Press interview updates

Good morning friends!
Did everybody see the cove made the front page of the Burlington County Times yesterday? The theme was "no news is good news," in other words - no bulldozers spell good news for the nature park. Here's a link: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-08072007-1389241.html

Yesterday I had conversations with two reporters, one from Moorestown's News-Weekly and another from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Both reporters seemed genuinely concerned about the fate of the park.

News-Weekly interview
Staff writer Rick Murray interviewed me over the phone yesterday morning. It was a quick interview - he wanted to know about the rally we had planned while we thought the bulldozers would be in the park. I told him that we decided to use the meeting as a brainstorming session instead of a rally and our goals are to get a public hearing and reach out to as many organizations as possible to protect the park. Rick was very polite and had some smart suggestions on some local politicians we should contact about the issue. He was also very well-informed about the issue. Look for his article this week!

Philadelphia Inquirer interview
This second interview took place at the park and was much longer. Sam Dangremond, a writing student from the University of Pennsylvania who is interning at the Inquirer this summer, came out to the park at 10:30 a.m. I requested he bring a photographer and he did, a nice guy (wearing hiking boots) named Ron. Both men were very, very curious about why the NJDEP would want to dump the dredge in the nature park. I gladly told the story from the beginning, starting with the 1998 signed agreement - our biggest obstacle. Although I gave a lot of background information, I made sure to state CAN's positions clearly and often. I told Sam we're working for this mission: Awareness. Activisim. Alternatives.

After slathering ourselves with bug spray, we walked down to Dragonfly Pond where thousands of the pond's namesake creatures mingled with geese, frogs and a great blue heron. I explained that this 22-acre site is at the very heart of the park and showed him a trail map outlining the threatened area. Interesting enough, Sam shared with me some information. He said he had called the NJDEP and the Army Corps and the only thing they would say is "No decision has been made." That's it. Just one line. I expressed my frustration at their reluctance to communicate further and talked about how CAN wants Senator Lautenberg to get a public hearing.

Sam asked the most important question of all "What exactly will happen to this place if the dredge gets dumped here?" That was the perfect lead-in to talk about how the last environmental impact study was done in 1977 and that we need a new one.

The photographer took some great images of Dragonfly Pond and the Discovery Center. The tour ended in the air-conditioning (a godsend) of the Discovery Center, where Sam and I used the interactive exhibits to learn about the dredging process. It was a poignant moment, since by this point Sam realized that trees would have to be cut down, frogs killed, geese displaced and an environmental classroom erased in order for it it all to happen.

I asked Sam when the article will run and he said "As soon as tomorrow" but he thinks his editor might want to wait until something happens at the NJDEP/Bridge Commission meetings. I'll keep you posted.