Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts

Thursday, October 1, 2015

NJTV News Special Report: Christie Press Conference on Hurricane Joaquin

NJTV News
NJTV News






NJTV News Special Report: Christie Press Conference on Hurricane 
Joaquin 

Thursday, February 6, 2014

severe winter weather expected to arrive in New Jersey , Governor Christie

Christie declares state of emergency ahead of storm

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

state of emergency
  Eyewitness News
In anticipation of the severe winter weather expected to arrive in New Jersey late Tuesday and early Wednesday, Governor Chris Christie declared a State of Emergency.
The state of emergency authorizes the State Director of Emergency Management to continue coordinating the preparation, response and recovery efforts for the storm with all county and municipal emergency operations and governmental agencies. Governor Christie also authorized the closing of state offices on Wednesday, February 5th for all non-essential employees.
"Tonight's winter weather is expected to produce snow and ice, creating hazardous travel conditions and affecting areas throughout the state that are already recovering from yesterday's storm," said Governor Christie. "I've authorized state officials to continue all necessary actions to assist, and my Administration will continue monitoring conditions throughout the remainder of the storm. I encourage all New Jerseyans to drive carefully and remain off the roads if possible so that our first responders and public safety officials can safely respond to any emergency situations."
The storm is expected to continue into Wednesday afternoon, bringing additional snow and ice to areas that experienced significant snowfall during Monday's storm. A potential mixture of hazardous travel conditions, fallen trees, power outages and flooding are anticipated.
New Jersey Transit has adjusted its service schedule for Wednesday and advised riders to build additional time into their travel plans.

Read More Here
Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Snow grounds flights, halts buses


Crain's New York Business

Up to a foot of snow is expected in New York City. Long Island Railroad is adding additional trains as needed, and says services may be canceled if the weather gets bad enough.





Snow January21
The National Weather Service forecasts wind chill as low as 10 degrees below zero. Photo: Associated Press

Updated: January 21, 2014 2:23 p.m.
(AP) -- Thousands of flights were canceled, students got an extra day off from school or were being sent home early, and the federal government closed its offices in the Washington area Tuesday as another winter storm bore down on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
The National Weather Service said the storm could bring 10 to 14 inches of snow to Philadelphia and southern New England and up to a foot in New York City, to be followed by bitter cold. An arctic air mass will plunge the eastern half of the United States into a deep freeze, with wind chills as low as 40 degrees below zero, the weather service said.
It warned of heavy winds and hazardous driving conditions as the storm moved up the East Coast.
Nearly 2,200 flights were canceled and thousands more delayed Tuesday, with airports from Washington to Boston affected, according to flight-tracking site Flightaware.com. An additional 450 flights for Wednesday were already canceled.
Schools in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky stayed closed for an extra day after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, or planned to send students home early. Some parents kept their kids home even if their schools were open, unwilling to put them on slippery roads.


Read More Here
Enhanced by Zemanta

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Environment Pollution - State of New Jersey, Gloucester City [Delaware River]

Earth Watch Report  -  Environmental  Pollution

File:Delaware River.jpg
Image Source  :  Wikimedia.org
Delaware River
Author Nicholas A. Tonelli

Blueknight Energy Partners

Strategic asset portfolio includes:
  • 15.0 million barrels of storage capacity
  • 1,264 miles of pipeline
  • Over 165 crude oil transports
  • Over 115 producer field services trucks
  • 26 acres of development property in the Cushing Interchange
  • 44 liquid asphalt cement terminals and storage facilities
.....
 Environment PollutionUSAState of New Jersey, Gloucester City [Delaware River]Damage levelDetails
.....
Description
Approximately 150 Gallons of Oil Spill Into Delaware River 14 Jan 2014 The Coast Guard is supervising the cleanup of an accidental spill of approximately 150 gallons of heating oil into the Delaware River from a business in Gloucester City, Camden County. Authorities say the heating oil spilled into a storm drain at the Blue Knight Energy Partners along the 200 block of Water Street about 9 a.m. Investigators say valve on a tank failed, causing the spill.
.....

