in the 70s and 80s, studied with Lilly and conducted academic research on the effects of isolation at Stockton years ago.
In an interview with Broughton at the time, he said that, “Basically we found that a person gets out of the tank what he expects before he gets into it. What a person wants to get out of the experience , and their predisposition Is important.”
Shelby Broughton first became acquainted with Lilly’s work in the early 1970’s while engaged in inter-disciplinary studies at Stockton when Marine biology students mentioned Lilly’s work with dolphins. “Quite by coincidence,” Broughton explained, “I was sent an application to attend a workshop-seminar with Lilly at the University of California, Berkley that was sponsored by the Esalan Institute.”
Broughton sent it off and was one of 40 participants selected to work with Lilly in the use of the tank, construction methodology and devising possible applications. He returned to Stockton and started a study group of select students who constructed an isolation tank for about $500. “The most expensive component was a water heater,” he said, comparing it to today’s state-of-the-art tanks that cost over $2,000.
While long term sensory deprivation may lead the mind to wander into subconscious crevices in some dark corner of the brain, short periods of time in the tank, or “the box” as the Stockton community came to call it, could be therapeutic.
“The tank is an awareness tool,” Lilly said, “like meditation, like Gestalt, like psychotherapy, like a hammer or a saw,...the tank assists us in a very simple function: it allows us to expand our awareness of our internal state of being.”
Astronauts do it to prepare for space flight, casino workers do it to relax, athletes do it to refine their concentration, trainers use it to relieve muscle pressure and mental stress, doctors prescribe it to elevate pain, and students do it for college credit.
Originally called sensory deprivation, it has been a scientific research device for decades, and is now being marketed for public use at floatation-relaxation centers.
It is a coffin-like tank with a heavy concentration of Epson salts in a few inches of water that makes for a buoyancy that’s a close to weightlessness as you can get at sea level.
The Philadelphia Eagles used to have one in their locker room to take pressure off the muscles of injured players. Stockton students and teachers built one or academic studies, and Ken Bolis opened the “Float Center” in Atlantic City where most of his clients were anxiety riddled casino workers who have to cut off their sensory input before they short circuit.
Developed in the early 1950s in response to Korean Cold War communist brain washing techniques, isolation tanks were looked upon as a “magic box” cure-al for a number of maladys.
Dr. John C. Lilly began studying sensory deprivation after a Canadian researcher, Donald Habb, discovered that the brain begins to play tricks when a person stops receiving signals from the senses. Solitary confinement has always been recognized as an effective tool in brainwashing and punishment, and Habb’s subjects, lying in bed with their eyes, ears, hands and nose covered, began to hallucinate and became disoriented from laying four days without sensory input.
Lilly’s experiments however, were conducted in tanks of his own devising, with the subject sitting face up floating in a heavily salinated layer of water, which resulted in a not totally unpleasant experience. Subjects who cut off their senses and endured prolonged periods in “Lilly’s Pond” still suffered hallucinations, but durations of short terms were found to produce various positive effects that could be theroputic.
Lilly, a neurophysiologist, biophysicist and psychoanalyst, is better known for his work with dolphins. After performing an autopsy on a dolphin that washed ashore on the east coast, Lilly noticed how similar the marine mammal’s brain was in size and shape to the human brain. That explained the animal’s remarkable intelligence, and stimulated research into its language and inter-species communication.
But Lilly’s sensory deprivation experiments predated his dolphin research, and his theories went against the commonly held belief that sensory deprivation led to terrifying results, mental disturbance and disorientation. Lilly maintained that the hallucinations resulted from the brain trying to maintain an active level while being cut off from stimuli, and in the absence of direct stimuli, programed material stored away in memory banks were called up in the mind’s eye.
Rather than a threat to man’s reason and sanity, he saw it as an opportunity to study the brain and the sub-conscious mind, and possibly use the techniques in therapy, learning and liberating the spirit rather than destroying or controlling it for evil purposes.
Dr. Shelby Broughton, of Ocean City, New Jersey, a chemistry professor at Stockton State College in the 70s and 80s, studied with Lilly and conducted academic research on the effects of isolation at Stockton years ago.
In an interview with Broughton at the time, he said that, “Basically we found that a person gets out of the tank what he expects before he gets into it. What a person wants to get out of the experience , and their predisposition Is important.”
