Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission

News & Events

FREECYCLING Next Freecycling event - April 27,2019. Click here for information
THE SALAMANDERS ARE COMING! For road closing updates and information on safety and parking - click here. Check Facebook and Twitter for road closing updates
COMMUNITY GARDEN REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN FOR NEW GARDENERS Registration is open for new gardeners for a plot at the award winning East Brunswick Community Garden. For information and online registration click here. For more information about the garden click here.
EB Grow - Seed Library for EB residents EB Grow is a joint project of the East Brunswick Public Library and the Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission. The seed library created through this partnership is housed at the library in an effort to introduce residents to gardening, provide education on seed-saving, and encourage patrons to develop a passion for sustainability and hands-on learning. Come in to “borrow” seeds for your garden. We have easy-to-grow seeds to plant that will do well in our climate, so your garden will grow! Return unused seeds or seeds saved from your own crop to the library so that other gardeners can also enjoy planting them. Click here for more information
SPRING BIRDING BIG DAY - MAY 4, 8AM Join us for our annual Spring Big Day tour of East Brunswick’s Birding Hotspots (including Dallenbachs, Heavenly Farms, Edgeboro Landfill, Bicentennial, Jamesburg and Ireland Brook Parks), Sponsored by the EB Environmental Commission and the Friends of the EB Environmental Commission. With the town’s variety of habitats we should be able to see a good mix of migrants and breeders: migrating warblers and thrushes, resident Grasshopper Sparrows, orioles, lingering waterfowl, gulls, eagles and many others. Last year we tallied 81 species!!! We hope to see you. Meet at 8AM at the back of Crystal Spring Water Park Parking lot. Facebook event
Share photos of living things (Plants, animals, insects) on iNaturalist East Brunswick Nature Project Click here
IDLING GETS YOU NOWHERE Idling is Unhealthy,Illegal and Expensive! Read more Idling cars pose a threat to our children’s health and that of our community’s air quality. You can protect the health and well being of our children and our community. Please sign the online pledge (click here) to: Turn off engines while waiting to pick up and drop off children and at any other time that the vehicle is not moving for more than 3 minutes Spread the word to family and friends to encourage others to eliminate unnecessary idling Watch a PSA produced by East Brunswick Girl Scout Troop 80098.
Plastic-Free EB: One Bag at a Time Plastic-Free EB is a program promoting the use of reusable shopping bagsand reducing the use of disposable plastic. Discarded plastic bags threaten wildlife everywhere, suffocate our wetlands, and pollute our oceans. The good news is that plastic bag pollution is preventable, and you can be part of the solution. If each of us use reusable bags when shopping we will eliminate the accumulation of plastic bags in our environment. If you are ready to say NO TO PLASTIC BAGS sign the online pledge - click here More about the program on the Plastic-Free EB page.
The 'Friends EBEC' is looking for new board members! If you are interested in working with us please email us for information.
The Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission and East Brunswick Public Library have been awarded a 2017 Environmental Achievement Award by the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) for their jointly sponsored Option Green lecture series. The award was presented at ANJEC’s Environmental Congress at Mercer County Community College on Oct. 13. Read more
Are you a Friend? Join the Friends EBEC (click here) Be the first to get information on events, projects and volunteer opportunities. As always - membership is Free, and your contact information will never be shared or sold. Thank you!
East Brunswick Town-wide Butterfly Survey The Friends are launching the first town-wide East Brunswick Butterfly Survey to better understand our butterfly fauna. We are calling on everyone in town (and anyone else that wants to visit) to become Citizen Scientists and help us document what butterflies occur in East Brunswick and where and when they were found. We have set up an iNaturalist project called "East Brunswick Nature" for everyone to post their photos. We are interested in any sightings anywhere in town, from backyards to our amazing parks. Read more
T-shirts and other products with the Friends logo Available on RedBubble. Your purchase helps support the Friends EBEC and we thank you for it.
County's Acquisition of 76-acres in East Brunswick On February 16, the County completed the purchase of the Ireland Brook-Tamarack Hollow Extension from Freedom Run, LLC. The Board of Chosen Freeholders authorized the use of $1.3 million from the Middlesex County Open Space and Recreation and Farmland and Historic Preservation Trust Fund to purchase the property. The land is located along the Ireland Brook on the East Brunswick-South Brunswick border. It connects 1,400 acres of County, state and local parkland, including the Ireland Brook Conservation Area, Tamarack Hollow Preserve and the Tamarack Golf Course. Read more
EAST BRUNSWICK COMMUNITY GARDEN Registration for 2018 is ongoing for returning gardeners. New gardeners registration will open after January 1st 2018. More information about the garden at www.ebcommunitygarden.webs.com