Gloucester City company leaks fuel oil into Delaware River

on January 14, 2014 at 10:18 AM, updated January 14, 2014 at 10:27 AM
 
 
 
 
 GLOUCESTER CITY — A flange failure on a tank triggered an accidental release of heating fuel into the Delaware River Tuesday morning.
Approximately 150 gallons of heating fuel went into the river at at about 9 a.m. from Blue Knight Energy Partners on Water Street, police said.
Read More Here
.....
Enhanced by Zemanta

Monday, August 26, 2013

Biological Hazard - MultiStates, [States of Virginia and New Jersey coastal region] : UPDATE Dolphin Deaths

Earth Watch Report  -  Biological Hazards  -  Mass Animal Die Off (Dolphins)

More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months.
More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months.
/ CBS News
...
24.08.2013Biological HazardUSAMultiStates, [States of Virginia and New Jersey coastal region]Damage level Details
...
Biological Hazard in USA on Tuesday, 06 August, 2013 at 09:06 (09:06 AM) UTC.
Back
Updated:Saturday, 24 August, 2013 at 04:11 UTC
Description
This has been a very bad summer for dolphins along the East Coast. More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months, and no one is quite sure why. The first dead dolphins washed up in New Jersey and Virginia in June. Since then more have been found in Maryland and New York. Biologist Kim Durham's rescue team has recovered 27 dead dolphins. Durham doesn't know why it's happening. "When we were doing examinations, we would find they were very skinny animals," she says. "They were compromised animals. Some of them had skin lesions -- they were just very sick individuals." Marine biologists believe the dolphins could be suffering from a bacterial or viral infection with symptoms that resemble measles. It was a virus that killed nearly 750 dolphins from New York to Florida in the late '80s. Charles Potter studied that epidemic. He's a marine mammal biologist at the Smithsonian. He believes pollution could be weakening the dolphins' immune system. "As the animals migrate south, passing back through Virginia and are going down to the Carolinas, if this event follows what we saw in 1987, we can expect the epicenter of the epidemic to move south with the dolphins," Potter says. Late Friday, another dolphin was found dead on the Jersey Shore.
...
(CBS News) RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- This has been a very bad summer for dolphins along the East Coast. More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months, and no one is quite sure why.
More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months.
More than 250 of them -- dead or dying -- have washed up on beaches over the past two months.
/ CBS News
The first dead dolphins washed up in New Jersey and Virginia in June. Since then more have been found in Maryland and New York. Biologist Kim Durham's rescue team has recovered 27 dead dolphins.
Durham doesn't know why it's happening.
"When we were doing examinations, we would find they were very skinny animals," she says. "They were compromised animals. Some of them had skin lesions -- they were just very sick individuals."
Marine biologists believe the dolphins could be suffering from a bacterial or viral infection with symptoms that resemble measles.


Read More  and  Watch Video Here
...
...
Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Biological Hazard - State of Virginia, [Chesapeake Bay coastal regions] : UPDATE A dolphin die-off in the Mid-Atlantic region is hitting Virginia hardest. Nearly 50 dolphins were found dead or dying in Virginia in July August is looking to be significantly worse

Earth Watch Report  -  Mass Animal Deaths


...
Biological HazardUSAState of Virginia, [Chesapeake Bay coastal regions]Damage level
 
Details
...

Biological Hazard in USA on Tuesday, 06 August, 2013 at 09:06 (09:06 AM) UTC.


