A local business owner is raising awareness about a practice that she says is putting a fragile ecosystem at risk.
Rosemarie Lohnes, from Helping Nature Heal, says the Town of Bridgewater is destroying trees and shrubs that are important for the health of the Lahave River.
Of particular concern to Lohnes is something called the ‘Riparian Zone‘.
It’s the stretch of wet earth that runs between a water source, like a river, and the hard dry land of the shore.
She says the plants and life-forms that live in this area do a lot for the people who live here.
“They can take up the effluent and the toxins and store them for us,” she says. “That’s part of why plants are so important in our life, because they save us from having to deal with all these toxic issues.”
On top of that, Lohnes says, plants provide the oxygen we need to live.
A task she says is easy to take for granted.
Lohnes says the river is already suffering from straight pipes and other pollution.
She says if we’re not careful with the plants, it will only make matters worse.
“When we haphazardly cut, cut, cut, there’s no good end to that, you know, there’s no health in the future for the river if we do this.”
Lohnes says she’d be willing to teach workers better techniques.
She’ll be making her case to town council on April 11th in hopes they can begin to repair the damage.