Shelby Broughton first became acquainted with Lilly’s work in the early 1970’s while engaged in inter-disciplinary studies at Stockton when Marine biology students mentioned Lilly’s work with dolphins. “Quite by coincidence,” Broughton explained, “I was sent an application to attend a workshop-seminar with Lilly at the University of California, Berkley that was sponsored by the Esalan Institute.”
Broughton sent it off and was one of 40 participants selected to work with Lilly in the use of the tank, construction methodology and devising possible applications. He returned to Stockton and started a study group of select students who constructed an isolation tank for about $500. “The most expensive component was a water heater,” he said, comparing it to today’s state-of-the-art tanks that cost over $2,000.
While long term sensory deprivation may lead the mind to wander into subconscious crevices in some dark corner of the brain, short periods of time in the tank, or “the box” as the Stockton community came to call it, could be therapeutic.
“The tank is an awareness tool,” Lilly said, “like meditation, like Gestalt, like psychotherapy, like a hammer or a saw,...the tank assists us in a very simple function: it allows us to expand our awareness of our internal state of being.”
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Saint Rubin Amaro, Jr.
Rubin Amaro, Jr.
The Four Aces
Not Al Alberts and his acapella group from Philly who sang schmaltz songs through the fifties and sixties, but Cliff Lee, Roy Halliday, Roy Oswaldt and Cole Hammels. Now there's Four Aces for you.
As everybody who lives in New Jersey knows and understands, those who live in North Jersey are New York sports fans and support the Yankees, Giants, Mets, Knicks and Devils, while those who live in South Jersey are Philadelphia sports fans, who root for the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and 76ers.
So the news that filtered out of offices of the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers was that they were notified late Monday night that they lost in their bidding war for free agent starting pitcher Cliff Lee, which was surprising because as far as anybody knew they were the only teams in the running for the top prized ace.
To the surprise of practically everybody, Lee turned down six and seven year deals with the Yankees and Rangers for over a hundred and fifty million dollars in order to signe with the Philadelphia Phillies for fifty millions and two years less.
There should be an exclamation point after that statement, but in retrospect, it should be so surprsing since Lee didn't wanted to be traded after helping the Phillies get back to the World Series, only to lose to the Yankees in six games, with Lee winning two.
Lee went to Seatle and then to the Rangers, where he performed similar duties for the Rangers, getting them to the World Series only to lose to the San Fran Giants.
After mentioning more than once that the best time he ever had in baseball was to play for the Phillies and pitch against the Yankees in the World Series, and knowing that his wife had expressed displeasure at having been spit on by Yankee fans, she too pulled some weight in expressing her fondness for Philadelphia.
What's with Philadelphia that would have someone turn down fifty million dollars in order to work and play there?
Cheesesteaks. Tastycakes. Scrapple. South Street. The Four Aces.
Al Alberts and the Four Aces adaquetly represent the schmaltz nature of Philadelphia, where do wop singers can be found singing on street corners outside walk way cheesteak grills.
And for some reason, Cliff Lee, the guy Rubin Amaro, Jr. gave up to get Roy Halliday, has redeemed himself and pulled off the most remarkable deal of the century, bringing Cliff Lee back to Philadelpia.
Oh, yea, Rubin Amaro, Jr., the son of Rubin, Sr., fan favorite, Cuban born shortstop for popular Phillies championship team, later coach while his son was a bat boy, Stanford national champion as leadoff batter, professonal player with three teams, including Phillies, so when he retired from playing, he quickly found a job in the Phillies front office. There he stayed for ten years before taking over the General Manager job shortly after the Phillies won the World Series.
After swinging the deal for Lee, the Philly fans turned on Amaro, questioning his judgements in trading Lee in order to get Halliday, but now, after acquring Oswaldt, and now signing Cliff Lee, Amaro has achieved Saint Status in Philadelphia and South Jersey.
God Bless Rubin Amaro, Jr.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Dick Russell on the State of the Striped Bass
TESTIMONY OF DICK RUSSELL
Author, Striper Wars
H796, An Act relative to the conservation of Atlantic striped bass
Massachusetts Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture
January 14, 2010
I thank you for allowing me to testify today on what I believe is an urgent conservation measure, vital to preserving for our children and grand-children the most magnificent fish that swims our near-shore waters. I am an environmental journalist and the author of six books, including one called Striper Wars, about the fish that is the subject of this hearing. And today I hope to offer some historical perspective, along with the reasons why H796 needs to be passed during the current legislative session.