Description
Scientists are working to unravel why there has been a surge in the number of beached dolphins found along the eastern coast of the U.S.. A total of 44 bottlenose dolphins were found in July, washed up along the southern part of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia - around eight times as many as normal, according to the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team. Researchers are struggling to work out the cause of the deaths, but suspect a virus is to blame, as a similarly morbid bout of dolphin deaths occurred in 1987 and were the result of a measles-like disease. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has asked stranding centres situated along the coastline to record the number of dead dolphins found in a bid to find a pattern in the spikes. Susan Barco, research coordinator for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Centre, told The Virginian-Pilot : 'We've had a steady number coming in at the beginning of the summer, and starting last week, the numbers spiked...We're just trying to keep our head above water.' The states of Delaware and Maryland has also seen a rise in dolphin deaths and according to a report in The Press of Atlantic City, around 10 dead dolphins were found in a month - double that than usually recorded. Scientists in New Jersey have reportedly said necropsy results have indicated pneumonia might be to blame, but a spokesman for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service admitted no-one knows what is causing the mysterious dolphin deaths but data is being collected.

However, the stranding team in Virginia said the numbers of dolphins found beached reminds them of mass deaths that occurred in 1987, when over 750 carcasses were washed ashore between Florida and New Jersey. It took a few years to determine that morbillivirus - a disease similar to the measles - was to blame but the dolphins did show symptoms similar to those of measles and pneumonia. Ms Barco said: 'It's eerily familiar...That is one virus we're looking for now.' Bottlenose dolphins live in pods of between two and 15 creatures off the East Coast of the US and spend the majority of the year in the warmer southern waters, before moving to the bays of the Mid-Atlantic between may and October, Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey. A total of 87 dolphin carcasses including those of the bottlenose species, have been collected by the response team in Virginia so far this year, compared to a usual count of 87 dolphins for the entire calendar year. Volunteers have had the unenviable task of collecting the dolphin remains - many of which are already very decomposed - which are analysed by marine biologists.

It is difficult for the scientists to gain valuable information about any suspected virus when the carcasses are in bad shape. The volunteers are combing the coast to find bodies of newly-dead dolphins to give the scientists a better chance of finding animals that might help them come up with the reason for the deaths. Krystle Rodrique, a volunteer with the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team described the smell of the pinky-white carcasses as a cross between a pet shop and rotting fish. She told The Virginian-Pilot: 'You get used to the smell, but I never can really get it off my hands...I try to scrub them over and over again.' Ms Barco said the volunteers have not seen any physical marks of trauma on the dolphins' bodies that would indicate they have gotten tangled in nets or confused by sonar systems used by the Navy, that have been blamed for whale and dolphin beachings in the past. Ted Brown, a spokesman for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, told The Virginian-Pilot there has been no change or increase in sonar use that could be related to the increase in dolphin deaths. Around 60 volunteers plus interns and permanent staff are working in Virginia to determine the cause of the deaths but they do not have specialist labs and are working from tents. It found baleen whale species, which include the blue whale, react to the mid frequency noises by changing behaviour. This includes altering foraging so they miss out on high-quality prey, which could make them weak and decimate numbers through starvation. The soundwaves, developed by the military to track enemies beneath the waves, are between 1 and 10 kHz, which is within the human hearing band. They have been blamed for lethal mass stranding of deep diving toothed whales. Sonar is thought to disrupt the animals’ diving behaviour so much that they suffer a condition rather like ‘the bends’.
Biohazard name: Mass. Die-off (dolphins)
Biohazard level: 0/4 ---
Biohazard desc.: This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status: confirmed
...

Biological Hazard in USA on Tuesday, 06 August, 2013 at 09:06 (09:06 AM) UTC.


Back

Updated: Wednesday, 14 August, 2013 at 06:38 UTC
Description
A dolphin die-off in the Mid-Atlantic region is hitting Virginia hardest. Nearly 50 dolphins were found dead or dying in Virginia in July - seven times the normal rate for that month - and the pace is picking up. "August is looking to be significantly worse," said Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation for the Virginia Aquarium Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. The nonprofit aquarium is home to Virginia’s sole program for responding to stranded dolphins, whales and sea turtles. Bottlenose dolphins, intelligent and charismatic mammals loved by the public, are dying at abnormally high rates this summer from New York to Virginia - 156 animals from July 1 through Monday. The average for a full year in that region is 99. Most of the dolphins washed up dead. Some died soon after being found or were so near death they had to be euthanized. None has survived to be returned to the wild. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week declared the deaths "an unusual mortality event" - a declaration that frees up extra scientific expertise to investigate the case.

