Marcia Marcia Marshes! – Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus – NJ Meadowlands
March 12th, 2016 by Mr. C
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Surely you must be thinking that Planet Chocko has turned into a tree hugging – all out nature blog. Not really, we’re just sharing some local trails, parks, & marshes that we come across which we feel are well worth a visit. A day spent outdoors at a park – navigating, exploring, learning, & appreciating our land is a day well spent! Wait, I’m sounding like a hippie?! In our minds, you have to balance out all that city stomping, brickface chopping, toll collector mongering, & big city dreaming with some mother-nature ups, too! All the places we mentioned are ridiculously close to NYC.
The NJ Meadowlands Commission have been hard at work preserving 3000+ acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands, vastly improving the water quality of the Hackensack River which in turn helped bring back a resurgence of wildlife to the Meadowlands.
(Yes, the Mill Creek Marsh entrance is across from Bob’s Furniture Store’s loading dock!)
The Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus,NJ is a great example of the revitalization and enhancement of the Meadowlands. As you take a walk on the trails, you’ll start noticing quite a few stumps of once where stoic cedar trees throughout the marsh tidal pools. I went back home and did some reading and found out that the Atlantic White Cedar forests once covered a third of the Meadowlands for hundreds of years. That is a lot of consumption of cedar wood that we destroyed the forest for.
I didn’t spot any exotic birds on my visit just lively seagulls, geese, and some sparrows flying in and out of some of those birdhouses perched in the shallow part of the tidal pools.
It’s amazing to be able to see the beauty of the wetlands, marshes, and the wildlife that inhabit the area and then you take a look at the backdrop to see the NYC skyline with its famous monster wall of skyscrapers. You then take another minute to realize the once booming cedar forest in the meadowlands that have been cut down since were the real natural skyscrapers of the day. The entrance to the Mill Creek Marsh is also mind numbing and full of contrasts. You basically park at Bob’s Furniture store at the Mill Creek Mall in Secaucus and look to the side of Bob’s loading dock and you can’t miss all that natural heavenly wetland glory!
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Mill Creek Marsh
Park Plaza Drive, Secaucus, NJ
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(NJ Turnpike Eastern Spur is to the left of the swamp)
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