What's happening at Palmyra Cove?

The Tacony-Palmyra Bridge's warning siren drowns out the screams of crickets; the bridge is about to open. It's 11:30 a.m. and I've just arrived at Palmyra Cove Nature Park. Standing on the beach, I'm hoping to see the McFarland, the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers dredging barge. I catch a glimpse of yellow at the bridge breaks apart and the two sides rise into the air. It's the McFarland, about to pass through the open bridge. I grab my video camera and zoom in on the monstrous water beast. Through the viewfinder I see the white block letters stamped onto the underbelly of the black behemoth: MCFARLAND.

Camera rolling, I watch the monster creep up on the bridge, chugging steadily, and slip through, heading south toward the mooring barge awaiting arrival of its master. A family, three generations of nature lovers, sits on the beach and watches the gliding machine, mesmerized. I hike down the River Trail still stalking my prey; the camera is my weapon of choice. After about 10 minutes the McFarland docks into the mooring barge, the ships seeming to kiss hello as they become one.

I pick my way through the sand, past tiny footprints that remind me of my own child, and arrive at the drainage pipes. Water gushes heavily - the color of beer or urine - from the pipes into the Delaware River. The air reeks of polluted earth; a concoction of contaminated sand, river water and diesel fuel. A long black pipe stretches into the river from the beach like the giant black tentacle of a kraken. It's marked by a giant round pink buoy. The family has left and the child's footprints washed away. A phrase springs to mind: post-modern dystopia. The juxtaposition of the man-made versus the natural leaves me feeling sick. This is all one messed-up band-aid, a temporary solution to the long-term problem of where to put dredge spoils.
Now I have a problem. The pipes have blocked my hike. This dredging project isn't supposed to stop people from using any of the trails, but I've only been here for 15 minutes and already I'm barred from hiking into the park. Minimal impact project is the phrase they keep throwing around, but I'm trapped. I feel like the great water beast is laughing at me. Then I spot another hiker walking towards me on the other side of the pipes. He hops onto and then over the great black pipe and I compliment his spryness. His name is Kevin and we find out we have a mutual friend: the indefatiguable Fred Stine of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. (The community of environmentalists is a closely-knit one in this region.) We talk together as we watch the barges and he explains that the McFarland dumps its sand into the great black hose of the mooring barge. The hose, reminiscent of the basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, snakes along the river floor and emerges about 150 feet from where we stand on the beach. Serpentine, its great body basks in the hot sun hundreds of feet into the park area formerly known as the desert. I give Kevin CAN's contact info and continue my monitoring mission to the tune of grumbling ships and insect symphonies.

As I follow the beast's tubular body into my beloved park, I am surprised to see vehicles driving on the trails and parked next to the work area. A mound of red gravel had been built on top of the black hose to allow these vehicles to drive to and from the work site over the hose. I turn my eyes to the ground and I see bulldozer tracks. It's churned up the grasslands area near the area where CAN's members have protested two weeks ago. Deep gashes, three inches deep and two inches wide, mark the bulldozer's course. Bushes are crushed beneath the basilisk's body. I straddle the hose to cross over it - it's like sitting on the back of an elephant. I approach the work site and wary workmen cautiously wave hello. The bulldozer dozes; it's the lunch hour. I say hello to the men.

"You were one of those protesters, weren't you? You had your kid with you. I was driving the bulldozers," one of the men ventures.

"Yes, I was and I remember you. I was yelling Save the Cove! at your bulldozer and you got out and told me you were 'just doing your job,'" I said. "Just so you know, we're not against the dredging, we just don't want it dumped here. This is the problem with Jersey - there are too many people and nowhere to put this stuff." Another man walked up and heard the last part of my comment.

He said, " There's nowhere to put it around here. But there are plenty of places farther south down the river, like Pedricktown. That site can hold 2400 acres. The government used to test Nike missiles there and it's owned by the U.S. government." [I have since found out this site is one of the most ecologically vibrant natural places in NJ and must be protected - the worker didn't know what he was talking about.]

I questioned him further. "Why hasn't it been used before?"

"It would take the barge 3 or 4 hours to get down there. It's too time consuming and expensive," he explained. Then he went on to talk about how he heard the the environmentalists really laid Charlie Myers, the Army Corps' project manager, at the Public Information Session on August 13. I smiled proudly and told him I was one of those people.