In Virginia, about a half-dozen dolphins normally wash up in July, and an additional half-dozen in August. Last month, there were 48, and this month there were 35 through Monday, officials said. Such a large number before mid-August "is not a good sign," Swingle said. Virginia’s 83 deaths lead among the affected states, far surpassing second-place New Jersey’s 39. The cause of the deaths is a mystery. It could be that some disease is working its way through the dolphin population. That’s what happened in 1987, the last time the East Coast experienced a similar die-off. More than 740 dolphins succumbed from New Jersey to Florida. More than 200 died in Virginia, the most of any state along the coast. Experts linked the deaths to a virus found in some marine mammals, morbillivirus. Toxins from harmful algae may have contributed to some deaths. Preliminary tests indicate a few of the dolphins that died this summer suffered from morbillivirus, but experts say it’s too early to say that’s causing all the deaths. It could be that some other problem - a toxic-chemical spill, say, or a release of toxins by algae - weakened dolphins’ immune systems, making them vulnerable to a disease they normally would ward off. Morbillivirus is similar to measles in people, said Mendy Garron, the marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA’s Maine-to-Virginia region. "The measles can potentially kill someone if their immune system is suppressed," Garron said. "It’s kind of that same concept."

The investigation of the deaths could take months or even years, officials say. That means no one can help the animals that are dying now. But the investigation might shed light on similar events in the future. It’s not clear why most of the stricken dolphins are washing up in Virginia. It could be that some local pollution problem is hurting the dolphins, experts said. Or it could be something as simple as currents carrying bodies here. There is another possible, and simple, explanation: Of all the affected states, Virginia has the most dolphins. Thousands of the mammals live and migrate along the East Coast, and their Virginia numbers peak in summer. "Since there are more animals in Virginia, obviously we are going to see more animals affected," Swingle said. People love dolphins, and they are concerned about the deaths. But Swingle said there is another reason to pay attention. "Marine mammals are mammals like you and I. They get some of the same diseases that we get. They are sort of sentinels for us in the water. When they are having trouble … we certainly want to know what’s going on and understand it better."
...

Dolphin die-off hitting Virginia hardest


  • Sarah Rose, with the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team, examines a dead dolphin.


Posted: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 9:15 am | Updated: 9:28 am, Wed Aug 14, 2013.


A dolphin die-off in the Mid-Atlantic region is hitting Virginia hardest.
Nearly 50 dolphins were found dead or dying in Virginia in July — seven times the normal rate for that month — and the pace is picking up.
“August is looking to be significantly worse,” said Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach.

The nonprofit aquarium is home to Virginia’s sole program for responding to stranded dolphins, whales and sea turtles.

Bottlenose dolphins, intelligent and charismatic mammals loved by the public, are dying at abnormally high rates this summer from New York to Virginia — 156 animals from July 1 through Monday. The average for a full year in that region is 99.

Most of the dolphins washed up dead. Some died soon after being found or were so near death they had to be euthanized. None has survived to be returned to the wild.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week declared the deaths “an unusual mortality event” — a declaration that frees up extra scientific expertise to investigate the case.

In Virginia, about a half-dozen dolphins normally wash up in July, and an additional half-dozen in August. Last month, there were 48, and this month there were 35 through Monday, officials said.

Such a large number before mid-August “is not a good sign,” Swingle said.

Virginia’s 83 deaths lead among the affected states, far surpassing second-place New Jersey’s 39.


Read More Here

...
Enhanced by Zemanta