Striped bass have been called the aquatic equivalent of the American bald eagle. Without Native Americans having taught the Pilgrims about how to take striped bass, they would not have survived their first difficult winters in the Plymouth Colony. Protection of striped bass was the reason for America’s very first conservation law, in 1639, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony general court ruled they were too valuable to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The first fishery management measures, in 1776, were also drawn up on the striper’s behalf.
I have been fishing recreationally for striped bass off Martha’s Vineyard for almost four decades now. In the early 1980s, I became deeply involved in what became a coastwide campaign to try to save them from the Endangered Species List, organizing petition drives and a national conference. At the time, federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause for why striped bass were disappearing from our waters cited pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one reason. The other factor was clearly overfishing, and only this could be addressed immediately. There was a management plan in place, but it obviously didn’t go far enough. There were fewer and fewer striped bass around. That was why a grassroots effort of concerned fishermen was needed, and eventually we saw some incredible results. After Maryland declared a five-year moratorium on striper fishing and other states followed with similarly strong measures, the fish made an amazing comeback. In 1995, Scientific American magazine wrote: “The resurgence of striped bass along the eastern coast of the U.S. is probably the best example in the world of a species that was allowed to recoup through tough management and an intelligent rebuilding plan.”
I wish I could say that was the start of a success story we are still witnessing today. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m afraid we are on the verge of seeing another population crash, as serious as the one that almost wiped out the striped bass fishery two decades ago. For the past several years, landings have been down all along the coast. A graph compiled by the Coastal Conservation Association shows that the number of striped bass encountered by recreational fishermen has decreased by more than 50 percent since 2006. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s winter tagging cruise, conducted in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina for many years, came across the fewest striped bass ever. Every year since the mid-fifties, fishery scientists have sampled the water in a number of places in the Chesapeake Bay to see how many fish were spawned that spring. It’s called the striped bass young-of-the-year index, and there has been a steady decline over the past decade. 2007 saw the lowest number of juveniles since 1990, when the population was just emerging from near-total collapse.
So what is going on? Part of it, we know, has to do with what’s happening in the Chesapeake, where at least 75 percent of the migrating striped bass originate. In 2008, scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science published a study showing that a chronic disease called mycobacteriosis is now at epidemic proportions. It’s been detected in sixty percent of the Chesapeake’s striped bass – and it eventually kills them. The disease began showing up a decade ago, sometimes in the form of skin lesions and often eating away at the fish from within. For humans handling infected fish with an open wound, scientists advise wearing gloves to avoid “fish handler’s disease” that can lead to arthritis-like joint problems. Mycobacteriosis has now spread to the Delaware Bay system, and has been seen in striped bass all along the coast, including here in Massachusetts.
The latest scientific study calls it a “stress disease.” Many of the diseased fish are also emaciated. So what seems to be happening is that the striped bass aren’t getting enough to eat. The Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation recently determined that malnutrition observed in more than 5,000 stripers is a consequence of what’s called “ecological depletion.” Menhaden, a small bony fish that swims in huge schools, is the striped bass’ primary food of choice. But its numbers are way down in the Chesapeake Bay. A single company, Omega Protein out of Reedville, Virginia is netting millions of menhaden annually to be ground up into fish meal and fish oil. A cap on the harvest that was first put in place in 2006 has not proved effective, because menhaden landings since then have averaged 30 percent below the cap. Things have gotten desperate enough for striped bass, bluefish, and other larger predators in the Bay that federal legislation for a complete moratorium on taking menhaden in Chesapeake waters has been introduced.
That probably needs to happen. So does what scientists call “ecosystem management,” taking into account not only pollution and climate change but that big fish need to eat smaller fish to survive. We must do that in Massachusetts, too, where the river herring are being eliminated by the big trawling ships. But when it comes to striped bass, we need to act, and soon, to stave off another crisis. It’s all too similar to the situation in the 1980s, when the only immediate thing to do was to cut back on the fishing pressure.
You will hear from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that the resource is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Yet the allowable catch levels and quotas are still based on a theoretical abundance of fish from the Nineties – and that abundance no longer exists. At the same time, illegal black market fishing is rampant. In February 2009, five watermen in the Chesapeake Bay region pleaded guilty to poaching more than $2 million of striped bass – something like 600,000 fish – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Until recently, I resisted supporting a ban on commercial sale of wild striped bass in our state. But I have come to the conclusion that this is necessary, for the fish’s sake. And there is a strong precedent for it. Already the majority of coastal states through which the bass migrate have made striped bass a gamefish, including Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and South Carolina. New York allows no commercial sale because of high levels of PCB’s in the fish’s flesh. Many of these measures, I might add, were done by state legislatures.
