What to expect when visiting N.J.’s state and federal parks in the spring and summer of 2021
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People walk their dog along a trail at Double Trouble State Park in Berkeley and Lacey Townships in May 2020. Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
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Last year, when the coronavirus pandemic drove an unprecedented number of people to parks across the state, it was exactly what state officials wanted to see even if they weren’t prepared for it.
“No one I think imagined just how intense . the increase in visitation would be,” Shawn LaTourette, the acting commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, told NJ Advance Media. “Not because any agency or apparatus of government wasn’t ready to help its citizens, but because the spaces themselves don’t hold all the people that wanted to partake in them.”
New Jersey Herald
Perched at the top of a 45-foot steel tower, high above the trees in the middle of the Kittatinny Ridge in northern Sussex County, is a small cube with walls of glass.
In that cube, with binoculars pressed to his eyes, Nick Valerio can see for miles and miles around him. He, just like the fire watch observers in the other 20 watchtowers throughout New Jersey, is on the lookout for the telltale plumes of smoke from wildfires. It s a very, very important job up here in the tower, Valerio said as he looked around. It s dispatching, accountability . it s knowing who s going to a fire, who s at the fire, he said of his responsibilities.
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