Our Meadowlands: Don't Pave This Paradise
By Lisa Selvaggio
Published in The Record Newspaper NJ May 20, 2008
The Tree Swallows are back, staking claim to the nesting boxes jutting out of the marsh's green water. I watch them fly acrobatically, diving in circles with one another as though dancing. I can hear the Red Winged Blackbird's song ringing from the reeds surrounding me, always flitting away before I could snap a shot of its brilliantly colored shoulder. A mother walks past with her two sons, and I hear her teaching them about Nature. An old man sits solemnly contemplating on a bench overlooking the water. It's peaceful here; there are no sounds except those of the animals and the bending reeds in the wind.
I try to focus on the birds and water, ignoring the Turnpike on the horizon, with its eighteen-wheelers zipping by. But there's something I can't ignore. Although this place, set apart from Bergen County's suburban-city life, is teeming with wildlife, to one side of me is a dead horizon, one that once was alive like the area I find myself secluded in. That high-rise that is distinctly clear now wasn't there before, not before the tall grasses were cleared. It used to be that I could look in just about every direction and see nothing but marshland habitat; habitat so vital to the myriad birds, animals, and plants that make the Meadowlands home. But now those grasses that towered above me are gone, replaced by heaps of crushed stone, gravel, and soil, in piles behind bulldozers, construction and "No Trespassing" signs, and orange tape. I used to be able to look at the reeds attempting to touch the setting sun, and I used to watch the birds fly about above them, singing their last songs before retiring to sleep. But now I look out and I see no life.
The landscape is changing. This is the story throughout our state, but it's hardest to cope with when it's in your own backyard. The marsh walk is still open to the public, but the land leading up to it has been destroyed by attempts at developing high-rises and golf courses. It was to be plowed and dredged up, the inlets of water dried and filled, and the animals, unable to escape, would've lost their homes and probably their lives, if they haven't already. We nearly lost yet another precious piece of open land. And though the pollution that wreaks havoc may have finally been cleaned as a result of new construction, that was a responsibility that should have been resolved long ago for the sake of cleaning up the area, not in return for profits from more development in the most densely populated state. So even though we can breathe a sigh of relief now that the plans have been halted, the damage is already done.
While everyone complained about the traffic that would fill the highways surrounding the Meadowlands, while Trump proposed new idea after new idea to make quick money, and while the surrounding towns were searching for a solution to these problems, I thought of the land and of the wildlife - the little bit of wildlife still left. I thought of how everyone ignored this place until it could rake in the wrong kind of green - the green of golf courses and of dollar bills. I thought of the turtle that I moved from the road so it wouldn't get crushed by a speeding car, of the rodents we don't even see in the underbrush, of the birds who call this home.
Every day our land is taken to be paved over and built upon, thereby losing more of what makes NJ so diverse and ecologically unique. It's time we stop to see what these open lands really symbolize, what their value truly is. If it's a question of pollution that adversely affects wildlife and humans alike, a government should not have to wait for a corporate proposal; it should see the wealth that clean, undeveloped areas bring to a city that's otherwise cluttered with homes and businesses. This wealth cannot be measured in dollars and cents, it never loses its value or its integrity, and people will never complain about it or grow tired of it.