Liberty State Park is an extraordinary and unique public resource. With the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island as a spectacular backdrop, it is also one of New Jersey's most dramatic parks. Liberty State Park is an important first step of an ambitious restoration process for the Port District section of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary ecosystem. The four components of the restoration project include the creation of approximately 46 acres of salt marsh, the creation and/or enhancement of approximately 26 acres of freshwater wetlands, the creation of approximately 50 acres warm weather grasslands and the enhancement of approximately 100 acres of urban northern hardwoods and maritime shrub assemblages.
The Bayonne Urban Coastal Design project is an opportunity to consider resiliency protections that will benefit the eastern portion of Bayonne, and at the same time, provide desperately needed habitats that support the Target Ecosystem Characteristics approved in the CRP. Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability, working collaboratively with Stevens Institute engineers, developed three design alternatives for coastal green infrastructure - Links Island, Bird Island, and Marine Terminal Island. These designs are based on an analysis of detailed site conditions, a review of relevant scientific literature, case studies that beneficially reused dredge material for ecologic restoration projects, NOAA-FEMA projections of future conditions related to sea level rise and storm surges predicted. The island installation will required engineered protections to mitigate erosive forces within the estuary. An adaptive management approach, based on consistent data collection, is recommended to ensure sustainability of the island itself and to maximize its protective and habitat values.
Approximately twenty years ago it was discovered that the land behind the Interpretive Center at Liberty State Park was contaminated with chromium. Test revealed that the location of the chromium was fairly extensive
and included the wetland area. During 2006-07 the chromium was removed, using funds from a Natural Resource Damages settlement and transported to an appropriate hazardous waste facility. Excavation of the chromium left behind an
area where the elevations were significantly lower before. To mitigate for the loss of the former wetland and to enhance educational programming at the park's interpretive center, an enhanced wetland assemblage was developed.
Located adjacent to the Somerville, NJ Transit station, a municipal landfill formerly operated between 1954 and 1984. The community’s Redevelopment Plan for the Borough of Somerville Station Area and Adjacent Landfill was completed in 2007. Objective Twelve of the Redevelopment Plan is to “provide a network of open spaces for Somerville residents, connecting active and passive recreation areas between the Raritan River and the downtown core, including existing community resources such as the Peter’s Brook Greenway and the Old Dutch Parsonage.” This open space portion of the Redevelopment Plan has been named the “Green Seam” - the corridor of open space that will connect the proposed “Hub” (high density mixed use commercial land use) and the “Heights” (moderate density town houses, low rise apartments, and office land uses), with the existing commercial downtown businesses.