If you are a musician, singer, writer, artist or simply interested in promoting The Arts in Ewing Township, we invite you to join us at a special collaborative meeting between the Ewing Green Team, Ewing Arts Commission, and local art organization Art Has No Boundaries on Tuesday, June 4th, 2019. The groups have issued a special invitation to the public to please join in the conversation on how to advance the arts in Ewing.
The evening’s agenda will include:
the on-going search for Ewing artists to sign up for our Artists Directory and soliciting input on how we can reach more artists;
Community Fest at The College of New Jersey on September 21, 2019;
interest in an Arts Festival for Ewing; and
suggestions for other innovative ideas that could help encourage the arts in Ewing.
The meeting will be held at the Ewing Community and Senior Center at 999 Lower Ferry Road, in the large Community Room. It will begin at 7:00 pm. All are welcome.
Event Summary
Date: Tuesday, June 4th Time: 7pm Location: Ewing Senior and Community Center, 999 Lower Ferry Road Cost: Free and open to the public.
Have you considered adding a rain garden to your landscape to enhance its beauty, improve drainage and create wildlife habitat? The lovely rain garden pictured above can be a part of your garden. Wild About Ewing, a joint project of the Ewing Green Team and Environmental Commission, encourages you attend our presentation and learn more about gardening for wildlife and protecting our waterways at the same time.
Rain gardens can help us manage stormwater runoff from rooftops, driveways, lawns, roads, and other hard surfaces. They look like regular perennial gardens, but they are much more. During a storm, a rain garden fills with water, and the water slowly filters into the ground rather than running into storm sewers. By capturing stormwater, rain gardens help to reduce the impact of human activities and pollution in the environment such as road sediment/salt, fertilizers, pesticides, bacteria from pet waste, eroded soil, grass clippings, litter, etc. This helps protect the health of our waterways. Rain gardens also add beauty to neighborhood and provide wildlife habitat.
In this 1.5 hour evening workshop, homeowners can learn how to plan and plant their own raingarden, enhancing their property and their neighborhood! Now is a good time to plan a raingarden for planting this spring.
Presenter: Kory Kreiseder, Stormwater Specialist with The Watershed Institute. Kory has been with The Watershed Institute since April 2017 as the Stormwater Specialist with the Policy and Advocacy team as well as the Science and Stewardship team. Previously she spent three years as an urban conservation specialist for the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District, where she advised governments, businesses and residents on stormwater management issues. Currently, she is working with Hopewell Borough through on the restoration of the Beden Brook funded by a grant received from NJ Department of Environmental Protection. This project will install over 25 different green infrastructure practices including rain gardens, cisterns, porous paving, etc.
Date: Tuesday, May14 Time: 7 pm Location: Ewing Senior and Community Center, 999 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing Cost: Free and open to the public
Dispose of your sensitive documents safely and securely at Ewing’s first Shred Day of the year, Saturday, May 4th from 9 – 1 at the Ewing Township Municipal Building. Document shredding will be done on site. This service is for Ewing residents only and proof of residency is required. As this is a popular event, please be prepared to spend a few minutes waiting on line.
The Ewing Green Team will be on hand to assist.
Event Summary
Date: Saturday, May 4th Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Location: Municipal Building, 2 Jake Garzio Drive
The next Shred Day will be Saturday, October 12th.
If your medicine cabinet is filled with expired drugs or medications that you no longer use, and you are concerned about detrimental environmental effects from improper disposal or eliminating the potential for abuse of medications, here is the information that you need to properly dispose of them.
The Ewing Police Department will be participating in the DEA’s twice yearly National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day which will take place on Saturday, April 27, 2019, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. This is a great opportunity for those who missed the previous events, or who have subsequently accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs, to safely dispose of those medications. Just go to Ewing Municipal Building, 2 Jake Garzio Drive and go to the Ewing Police Department on the lower level. Ewing Police will have an officer between 10 and 2 to take the items.
All medications are accepted, prescription and over-the-counter, as well as liquids. Liquids are accepted in their original prescription bottle only and with the cap tightly secured. Syringes and other sharp instruments should not be turned in at this event. Hypodermic needles are not accepted. The disposal is handled completely securely; all accepted medications with any labels that you leave on the containers are placed in a large cardboard box, lined with plastic. At the end of the day the contents are taken to the prosecutor’s office. The DEA will pick up and incinerate.
Guidelines for Drug Disposal
Follow any specific disposal instructions on the drug label or patient information that accompanies the medication. Do not flush prescription drugs down the toilet unless this information specifically instructs you to do so.
If no instructions are given on the drug label and no take-back program is available in your area, take them out of their original containers and mix them with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter — to make the medication less appealing and unrecognizable — then put them in a sealable bag, empty can, or other container to prevent the medication from leaking or breaking out of a garbage bag.
You should also remove any identifying information on the label to protect your identity and privacy.
Despite the safety reasons for flushing drugs, some people are questioning the practice because of concerns about trace levels of drug residues found in surface water, such as rivers and lakes, and in some community drinking water supplies. However, the main way drug residues enter water systems is by people taking medications and then naturally passing them through their bodies. That said, the FDA does not want to add drug residues into water systems unnecessarily. The agency reviewed its drug labels to identify products with disposal directions recommending flushing or disposal down the sink. This continuously revised listing can be found at FDA’s Web page on Disposal of Unused Medicines.
National Take Back Day Information
Date: April 27, 2019 Time: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Location: Ewing Municipal Building, 2 Jake Garzio Drive
If you are unable to participate in the National Take Back Day event there is a Project Medicine Drop Box outside of Police headquarters where you may drop off medications 24/7. For more information see the Project Medicine Drop Box page on the Township’s website.
Celebrate the wonder of our night skies every night and turn out the lights!
