Dennis Bercaw wasn’t looking to save dying fish when he drove toward the south end of town early in February. He and his friend just noticed something odd in that part of town and decided to investigate it.
“Me and my buddy usually go for coffee around six,” he said. “Then we drive around. We noticed the seagulls were diving and we wondered why.”
A short drive to the ponds along Castle Road and the pond under the New Jersey Turnpike showed him the sad news. The southeast corner of Secaucus is pockmarked with small ponds, some deeper than others. The drought, which is threatening to dry up the region’s water supply, was already hard at work destroying the shallow ponds, making the numerous fish in each more vulnerable to attack. Hundreds if not thousands of small fish – fish still in the process of growing – flopped around in the shrinking water, easy prey for the opportunistic birds. Gulls swept down, devouring in quick gulps baby fish.
The county in mid-February declared a water emergency, which prohibited numerous uses of water such as washing of cars and watering of lawns in an effort to preserve the area’s drinking water. But seeing the gulls and the ponds, Bercaw realized that the drought had an even more disastrous effect on the area’s wildlife – especially the fish in these shallow ponds.
A fisherman and boater for a long as he can remember, Bercaw has long been part of Secaucus folklore for the fish tanks he kept in the window of his storefront. As owner of the Secaucus Fuel Oil on Paterson Plank Road, Bercaw was an enthusiastic fan of fish, and during the heyday of his business, he kept large lighted tanks in his storefront window that drew an audience. For a long time after he retired, he filled the storefront with tanks.
“I must have had 50 fish tanks in there,” he said.
Now he has only a handful of tanks stored in the basement of the building, which he still owns.
Seeing the slaughter of so many young fish in the Secaucus ponds moved Bercaw deeply. While not too shy to throw a hook into those ponds during warmer weather (indeed, his basement is loaded with fishing poles and other gear and he is renovating a boat behind his store that he hopes to put into the river soon), he saw the water disaster as potentially ruining the ponds forever.
With so many young fish vanishing to the hungry gulls, it would take years – if at all – for the ponds to replenish themselves, and local fishermen like himself would lose one of the great rural-like pleasures remaining in this part of the state.
The Divsion of Game and Wildlife counts fish and lobbies for legislation, but doesn’t rescue them.
Fin-tastic voyage
Bercaw, 74, decided he had to do something to help save the fish. This was no ethereal environmental issue bandied about in the scientific journals. He was watching the world change for the worse, and he knew he had to power to at least make certain his small part of the planet was saved.
With fishing nets and bucket, he went to the ponds and began to scoop up the small fish before the gulls could snatch them up. Then, he brought them back to the basement of the former Secaucus Fuel Oil store and began filling the few fish tanks he still had stored in the basement. This he’s been doing every day – although he is quickly running out of fish tanks, and if not for donations of fish food from others, he would have run out of food for them as well.
“I’m only keeping them until we get some rain,” he said. “Then I’m going to put them back into the ponds.”
Bercaw believes that if he can rescue enough small fish, he might avoid having to wait years for the fish population to regenerate.
“If we get enough rain and the ponds rise again, then I’ll put the fish back,” he said.
But his collection of fish tanks isn’t what it once was, and he is rapidly running out of room for the small fish – almost exclusively carp. He said the more fish he can get out of harm’s way, the less time it will take for the population of the ponds to recover after the drought ends.
Loans of fish tanks or donations of food, he said, would be welcome. Anyone with a spare tank or food should contact DeStefano Jewelers on Paterson Plank Road, a neighbor of his. Water worries
Mayor Dennis Elwell said water restrictions will be fully enforced now that the county has issued a drought emergency. United Water Company of Hackensack has reported plunging water levels in reservoirs servicing the area, with rainfall 14 inches below normal.
Washing of cars, garages, driveways and such will be prohibited, and so is the washing of non-commercial cars, trucks and trailers.
Car washing facilities that recycle water are permitted, Elwell said.
The town of Secaucus will also seek to get state approval to use effluent – the water left after being process through the sewerage treatment plant – to water public lawns and flowerbeds in Secaucus. Because of the high level of treatment supplied by the town’s sewerage plant, the state has permitted the activity in the past. Indeed, the town has been looking into selling the liquid to the proposed golf course in Lyndhurst.