A minute later, I say good-bye to the workers and turn my eyes to the scene before me. What was the desert is now a cappuchino-colored mud pit. It's heartbreaking. I think I'm going to be sick. I remember my first meeting with CAN; walking across this trail with the three environmental teachers, Suzanne, Anjie and Bernie. They pointed out fox holes and footprints; the area was a rich and diverse ecosystem. Now it has been slathered with wet, contaminated mud. Picture a sandbox after a rainstorm. Trees are waist deep in water. Mud strangles their trunks. Will they survive? Where are the fox now? Elegant yellow leaves fall to the mud floor and get stuck here; the seasons march on, relentlessly.

Suddenly moving water rushes across the plain, giving the illusion of a stream. It flows into the fragmites, which acts as a natural filter and is one of the reasons this parcel makes such an effective dump site. Darn invasive species. Other workers are milling around and I ask them where the drain pipes are.

"The sluicebox? Follow the orange fence around the bend and it's on the right," one replies.

As I follow the orange fence, I'm struck once again by the almost gothic combination of sounds - insects chirping, the stream's song, and the barge's bass. The park trembles. The muddy desert has changed into a far-reaching field of fragmites. In the distance, I see the same orange fence marking the perimeter of the 20-acre work area. When I get to the sluicebox I see a wooden walkway streatching from the trail to the framed of the sluicebox, which reminds me of an unfinished shed. Two NO TRESPASSING SIGNS warn park users to stay away. The sluicebox structure is 12-foot by 12-foot by 12-foot cube, by my estimation. The floor is covered in mud and I hear water falling. I can't see the pipes but I envision their double gaping mouths, hungry to suck up the river water. I hear the bulldozer roar to life and I feel nauseous again. I see a delicate white butterfly and hear an animal scurrying in the underbrush inside the fence. It gives me a moment of hope that the fox are still around, but then I worry that they're stuck inside the work area.

To the right of this path, near the junction of the Saw Whet trail, lives a young forest. Peering under its canopy, I see birds and insects. This thriving ecosystem gives me hope - it, at least, remains untouched. This is part of the 50 acres CAN helped save.

I decide to walk back to the worksite; as I turn to go I hear a smaller bulldozer approaching from the young forest, driving out of the Saw Whet trail. A second bulldozer. I hike back to the worksite and see a John Deere tractor and I think that modes of transportation are one of the issues that divides "us" from "them." We travel via foot and golf cart; they choose SUVs, trucks, and tractors. There's something so natural and flowing about hiking books and even quiet golf carts. But the sight of these huge, roaring, polluting machines angers me; they don't belong in a nature park.

I hike up a little hill, the entrance to the work site, and stand on an overlook. The destruction spreads out before me, tall mounds of mud; flowing polluted water; a bulldozer pushing it toward the drainage pipes. I think about Freeholder Haines letter (See previous blog entry in red): The original vision of this park was for nature and technology (dredge spoils) to coexist peacefully, he wrote. But that was an impossible vision - the two are incompatible. The people who enjoy this park are disgusted by the dredge silt, the bulldozers, the destruction. We have to prevent this from ever happening in the park again. Like any growing, changing, entity, the park has risen above and beyond its original potential. It broke free of man-imposed restraints.

A third bulldozer disturbs my thoughts and I have to scurry to get out of its way as it rumbles toward my perch overlooking the desert. After the bulldozer parks, I pick my way down the trail toward the last checkpoint on my surveillance session, Dragonfly Pond. I want to see for myself if Commissioner Jackson's workmen are honoring her promise to protect the wetlands. This trail has been ripped up by the bulldozers. Have you ever seen the columns icon on MS Word? That's what this trail looks like - two columns of deep wounds on either side of the trail. It's scarred.

I walk down the little hill toward the pond and I'm not prepared for what I see. The pond has swollen - it's dark brown and some strange liquids that resemble diesel fuel are floating on its surface. The path to the right, which used to lead into the desert, is submerged with the same brown liquid. Again, I wonder what's happened to the fox. Last time I was here, at least half a dozen birds were playing and bathing in the pond. Now, there are no birds in sight and I can't even hear any singing. Another SUV drives down the trail above me.

As I descend to get a closer look at the damage on Dragonfly Pond, I heard three loud plops into the water. The frogs are still here. I see a few dragonflies as well. A huge truck drives by. I lean over to look at that strange liquid and more frogs jump into the water; they seem more skittish than usual. Their environment - their world - has been forever altered by humans. Only nature can repair it and I'm confident she'll regenerate, grow, rise again. That nature will recover isn't a possibility - it's a certainty. The park is in her hands now.

E-mail the author, Courtney McLaughlin at savethecove@gmail.com. Thanks to Bennett Landsman, Dan Homan and Jane Nogaki for taking these wonderful photos.