By far the biggest commercial harvest of striped bass along the coast occurs off Massachusetts, where half the fish’s population spend their summers. In 2009, Massachusetts commercial striped bass fishermen landed 1,160,453 pounds of fish. But this is not a significant portion of yearly income for any commercial fisherman. Only a very small number of commercial striped bass permit holders rely on sale of the fish to help support their families. The majority of these license holders sell stripers to help support their hobby.
I am in favor of a dedicated fund to buy back commercial striped bass permits on an amortized basis. And there is no reason that should not come from a saltwater license fee on recreational fishermen. We need to do our share, and the measures outlined in this bill – one fish a day instead of two, and only at a fixed minimum or maximum size limit in order to protect the most spawning female fish – would achieve that.
Some people say, what will restaurants and supermarkets do that depend on striped bass to help with income in the summertime? The fact is that farm-raised striped bass already comprise more than 60 percent of the market. The taste, and the price, is comparable to that of wild-caught fish. Fish raised in ponds or other enclosed systems are not tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants found at levels high enough in ocean stripers to warrant health advisories against consuming them in many states. The Environmental Defense Fund recommends that people eat only farm-raised stripers, and this legislation would require any that are sold to bear a tag from the grower or distributor.
A century ago, market hunting drove many species of game birds and animals almost to extinction until the practice was outlawed. In recent years, we have seen red drum become a recreational-only species in Florida, and sea trout and redfish in Texas, because there weren’t enough fish to also support a commercial industry. Given all the problems striped bass are facing today, I don’t feel there is any choice but to follow such precedents. We are seeing all the same warning signs that appeared during the near-catastrophic decline of the 1980s. They are signs that weren’t reacted to, until it was almost too late. This time, the coming crash would be worse than before, because there are more fishermen with much more deadly fishing techniques. We cannot afford to wait until it takes intervention from the U.S. Congress and a moratorium to save and then restore the fishery. Massachusetts was a leader in striped bass conservation once. We need to be so again. Thank you.
Author, Striper Wars
H796, An Act relative to the conservation of Atlantic striped bass
Massachusetts Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture
January 14, 2010
I thank you for allowing me to testify today on what I believe is an urgent conservation measure, vital to preserving for our children and grand-children the most magnificent fish that swims our near-shore waters. I am an environmental journalist and the author of six books, including one called Striper Wars, about the fish that is the subject of this hearing. And today I hope to offer some historical perspective, along with the reasons why H796 needs to be passed during the current legislative session.
Striped bass have been called the aquatic equivalent of the American bald eagle. Without Native Americans having taught the Pilgrims about how to take striped bass, they would not have survived their first difficult winters in the Plymouth Colony. Protection of striped bass was the reason for America’s very first conservation law, in 1639, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony general court ruled they were too valuable to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The first fishery management measures, in 1776, were also drawn up on the striper’s behalf.
I have been fishing recreationally for striped bass off Martha’s Vineyard for almost four decades now. In the early 1980s, I became deeply involved in what became a coastwide campaign to try to save them from the Endangered Species List, organizing petition drives and a national conference. At the time, federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause for why striped bass were disappearing from our waters cited pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one reason. The other factor was clearly overfishing, and only this could be addressed immediately. There was a management plan in place, but it obviously didn’t go far enough. There were fewer and fewer striped bass around. That was why a grassroots effort of concerned fishermen was needed, and eventually we saw some incredible results. After Maryland declared a five-year moratorium on striper fishing and other states followed with similarly strong measures, the fish made an amazing comeback. In 1995, Scientific American magazine wrote: “The resurgence of striped bass along the eastern coast of the U.S. is probably the best example in the world of a species that was allowed to recoup through tough management and an intelligent rebuilding plan.”
I wish I could say that was the start of a success story we are still witnessing today. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m afraid we are on the verge of seeing another population crash, as serious as the one that almost wiped out the striped bass fishery two decades ago. For the past several years, landings have been down all along the coast. A graph compiled by the Coastal Conservation Association shows that the number of striped bass encountered by recreational fishermen has decreased by more than 50 percent since 2006. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s winter tagging cruise, conducted in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina for many years, came across the fewest striped bass ever. Every year since the mid-fifties, fishery scientists have sampled the water in a number of places in the Chesapeake Bay to see how many fish were spawned that spring. It’s called the striped bass young-of-the-year index, and there has been a steady decline over the past decade. 2007 saw the lowest number of juveniles since 1990, when the population was just emerging from near-total collapse.
