The Banks of the Raritan River may have become dirtier over the years,
but one University organization is working hard to buck the trend.
New Jersey Public Interest Research Group Student Chapters’ Water Watch
Campaign is continuing its work to save the Raritan River and cleanse
the waterway of its enormous amounts of toxins.
“The river really needs to have a lot of remediation done in order for
it to be considered clean and safe,” said Eric Struble, campus
coordinator for the New Jersey Water Watch Campaign.
There are more than 20 hazardous waste sites located within the Raritan
River, said Struble, a School of Arts and Sciences senior.
He said the Raritan River, perennially rated as one of the dirtiest in
the country, has proved challenging to clean for Water Watch.
“These sites require a large amount of cleanup and this cannot be done
in the normal way because it costs a lot of money,” Struble said.
He said in the 1970s, the Clean Water Act aimed to make swimmable and
fishable rivers cleaner, but the Raritan did not qualify.
To combat this pollution problem, NJPIRG campus organizer Katie Roper
said the Water Watch campaign tries to engage the University community
and students in local environmental issues.
But NJPIRG’s focus is not on how much is cleaned up, Roper said. It is
about getting people out to participate in community service events and
raise awareness for environmental issues in New Brunswick.
“We are trying to get as many students and community members out to
raise awareness and before the trash can float into the river,” said
David Byrnes, a Water Watch intern and School of Environmental and
Biological Sciences junior.
Water Watch is not the only organization working on cleaning the
Raritan. Many different groups are working on the pollution problem
because it is such a huge task, and a complete cleanup is going to take
many years, Struble said.
He said Water Watch recently worked on a project with AmeriCorps that
visited schools in the area, taking students to streams to do physical
assessments of the water to show them the severity of the situation.
NJPIRG Water Watch conducts an annual Raritan River cleanup on Earth
Day, allowing University students and the New Brunswick community to
help make the river cleaner and safer, Roper said.
“This is our big event that we do during the year that physically helps
the Raritan itself and we’ve been doing for at least the past five
years,” Struble said. “Last year we had around 1,300 volunteers at [more
than] 23 different locations helping us.”
This year’s cleanup will be held on Saturday, April 17 from 11 a.m. to
1:30 p.m., Struble said. Though it is not on Earth Day this year, the
cleanup will continue for a week and will aim to clean up all of New
Brunswick, not just the Raritan, he said.
“We are trying to engage Rutgers students and the community with the
waterway and pollution problems so they will care about the water and
see that it is not taken care of the way it should be,” Roper said.