Did you know that the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light, known as light pollution, can have serious environmental consequences for humans, wildlife, and our climate?
I got up in the middle of the night a few days ago and happened to look out the window and was almost blinded by the outdoor lights in a neighboring backyard. When did it become the norm to leave outdoor lights on through the night? Help make a difference. Turn out your lights and encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. Join the Ewing Green Team in addressing this issue during International Dark Skies Week (March 31st – April 7th) and every night and help to reclaim our nighttime heritage.
Why Light Pollution Matters
The nighttime environment is a crucial natural resource for all life on Earth, but the glow of uncontrolled outdoor lighting has hidden the stars, radically changing the nighttime environment.
Before the advent of electric light in the 20th century, our ancestors experienced a night sky brimming with stars that inspired science, religion, philosophy, art and literature. (Think of van Gogh’s Starry Night.)
The common heritage of a natural night sky is rapidly becoming unknown to the newest generations. In fact, millions of children across the globe will never see the Milky Way from their own homes.
We are only just beginning to understand the negative repercussions of losing this natural resource. A growing body of research suggests that the loss of the natural nighttime environment is causing serious harm to human health and the environment.
Light Pollution Threatens Wildlife
For billions of years, life has relied on Earth’s day-night rhythm to govern life-sustaining behaviors. It’s encoded in the DNA of all plants and animals. Humans have radically disrupted this cycle by lighting up the night. Research shows that artificial light at night has negative and deadly effects on many species.
Sea turtles live in the ocean but hatch on the beach at night. Hatchlings find the sea by detecting the bright horizon over the ocean. Artificial lights can draw them away from the sea, stranding them on land. In Florida alone, millions of hatchlings die this way every year. Many insects are drawn to light, but artificial lights can create a fatal attraction. Declining insect populations negatively impact all species that rely on insects for food or pollination. Nocturnal mammals sleep in the day and are active at night. Light pollution disrupts their nighttime environment.
Artificial lights also endanger many bird species. They can disrupt the migratory schedules of birds causing them to leave too early or too late in the season, missing ideal conditions for nesting. Birds that navigate by moonlight and starlight can wander off course. Millions die every year by colliding into illuminated buildings.
Light Pollution Threatens Human Health
Humans are not immune to the negative effects of light in their nighttime spaces. Excessive exposure to artificial light at night, particularly blue light, has been linked to increased risks for obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes and breast cancer.
Light Pollution Wastes Energy and Money
In the U.S. alone, there are about 162 million public and commercial outdoor light fixtures including
45 million streetlights,
52 million parking-lot lights,
62 million lights on commercial buildings.
Residential outdoor lighting isn’t as bright, but there’s a lot more of it — about 1 billion light fixtures.
Lighting consumes lots of energy. In an average year in the U.S., outdoor lighting uses some 120 terawatt-hours of energy, mostly to illuminate streets and parking lots. That’s enough energy to meet New York City’s total electricity needs for 2 years! Excessive light at night causes light pollution and unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.
So, let’s stop wasting so much energy! With so much lighting, even modest efforts to control outdoor lighting saves money, reduces carbon emissions, and helps the environment. We do need some light at night, but much of it is wasted by lights that are overly bright or left on when not needed. Unshielded fixtures waste the most energy. Their light shines upward, instead of down on the ground where it’s needed. At least 30% of outdoor light is wasted. That adds up to $3.3 billion and the release of 21 million tons of CO2 per year! To offset all that CO2, we’d have to plant 875 million trees annually.
But Don’t We Need Nighttime Lighting for Safety & Security?
There is no clear scientific evidence that increased outdoor lighting deters crime. It may make us feel safer but it does not make us safer. The truth is bad outdoor lighting can decrease safety by making victims and property easier to see.
Glare from overly bright, unshielded lighting creates shadows in which criminals can hide. It also shines directly into our eyes, constricting our pupils. This diminishes the ability of our eyes to adapt to low-light conditions and leads to poorer nighttime vision, dangerous to motorists and pedestrians alike.
What Can Be Done?
The EGT is regularly asked: “What can I do to make a difference?” Well, here is one way that you can make a contribution and the good news is that light pollution is reversible and its solutions are immediate, simple and cost-effective. Here are a few simple things you can do to confront the problem and take back the night:
Check around your home. Use only fully shielded, dark sky friendly fixtures for all outdoor lighting, so lights shine down, not up, to minimize “light trespass” beyond your property lines.
Use only the right amount of light needed. Too much light is wasteful, harms wildlife and creates glare.
Install timers and dimmer switches and turn off lights when not in use. If you must have security lighting, use motion sensors.
Use only lighting with a color temperature of 3000K and below. This means that there is less blue (cool) light that is more harmful to many animal species.
Talk to neighbors. Explain that poorly shielded fixtures waste energy, produce glare and reduce visibility. Work with your local governments to ensure outdoor lighting isn’t harming the wildlife in your area.
Become a Citizen Scientist with Globe at Night and document light pollution in your neighborhood and share the results. Doing so, contributes to a global database of light pollution measurements.
[Resources and background materials for this article come from The International Dark Sky Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Tucson, Arizona. For 25 years, it has advocated for the protection of the nighttime environment and dark night skies by educating policymakers and the public about night sky conservation and promoting environmentally responsible outdoor lighting. More information about IDA and its mission may be found at http://www.darksky.org.]
SPECIAL ARTS COMMISSION MEETING TUESDAY JUNE 4TH
Dispose of your sensitive documents safely and securely at Ewing’s first Shred Day of the year, Saturday, May 4th from 9 – 1 at the Ewing Township Municipal Building. Document shredding will be done on site. This service is for Ewing residents only and proof of residency is required. As this is a popular event, please be prepared to spend a few minutes waiting on line.
Sustainable Ewing Green Team 