So what is going on? Part of it, we know, has to do with what’s happening in the Chesapeake, where at least 75 percent of the migrating striped bass originate. In 2008, scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science published a study showing that a chronic disease called mycobacteriosis is now at epidemic proportions. It’s been detected in sixty percent of the Chesapeake’s striped bass – and it eventually kills them. The disease began showing up a decade ago, sometimes in the form of skin lesions and often eating away at the fish from within. For humans handling infected fish with an open wound, scientists advise wearing gloves to avoid “fish handler’s disease” that can lead to arthritis-like joint problems. Mycobacteriosis has now spread to the Delaware Bay system, and has been seen in striped bass all along the coast, including here in Massachusetts.
The latest scientific study calls it a “stress disease.” Many of the diseased fish are also emaciated. So what seems to be happening is that the striped bass aren’t getting enough to eat. The Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation recently determined that malnutrition observed in more than 5,000 stripers is a consequence of what’s called “ecological depletion.” Menhaden, a small bony fish that swims in huge schools, is the striped bass’ primary food of choice. But its numbers are way down in the Chesapeake Bay. A single company, Omega Protein out of Reedville, Virginia is netting millions of menhaden annually to be ground up into fish meal and fish oil. A cap on the harvest that was first put in place in 2006 has not proved effective, because menhaden landings since then have averaged 30 percent below the cap. Things have gotten desperate enough for striped bass, bluefish, and other larger predators in the Bay that federal legislation for a complete moratorium on taking menhaden in Chesapeake waters has been introduced.
That probably needs to happen. So does what scientists call “ecosystem management,” taking into account not only pollution and climate change but that big fish need to eat smaller fish to survive. We must do that in Massachusetts, too, where the river herring are being eliminated by the big trawling ships. But when it comes to striped bass, we need to act, and soon, to stave off another crisis. It’s all too similar to the situation in the 1980s, when the only immediate thing to do was to cut back on the fishing pressure.
You will hear from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that the resource is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Yet the allowable catch levels and quotas are still based on a theoretical abundance of fish from the Nineties – and that abundance no longer exists. At the same time, illegal black market fishing is rampant. In February 2009, five watermen in the Chesapeake Bay region pleaded guilty to poaching more than $2 million of striped bass – something like 600,000 fish – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Until recently, I resisted supporting a ban on commercial sale of wild striped bass in our state. But I have come to the conclusion that this is necessary, for the fish’s sake. And there is a strong precedent for it. Already the majority of coastal states through which the bass migrate have made striped bass a gamefish, including Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and South Carolina. New York allows no commercial sale because of high levels of PCB’s in the fish’s flesh. Many of these measures, I might add, were done by state legislatures.
By far the biggest commercial harvest of striped bass along the coast occurs off Massachusetts, where half the fish’s population spend their summers. In 2009, Massachusetts commercial striped bass fishermen landed 1,160,453 pounds of fish. But this is not a significant portion of yearly income for any commercial fisherman. Only a very small number of commercial striped bass permit holders rely on sale of the fish to help support their families. The majority of these license holders sell stripers to help support their hobby.
I am in favor of a dedicated fund to buy back commercial striped bass permits on an amortized basis. And there is no reason that should not come from a saltwater license fee on recreational fishermen. We need to do our share, and the measures outlined in this bill – one fish a day instead of two, and only at a fixed minimum or maximum size limit in order to protect the most spawning female fish – would achieve that.
Some people say, what will restaurants and supermarkets do that depend on striped bass to help with income in the summertime? The fact is that farm-raised striped bass already comprise more than 60 percent of the market. The taste, and the price, is comparable to that of wild-caught fish. Fish raised in ponds or other enclosed systems are not tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants found at levels high enough in ocean stripers to warrant health advisories against consuming them in many states. The Environmental Defense Fund recommends that people eat only farm-raised stripers, and this legislation would require any that are sold to bear a tag from the grower or distributor.
