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On the
9th and 10th of October the first Meadowlands scientific symposium
was conducted at the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission's Environmental
Center in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Initially proposed by the
New Jersey Field Office, the Symposium was organized by Hudsonia
Ltd., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (New York Division),
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Meadowlands
Environmental Research Institute (MERI), a joint partnership
of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and Rutgers University.
Two hundred and fourteen participants were presented with
data from scientific research in the Hackensack Meadowlands
through twenty-one oral presentations and twenty-nine poster
displays. New Jersey Senators Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg
sent letters of support, and New Jersey Field Office Supervisor
Cliff Day introduced U.S. Representative Steve Rothman. Rothman
spoke to the assembled academics, expressing his own commitment
to the protection of the Meadowlands and thanking them for
their efforts toward making his dream a reality. Dr. William
Mitsch of the Ohio State University and perhaps the nation's
best-known environmental scientist regarding urban wetland
restoration, delivered the keynote address: "Urban Wetlands
and Large-Scale Wetland Restoration: Lessons Learned."
Symposium presentations ranged from the historical ("Three
Centuries of Human Use and Modification of the Hackensack
Meadowlands") through the archeological ("The Use
of Historic GIS & 3d Modeling to Reconstruct the New Jersey
Meadowlands") to physical science ("Hydrogeomorphic
Functional Assessment Model on the Tidal Hydraulics of the
Hackensack River"). The Commission also provided attendees
with a boat trip on the Hackensack River or a tour of reconstruction
sites in the Meadowlands. Publication of selected papers is
planned in the near future.
Cosponsored by 21 environmental and governmental organizations,
the Symposium attempted to build momentum for the protection
of the Meadowlands by demonstrating its value as a resource
for scientific study. The Symposium proposed to "provide
a forum for a diverse group of scientists to exchange information
about their research in the Meadowlands and to disseminate
their findings to the environmental communities at large."
Two questions underlying all the presentations were "how
can urbanized landscapes successfully retain open space for
wildlife habitat?" and "how can urban/industrial
communities reduce or eliminate the effects of contaminants
in the environment?" The search for answers to these
questions and the fact that the Symposium has made so much
useful data available to the scientific community will almost
certainly create an impetus for future Meadowlands symposia.
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