Walking Over Gravel in Natco Park, Hazlet Township

Saturday morning greeted a small group of 20 people with a hint of pending change. Gone were sunny skies and warm temperatures of yesterday. Instead, they found themselves walking in a light drizzle under gray skies and temperatures in the 50s.

No worries, these were hardy folks out for a nature walk in Natco Park located in Hazlet Township, a densely packed rambling residential neighborhood found near the shores of Raritan Bay. Natco Park covers over 250 acres with a wide array of different ecosystems including vernal pools, small freshwater streams, wetlands, and both hardwood and pine forests. These ecological systems provide good homes, cover, food, and reproduction sites for a diversity of amphibians, reptiles, birds, insects, and mammals.

Despite the constant drizzle, the twenty or so walkers were surprisingly enthusiastic about the experience to enjoy every nook and cranny of wild nature located right in the middle of this urban-suburban community. For two hours, they covered over two miles of trails to connect with nature over land and water that was preserved from development starting in the late 1970s. 

While walking, one would imagine not much has changed here. It would appear as though Natco Park was always an oasis of natural beauty.

But as Gene Geer, nature walk leader and chair of the Hazlet Environmental Commission, pointed out the park has constantly been full of change. Sometimes not always for the good, especially at the southern end of the Yellow Trail.

"That's where an emergency service road was built," Geer declared,  "in late 2011 after reports of a break in a sewer line located in the park near Raritan High School." He gestured out to a 15-foot-wide gravel road that replaced beautiful tall trees and long-stranding ferns and other plants. The road is longer than half a mile. Now bits of broken bricks, tile, asphalt, plumbing parts and various low-grade materials mix and mingle with the gravel that has been laid down over once fertile soils, near a small waterway.

As Mr. Geer explained, there was a breakdown in communication at the time among government officials in Hazlet Township. Environmental commissioners expressed concern that they weren’t notified by the Township Administrator of the repair work going on. They only realized there was a gravel sewer access road after a local resident called a member of the environmental commission to complain.

Even NJ DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) was annoyed with Hazlet Township. They reprimanded the township for failing to properly coordinate with the state to select more natural materials for the road once the sewer emergency was under control.

At present.  the gravel road is still in place. Restoration of the trail, if at all, seems to be taking place at a snail's pace.

It's a man-made mess. Folks were literally walking over rubbish and a contractor's leftovers, from old electrical wires to bits of asphalt. The degraded and gravelly condition of this particular location offered a bad taste, an example of  what poor planning by heartless government officials can do.

Still, in this urban-suburban environment, the history of Natco Park illustrates that the hand of man has always been near. Natco Park is named after the National Fireproofing Company (Natco), which mined clay in present-day Natco Lake for bricks in the 1930's.  Eventually the mining equipment hit underground springs and the pit filled in with water to create the lake.  A gully was created by the company in an attempt to drain off the water into a nearby tidal creek, most likely Thorns Creek.  Unfortunately for the company, the effort failed, and in fact brought in salt water from Raritan Bay. This is why the lake is brackish even today.

The forest too shows evidence of human activity. More than 60 years ago, much of the land was probably used for agriculture or logging.  This might explain why there are few old trees in the park. Hardly any trees are older than 100 years, even fewer are older than 150 years. Odds are many of the current trails in the park were former logging or town roads.

Yet, over time, nature seems to have adapted. Trees and plants are growing, and along the northern part of the Yellow Trail,  the taller trees give way to a low-lying pool of freshwater known locally as Sundew Pond. Although the pond probably doesn't look like much to an average person, the water is home to several different species of frogs, including Spring Peepers, Green Frogs, and Wood Frogs, and scores of dragonflies and water beetles. A rare find in a region almost dominated by saltwater and the coastal environment.

As Geer pointed out, the park is a natural treasure and the largest parcel of open space in Hazlet Township. The environmental commission has always had a special duty to take care of the Natco Park. Now that it has been damaged by people, it hurts a lot.

If you would like to help restore Natco Park, please send a letter or call Commissioner Bob Martin at NJ DEP. Tell him that the sewer service road in Natco Park in Hazlet Township is a disgrace and needs to be restored to a natural condition right way with native plants. Please send correspondences to:

Bob Martin, Commissioner
401 E. State St.
7th Floor, East Wing
P.O. Box 402
Trenton, NJ 08625-0402
phone: (609) 292-2885
fax: (609) 292-7695

For more information, pictures and year-round sightings of wildlife in or near Sandy Hook Bay, please check out my blog entitled, Nature on the Edge of New York City at http://www.natureontheedgenyc.com