Contributing Writer: Ricker Magder, Community-based Environmental Writer, Nonprofit Consultant and Founding Executive Director of Groundwork Hudson Valley and Groundwork USA
In the far northwest corner of New Jersey, along the Walkill River, stands a very special national wildlife refuge. Nestled in a low-lying area, snug between the Kittatinny Ridge and the Delaware River, it offers views of the Pocono Mountains gently cascading toward the western horizon. There in the refuge, the nonprofit Groundwork Hudson Valley (GWHV) and their award-winning youth conservation corps, the Green Team, have been working for the last two years to reclaim a rare wetland habitat, an Atlantic White Cedar (AWC) bog.
Commonly found along the Eastern seaboard in pre-colonial days, AWC habitats have declined by more than seventy-five percent over the centuries owing to extensive logging (its wood is prized for furniture) along with in-fill development and, increasingly, due to climate change.
While damp bottomlands are required for AWC habitat, too much rain floods them out, with such events occurring more frequently. The last remaining pockets of AWC’s are found on public lands, including those managed by the Lenape U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Complex, with units in New York (Shawngunk NWR), New Jersey (Wallkill, Great Swamp NWRs) and Pennsylvania (Cherry Valley NWR).
To view this rare bog, which is a treat, you need a special guide. Lachlin Robertson took me to see it on a warm afternoon in October 2023. Lachlin, a Refuge Wildlife Specialist, grew up nearby in New Jersey.
After a short drive from the visitor center, we donned hip boots and proceeded into a small opening in the woods. The path took us by a private home encroaching on the refuge, over a creek covered by brambles feeding the bog, to the edge of a low ridge.
Bogs are created by slopes that funnel stormwater and creeks into a basin like a tub. They can be hard to see. It took a moment to locate the entrance made possible by the Green Team, which had placed logs across deeper pools to reach outcrops of alders and red dogwoods.
These other native trees began outcompeting the AWC’s when water levels rose after Hurricane Ida, with an assist from a talented beaver. Walking poles were necessary for us to cross the logs, as even Lachlin had fallen in more than once, though no Green Teamer has of yet.
An amazing carpet of phosphorescent green and rust-colored sphagnum moss greeted our feet on the other side. More than one hundred fragile AWC seedlings have been planted in this wetland environment so far by the Green Team, with more to come. Though less than a half-foot high, they are doing great, having doubled in size already.
Planting in spongey substrates is not as simple as planting in soil — an abundance of snakes, turtles, and rare plants must be avoided! Thanks to another grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the project is continuing for another eighteen months.
You can see a complementary local part of the project along the Saw Mill River in southern Westchester County: thousands of native trees, notably willows, were planted by the Green Team, Refuge staff and local volunteers in a more developed riparian corridor.