A century ago, market hunting drove many species of game birds and animals almost to extinction until the practice was outlawed. In recent years, we have seen red drum become a recreational-only species in Florida, and sea trout and redfish in Texas, because there weren’t enough fish to also support a commercial industry. Given all the problems striped bass are facing today, I don’t feel there is any choice but to follow such precedents. We are seeing all the same warning signs that appeared during the near-catastrophic decline of the 1980s. They are signs that weren’t reacted to, until it was almost too late. This time, the coming crash would be worse than before, because there are more fishermen with much more deadly fishing techniques. We cannot afford to wait until it takes intervention from the U.S. Congress and a moratorium to save and then restore the fishery. Massachusetts was a leader in striped bass conservation once. We need to be so again. Thank you.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Browns Mills Well 11 Contaminated with Radium 88Ra
Browns Mills Well Contaminated
Well Closed for safety concerns in Pemberton
By Mark Zimmaro
Burlington County Times
PEMBERTOWN TOWNSHIP – Township officials said they are taking a cautious approach in shutting down the main drinking water well in the Browns Mills section.
Well No. 11 off Trenton Road showed a level of radium that tested above the state Department of Environmental Protection’s standards for safe drinking water.
Though township officials were not required to shut down the well they decided to pull the plug shortly before Christmas as a precaution after the Dec. 16 testing. The well is one of six that were in service in December.
Officials said that the chances of health risks because of the well are minuscule and the demand for water is much less during the winter months.
“We’re taking proactive steps not required of us that we feel are in the best interest of the residents,” Mayor David Patriarca said Wednesday. “We figured we can shut down this well down at this time of year when we don’t really need it and not jeopardize anything, just to be safe.”
Patriarca said residents affected by Well No. 11 will be notified by Jan. 21. The township’s wells are tested annually. This was the first occurrence of radium in Well No. 11, officials said.
It is important for the residents of the water system to note that this is not an immediate risk,” municipal engineer Chris Rehmann said in a report to the Township Council. “However, certain minerals are radioactive and may emit a form of radiation known as alpha radiation. Some people who drink water containing alpha emitters in excess of the maximum contaminant levels over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets drinking water standards and has determined that radium poses health concerns at certain levels of exposure. The EPA determined that the lifetime risk associated with drinking water containing radium affects 1 in 10,000 people.
This means that if 10,000 people were to consume 2 liters of this water per day for 70 years, we would expect to see one additional concern in the 10,000 people exposed,” Rehmann said.
The township is looking into alternatives to compensate for the loss of the water source, such as cleaning Well No. 11 or revisiting wells that were shut down in the past because the township no longer needed their serviceds.
BCT staff writer Mark Zimmaro can be reached at 609-871-8059 or at mzimmaro@phillyBurbs.com
January 8, 2010 12:09 PM
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/january/08/well-closed-for-safety-concerns-in-pemberton.html
Radium (pronounced /ˈreɪdiəm/, RAY-dee-əm) is a radioactive chemical element which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. Its appearance is almost pure white, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, turning black. Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is found in trace amounts in uranium ores. It is extremely radioactive. Its most stable isotope, 226Ra, has a half-life of 1602 years and decays into radon gas
The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive and resembles barium in its chemical behavior. This metal is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Radium preparations are remarkable for maintaining themselves at a higher temperature than their surroundings, and for their radiations, which are of three kinds: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.
When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water and oil to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium. The normal phase of radium is a solid.
Radium (Latin radius, ray) was discovered by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898 in pitchblende coming from North Bohemia, in the Czech Republic (area around Jáchymov). While studying pitchblende the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of barium which gave a brilliant green flame color and crimson carmine spectral lines which had never been documented before. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898.[5]
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution by using a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas.[6]
Radium was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th Century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium. UMHK offered to Marie Curie her first gramme of radium.
Radium is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. (One ton of pitchblende yields one seventh of a gram of radium).[8
Radium is over one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (now identified as radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth), etc. Radon is a heavy gas and the later products are solids. These products are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower than its predecessor.
Radium loses about 1% of its activity in 25 years, being transformed into elements of lower atomic weight with lead being the final product of disintegration.
The SI unit of radioactivity is the becquerel (Bq), equal to one disintegration per second. The Curie is a non-SI unit defined as that amount of radioactivity which has the same disintegration rate as 1 gram of Ra-226 (3.7 x 1010 disintegrations per second, or 37 GBq).
Handling of radium has been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.
