AMiddlesex County cleanup crew dedicated five days last week to restoring the Jamesburg Park Conservation Area to its natural state.
JEFF GRANIT staff Matt Keena, 18, of Iselin, bags Japanese knotweed from an area off Washington Avenue in Helmetta Friday, when he and other members of the Middlesex County Conservation Corps wrapped up a week of cleanup work at Jamesburg Park Conservation Area. “The summer is a great opportunity for us to jump into some big projects full time,” said Rick Lear of the county Parks and Recreation Department.
Despite its name, the park is located largely in East Brunswick, also touching parts of Helmetta, Monroe and Spotswood.
Lear, along with members of the Middlesex County Conservation Corps’ Youth Corps, trekked into Jamesburg Park’s 1,500-plus acres to give it some tender loving care.
“Some of it is basically maintenance issues, and others are parts that we didn’t get to last year,” Lear said.
One particularly troublesome spot was an area behind the St. James Cemetery on Mott Avenue in Monroe, also bordered by Cherry Blossom Drive, Helmetta Road and Sherman Street.
PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Above left: Joe Marchica, 16, of Old Bridge, breaks down a tree branch while performing cleanup work with the Middlesex County Conservation Corps at the Jamesburg Park Conservation Area in Helmetta Friday. Above right: Ryan Resko, 18, of East Brunswick, pulls the invasive Japanese knotweed. Local historian and park advocate Joe Sapia pointed out that the area was once owned by Jamesburg namesake James Buckelew, who also owned the spur of the Camden-Amboy Railroad that ran through it, dating back to the late 1800s. Some of the stone railroad ties remain at the site, which was added to the conservation area through open space funds in 2001.
“It’s really kind of neat, from a historical perspective,” Lear said.
From a cleanup perspective, it is anything but.
According to Lear, use of the area by unknown parties, and the mess they left behind, required a major effort on the part of the 10 crew members, who had to dismantle and haul out several makeshift structures.
“It’s a combination of dumping, of litter, and just the misuse of the area here,” Lear said. “It’s almost like an old shantytown.”
Comprised of one large and two smallersized structures, the ramshackle development was constructed from pieces of stockade fence and pallets, with tarps serving as roofing. A foxhole-like cavern was dug into an embankment, atop one of the old railroad ties.
“It was pretty huge,” said Sapia, who spent a day off from work Monday helping with cleanup efforts. “I couldn’t get over it.”
While it is unclear who was responsible for erecting the shacks, Lear said it is unlikely that homeless people were residing there, since the plot is relatively close to the street. It is possible that people used the area to consume alcohol in the woods, he said.
“If it’s kids, we’re impressed about how much work they put into these things,” Lear said.
Whether kids or adults put a lot of effort into building up the spot, the teens with the Youth Corps worked equally hard at bringing it back to its original state. Lear compared the workload to what it took to tear down an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) course in another part of the park last year. Last summer, Lear and his cleanup crew dedicated a large chunk of their time trying to undo the damage caused by ATV riders. The job included dismantling a large course the riders had created, spanning about 5 acres, and consisting of various ramps, holes and a bridge.
“We noticed that trail has stopped being used, and [its natural state] has pretty much come back,” Lear said. “So there are a couple small victories there.”
Illegal riding of ATVs has been an ongoing problem in the park. Riders have forged trails through the extensive woods, causing erosion and trampling plant life as they go.
“The ATV use is the biggest threat to the conservation area at this time,” Sapia said.
According to Sapia, the use of ATVs in the park died down for a while after a January 2007 Sentinel article that examined the issue, but it seems to be back in full force. While no new courses have been built, Lear said evidence of erosion and new trails throughout the park speaks volumes about the prevalence of riders. Sapia said he too sees the ongoing damage, and he is fed up.
“If people want to trash up the woods or ride off-road vehicles in the woods on public property, I’ve got a better idea,” Sapia said. “Why don’t they ride these vehicles and trash up local municipal buildings, police stations and the county administration building, and see what happens to them? Just as government officials don’t want to see that happen on their property, I don’t want to see it on public conservation land.”
While park and police officials acknowledged damage caused by the prac- tice, they said that enforcement is difficult, if not impossible. Due to a lack of personnel to cover the land expanse, as well as the difficulty of chasing down violators without having their own ATVs, it becomes a matter of hoping to catch the riders when they are crossing over roads, police have said.
The difficulty of enforcing ATV restrictions does nothing to alleviate frustrations on the part of some who use the park for lawful purposes, like Sapia.
“It’s just frustrating that you can bring this stuff up for 25 years and nothing gets done,” Sapia said. “The parks system doesn’t have a regular presence in Jamesburg Park. This is public open space in the most urban state in the country, and we’re losing open space and nobody seems to care.”
Lear and other county officials have a plan that aims to enhance the park while discouraging its destruction through ATV use, but its implementation takes time.
Last year’s Youth Corps crew walked the woods, assessing the layout of existing trails. From there, Lear spent portions of the winter using global positioning system technology to collect further trail data. In concert with the Middlesex County Planning Board, Lear will use data gleaned to plan a system of walking trails throughout the park.
Since a number of trails exist there, Lear said he would prefer not to construct any new ones. He is hoping to start marking them for use by spring, he said. The process of creating the walking trails is lengthy, due to the county Planning Board’s heavy workload and the limitation of GPS’ efficacy only during months when leaves are off the trees, Lear said.
According to Lear, other county parks that suffer damage by ATV users have seen the problem diminish with the creation of walking trails.
“The more people you get out there using it in the way it’s intended, the fewer people you’ll get using it in illegal ways,” Lear said.
On another positive note, Lear said his crew has been successful in thwarting the pervasive growth of Japanese knotweed, an invasive species that threatens to overrun the park. Exotic to the area, the shrub-like weed spreads itself through water and air, according to Lear. Though herbicides would provide an easier solution to the problem, the group works to eradicate the plant by pulling it out from the root, in order to protect the environment and its nearby bodies of water.
Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel created the Conservation Corps in 2006. Aside from paid positions for teens and 20-somethings in the Youth Corps, the group also consists of volunteer adult members who work to protect Middlesex County’s natural resources.
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