About the Friends

The “Friends” is a New Jersey and 501C3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to local environmental education and conservation. Projects initiated by the Friends have been widely recognized by the New Jersey Audubon Society, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey Senate and General Assembly, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, United States Environmental Protection Agency, New Jersey Association of Landscape Architects, Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions and the East Brunswick Department of Parks and Recreation and Mayor and Town Council. These projects have also received extensive media coverage from local, state, national and even international press.The organization is run by an all-volunteer board. Our Board includes environmental consultants, educators and researchers and allows for a wide-diversity of experience and backgrounds providing an excellent foundation for environmental projects in our community.

Friends' events and membership are Free and open to all.

Past and present Friends projects include:
Community garden
Freecycling

East Brunswick Environmental Commission and Friends Awards/Recognition

The Friends' are funded only by private donations. Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Click to learn How you or your company can Sponsor Friends Projects

To donate to the Friends using a credit card or PayPal account - Click the 'donate' button below.

About East Brunswick

East Brunswick is a fast growing suburban town in Central New Jersey, situated midway between New York City and Philadelphia. Close to 50,000 people call East Brunswick home.

Much has changed in East Brunswick during the past 80 years. With modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Digital Historical Aerial Photographs, we can glimpse back in history and make comparisons to current conditions in ways we never were able to do before. I have attached two aerial photographs of East Brunswick, one from 1930 and the other from 2007. They are both at the same scale and are high resolution, so they can be enlarged to take a closer look at details.

In 1930, East Brunswick was a patchwork of small farms interspersed by woods and streams. Extensive tidal wetlands were present along the South River and the Raritan River. It must have been incredible to see at that time. A real breadbasket of farms on some of the most productive farmland in the state and with vast natural communities that were at the intersection of northern and southern habitats. A few roads bisected the township linking the small areas of development with surrounding towns, but most (if not all) of these were likely dirt at the time. During the next 80 years, East Brunswick, like most of Middlesex County, would undergo significant suburban development altering the natural landscape in many ways. Extensive forests and farms were converted to housing, commercial development and other uses (landfill, golf course, the NJ Turnpike, etc.), streams were channelized, diverted or piped and wetlands and vernal pools were filled in. This is not to be critical of these changes, but simply to acknowledge that they occurred and to understand the changes to the environment.

We are very fortunate that remnants and even extensive portions of these original habitats remain in East Brunswick providing a glimpse, if not an even a wider view, of what East Brunswick used to look like. Stroll through the incredible Pine Barrens habitats of Jamesburg Park, or through Frost Woods, or hike into the tidal swamp along the South River at Keystone Park, or explore the southern portion of the township near Dutch Lane, Church Lane and Fresh Ponds where a number of farms have been preserved and woods still dominate much of the landscape. This is our natural history, and although much has changed, there are still many gems that remain. We can also use the aerial photographs to learn from our mistakes and from our successes in terms of conserving our remaining natural landscape as well as setting priorities on preservation and restoration. As the saying goes, "Think Globally, but Act Locally." If we aren't stewards of what is in our own town, you can be certain no one else will either.

Check out the Parks Guide on the Friends website at www.friendsebec.com/ebparks to learn where some of our best remaining natural areas are. They are well worth exploring. The Parks Guide is a work in progress and new Parks will be featured over the next few months. There are also high resolution aerial photographs www.friendsebec.com/salamandercrossing of the vernal pools along Beekman Road where we have worked so hard to protect our migrating salamanders and frogs.

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