Federal Grant to Study Pond Ecology

[Spung-Man]

The Pinelands Commission will use a $350,524 grant supplemented with $116,841 in conservation funds to study Pinelands intermittent pools (spungs).

http://www.state.nj.us/pinelands/images/pdf files/press/PR_PinelandsEPAGrant.pdf​

"'We are thrilled to receive federal funding for a study that will increase our understanding of
Pinelands ponds and their vulnerability to land-use impacts,' said Nancy Wittenberg, the
Commission's Executive Director. 'This information will be used to enhance the protection of
these ponds and the important habitats they provide for rare species.'"​

"During the course of the 4 1/2 year research project, Commission scientists will map the location
of ponds, document off-road vehicle activity, monitor water quality and hydrology, survey plant
and animal assemblages and quantify the impact of land use on these ponds."
​

S-M

 

[bobpbx]

Map the location? Of course, they will. Who would ever perform a study of ponds and not provide a map (or at least the locations of the ponds) studied in the report?

I'm just jealous I'm not one of them involved.

 

[Teegate]

I bet when finished they miss a few

That is tax payer money so we should be able to get the map.

Guy

 

[Spung-Man]

Bob, Guy,

While pond specifics might be deemed proprietary, and for good reason, I can’t imagine why their locations would remain hidden. Spung integrity is a matter of water quality and quantity. We are learning that it is the smaller, more isolated pools that are most critical to habitat well-being, for example allowing populations to migrate more easily across interfluves (ridges between valleys) at times of stress. Isolated pools are also the least protected. I agree with Tiner (2003: 513, Geographically isolated wetlands of the United States), who stated “Ground-water withdrawal may pose the most insidious threat” to isolated wetlands. It will be difficult to separate active from relict closed basin systems.

S-M

 

[dogg57]

Little more Info

http://www.app.com/article/20111114...onds-study?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage

 

[Spung-Man]

Intermittent basins are also noteworthy sites that have long cultural usage. Relicts of the Pinelands’ earliest cultures can be found by their rims. Some mark places of Colonial settlement, at the locus of early trails that went from pond to pond across the Pine Barrens. They remain valued spots for hunters today. I use them to help reconstruct ancient climate change since these Ice Age blowouts provide clues to past temperatures, precipitation, and wind patterns. Spungs are also windows into the shallow groundwater. Accurate records of the near-surface water-table in the Pine Barrens are scanty, episodic, and of insufficient duration to document long-term trends in groundwater base level. Changes in their water-fill over time tell us a lot about the health of regional wetland systems.

S-M

 

[Spung-Man]

Another link:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/loc...cle_8e862ae4-1c89-57c7-a28e-3f85a15cc0b3.html​

It's interesting that Carleton referred to these pockets of water as spongs, which is actually a modern version of the original spelling spungs. The pronunciation has remained intact – spung and spong are both still pronounced like rung. Specifically the term described a type of purse or fob, a small pocket formerly made in the waistband of breeches. Breeches are a type of menswear that was popular from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries. Some in the northern Pines call these pools pocket bogs, a direct translation of the archaic term. I find it disturbing that the article's author alluded to a possible veto by the governor.

S-M

 

[Gibby]

Is a spung and a vernal pool the same? I have heard both names used to describe the same pocket of water- to add more to my confusion my grandfather referred to spungs as pocosins. Depending on the height of the trees surrounding such an area, he would either say it is a tall pocosin or a short pocosin. What is correct?

 

[Spung-Man]

Gibby,

Was your grandfather a tar-heeler? Pocosin is believed to be an Algonquin name for Carolina Bays, which is a Southern variant of spung. Closed basins pock-mark the Atlantic Coastal Plain in the thousands from southern New Jersey to northern Georgia. Many were destroyed through drainage for farming and forestry. On the Delmarva closed depressions are called Delmarva Bays, around Norfolk pongos, and in the Carolinas pocosins.

I’ve never heard a Piney distinction made between spung vegetation height, probably because spungs are generally small in form compared to their southern counterparts, say under five acres. Carolina Bays can reach hundreds of acres in form so their distinctive vegetation-fill (e.g., Red Bay, Sweet Bay, Bull Bay, Bayberry) can be expansive. Spungs filled with Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) are on occasion called prim ponds. Prim (as in prim-and-proper) is an archaic English term for dense privet (Ligustrum), and Leatherleaf looks privet-like en masse in a spung.

also see http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/thr...h-jersey-communities-in-1868.6139/#post-73065​

and http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/thr...ildfire-6-months-later.3959/page-4#post-39106​

S-M

 

[Gibby]

Thanks Spung-Man. Yes, my grandfather lived by Wilmington, North Carolina for most of his youth. Only after he was out of the service, did he decide to settle in New Jersey. In your link reminder, I enjoyed the descriptive term "slush" for a spung.

 

[Spung-Man]

Gibby,

It makes perfect sense that your North Carolina grandfather was attuned to spung topography. The Wilmington area is chock full of closed basins. Here’s a view of Blythe Bay.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1391159​

I can’t take credit for ferreting out slush. Jerseyman pulled that nugget out of Barber & Howe (1868). His keen eye for historical detail never ceases to amaze me. Slush has not been found in any other oral or written Pinelands reference so far. Closely related slash has been used in New Jersey to describe bands of wetlands (esp. lagoons) between ridges or dunes such as on a barrier island. An example can be seen on this excerpt from Peck’s Beach Somers’ Survey of 488 acres by Thos. Townsend (surveyor), September 28, 1873. Color has been added for contrast.

S-M

 

[dogg57]

Is a spung and a vernal pool the same? I have heard both names used to describe the same pocket of water- to add more to my confusion my grandfather referred to spungs as pocosins. Depending on the height of the trees surrounding such an area, he would either say it is a tall pocosin or a short pocosin. What is correct?

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/pdf/vernalpool02.pdf

 

[Gibby]

Thanks for the link dogg57. Eventually I won't ask so many silly questions with all the help from everyone here on the forum.