• Radium is highly radioactive and its decay product, radon gas, is also radioactive. Since radium is chemically similar to calcium, it has the potential to cause great harm by replacing it in bones. Inhalation, injection, ingestion or body exposure to radium can cause cancer and other disorders. Stored radium should be ventilated to prevent accumulation of radon.
• Emitted energy from the decay of radium ionizes gases, affects photographic plates, causes sores on the skin, and produces many other detrimental effects.
Well Closed for safety concerns in Pemberton
By Mark Zimmaro
Burlington County Times
PEMBERTOWN TOWNSHIP – Township officials said they are taking a cautious approach in shutting down the main drinking water well in the Browns Mills section.
Well No. 11 off Trenton Road showed a level of radium that tested above the state Department of Environmental Protection’s standards for safe drinking water.
Though township officials were not required to shut down the well they decided to pull the plug shortly before Christmas as a precaution after the Dec. 16 testing. The well is one of six that were in service in December.
Officials said that the chances of health risks because of the well are minuscule and the demand for water is much less during the winter months.
“We’re taking proactive steps not required of us that we feel are in the best interest of the residents,” Mayor David Patriarca said Wednesday. “We figured we can shut down this well down at this time of year when we don’t really need it and not jeopardize anything, just to be safe.”
Patriarca said residents affected by Well No. 11 will be notified by Jan. 21. The township’s wells are tested annually. This was the first occurrence of radium in Well No. 11, officials said.
It is important for the residents of the water system to note that this is not an immediate risk,” municipal engineer Chris Rehmann said in a report to the Township Council. “However, certain minerals are radioactive and may emit a form of radiation known as alpha radiation. Some people who drink water containing alpha emitters in excess of the maximum contaminant levels over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets drinking water standards and has determined that radium poses health concerns at certain levels of exposure. The EPA determined that the lifetime risk associated with drinking water containing radium affects 1 in 10,000 people.
This means that if 10,000 people were to consume 2 liters of this water per day for 70 years, we would expect to see one additional concern in the 10,000 people exposed,” Rehmann said.
The township is looking into alternatives to compensate for the loss of the water source, such as cleaning Well No. 11 or revisiting wells that were shut down in the past because the township no longer needed their serviceds.
BCT staff writer Mark Zimmaro can be reached at 609-871-8059 or at mzimmaro@phillyBurbs.com
January 8, 2010 12:09 PM
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/january/08/well-closed-for-safety-concerns-in-pemberton.html
Radium (pronounced /ˈreɪdiəm/, RAY-dee-əm) is a radioactive chemical element which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. Its appearance is almost pure white, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, turning black. Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is found in trace amounts in uranium ores. It is extremely radioactive. Its most stable isotope, 226Ra, has a half-life of 1602 years and decays into radon gas
The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive and resembles barium in its chemical behavior. This metal is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Radium preparations are remarkable for maintaining themselves at a higher temperature than their surroundings, and for their radiations, which are of three kinds: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.
When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water and oil to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium. The normal phase of radium is a solid.
Radium (Latin radius, ray) was discovered by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898 in pitchblende coming from North Bohemia, in the Czech Republic (area around Jáchymov). While studying pitchblende the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of barium which gave a brilliant green flame color and crimson carmine spectral lines which had never been documented before. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898.[5]
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution by using a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas.[6]
Radium was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th Century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium. UMHK offered to Marie Curie her first gramme of radium.
Radium is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. (One ton of pitchblende yields one seventh of a gram of radium).[8
Radium is over one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (now identified as radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth), etc. Radon is a heavy gas and the later products are solids. These products are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower than its predecessor.
Radium loses about 1% of its activity in 25 years, being transformed into elements of lower atomic weight with lead being the final product of disintegration.
The SI unit of radioactivity is the becquerel (Bq), equal to one disintegration per second. The Curie is a non-SI unit defined as that amount of radioactivity which has the same disintegration rate as 1 gram of Ra-226 (3.7 x 1010 disintegrations per second, or 37 GBq).
Handling of radium has been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.
• Radium is highly radioactive and its decay product, radon gas, is also radioactive. Since radium is chemically similar to calcium, it has the potential to cause great harm by replacing it in bones. Inhalation, injection, ingestion or body exposure to radium can cause cancer and other disorders. Stored radium should be ventilated to prevent accumulation of radon.
• Emitted energy from the decay of radium ionizes gases, affects photographic plates, causes sores on the skin, and produces many other detrimental effects.