Loantaka Brook to Benefit from Restoration Institute

This fall, Great Swamp Watershed Association Project Director Karen Patterson attended the Watershed Restoration Institute sponsored by the Center for Watershed Protection. The Watershed Institute, the first of its kind, provided participants from around the country with tools and techniques for designing and implementing urban stream restoration practices. 

The Watershed Association will be applying much of what Ms. Patterson learned at the Institute to the Loantaka Brook, one of the five tributaries of the Great Swamp watershed. A watershed is the land area that drains to a particular body of water such as a pond, lake or ocean. The 35,000 acre (55 square mile) Great Swamp watershed is the land area that drains to the 7,500 acre Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The Loantaka Brook sub-watershed is only about 5 square miles and thus makes up less than 10% of the overall watershed. However, with its headwaters in the heavily developed Madison Avenue corridor running through Madison, Morris Twp and Morristown, it is the most polluted of the five streams. As a result, the Watershed Association has sought and received funds from several area corporations to "Adopt Loantaka Brook." Now in its second year, the Adopt Loantaka Brook program has conducted water quality tests along the length of the stream and begun identifying portions of the stream that have the potential for restoration. Tools and techniques from the Institute will be instrumental in refining and implementing restoration along these areas of the stream. 

Over 80 people from 26 states and Canada attended the Institute. The Great Swamp Watershed Association was the beneficiary of a scholarship that paid for two thirds of the costs of Ms. Patterson's tuition. Founded in 1992, the Center for Watershed Protection is a non-profit organization which provides the technical tools for protecting some of the nation's most precious natural resources: our streams, lakes and rivers. The Center has developed and disseminated a multi-disciplinary strategy to watershed protection that encompasses watershed planning, watershed restoration, stormwater management, watershed research, better site design, education and outreach, and watershed training. 

The Great Swamp Watershed Association was founded in 1981 to protect the environmental, cultural, and historical resources of the Great Swamp watershed region. For information on becoming a member, and to learn about upcoming events, visit the Watershed Association website at www.greatswamp.org. or call 973-966-1900.

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