Delaware Bay

LOWER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Authorities were trying to determine if remains found on a Delaware Bay beach yesterday are human. A woman out walking found the remains, which were "pretty decayed" and will be sent to the Southern Regional Medical Examiner's Office for study, Lower Township police said. The Cape May County Prosecutor's Office and township police cordoned off the site and conducted a detailed search of the area, but no more remains were found. - AP

Harold H. Haskin, 87, a scientist, a retired Rutgers University professor, and an internationally recognized expert on oysters and clams, died of pneumonia Sunday at his home in Cape May Court House, N.J.. As a scientist, Mr. Haskin was known for his research on oyster biology. His breeding program produced disease-resistant oysters and helped stop the massive deaths of the shellfish in and around the Delaware Bay. As a teacher, Mr. Haskin was known for combining the classroom and the outdoors.

All day Wednesday, customers coming into Ben Budd's bait-and-tackle shop in Cape May County marveled at the thousands of dead menhaden they had seen along the Delaware Bay shoreline. By late afternoon, the state Department of Environmental Protection had announced that it was investigating what it termed a "major" washup of dead fish. Officials reported that the swath of dead menhaden - a small bait fish also known as peanut bunker - extended along seven to eight miles of shoreline from Kimbles Beach in Middle Township south to Villas in Lower Township, including an area known as Pierces Point.

Fenton Anderson, 84, the dean of the Delaware Bay oystermen, died Tuesday at South Jersey Hospital Systems/Bridgeton Division. Born in Bivalve, he was a lifelong resident of Port Norris, both in Cumberland County. Mr. Anderson was the retired captain of the 65-foot schooner Martha Meerwald and was the former owner of the Washburn and Anderson Oyster Co. He began oystering in 1934 as a young man in his 20s, but he had worked in the industry his entire life. His father and grandfather had both been oystermen.

A tanker carrying 45.7 million gallons of oil ran aground on a sand shoal in the Delaware Bay about four miles off shore from here early yesterday morning. No leaking had occurred as of late yesterday afternoon, but state emergency workers were on standby as U.S. Coast Guard and state environmental officials planned to lighten the ship's cargo load and set it afloat around midnight. The Notos, chartered by Chevron Corp. and sailing under the Liberian flag, was bound for the Chevron refinery in Philadelphia from Aruba when it anchored about 25 miles north of Lewes, Del. for lightering - the siphoning of some of its oil onto smaller barges so that the ship can navigate the shallower waters of the upper Delaware Bay and River.

A sudden squall on the Delaware Bay yesterday morning capsized at least a dozen small fishing boats, killing one boater and injuring several others, according to New Jersey State Police marine officers. The body of Paul Bartschat, 54, of West Orange, N.J., was found in the bay near Egg Island Point about 5:40 p.m., marine officers said, six hours after the squall capsized his boat. The storm, packing 40 m.p.h. winds and kicking up 8- to 10-foot waves, struck about 11 a.m. and lasted a half-hour, police Sgt. Richard Keller said.

There are trees at the end of a fingertip of land that juts into the Delaware Bay near here - cedar trees mostly - that, at this time of year when the wind is blowing from the northwest, wear full orange beards of monarch butterflies. This is a spectacle Peter Dunne will share only with those he trusts. You have to promise not to tell where the trees are. A woman once asked him where the butterfly trees were and, before answering, he thought to ask her why she wanted to know.

The A.J. Meerwald/Clyde A. Phillips is a wreck without ever having run aground. And no wonder. In its 66 years, it has gone from sail to full power, from oyster schooner to wartime fireboat, back to oystering on the Delaware Bay and on to clamming in the Chesapeake, where old age finally caught up with the craft in the 1970s. Then, it just . . . sat. For nearly 15 years. And, quite literally, rotted. "Rumor has it the pumps were going the whole way" when they towed what was left of the boat back up the Delaware Bay five years ago, said cultural historian Michael Chiarappa, 35, of Audubon.

Harriet Honigfeld, to let you know what she and her people like about southern New Jersey, brings you here to the Manumuskin River where, in a powerboat slipping quietly against a falling tide, you pass between lush green banks, home to several nesting osprey, green and great blue herons and, at the water's edge, sensitive joint vetch, an endangered plant with tiny yellow flowers. She takes you to a Woodstown recreational area, behind which are a cornfield and the jungle-thick vegetation of a stream, the headwaters to the Salem River.

Owners of a Dutch-registered container ship have agreed to take over the cleanup costs for Tuesday's oil spill in the Delaware Bay, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard said its investigation into the source of the leak is still being conducted, but the 340-foot Bermuda Islander is a "vessel of interest," Petty Officer John Edwards said yesterday. The ship departed from Salem, N.J., on Monday and is now docked in Bermuda. Edwards said the Coast Guard went there to collect oil samples from the ship for testing.

With the summer tourist season unofficially kicking off, it isn't just shoobies and snowbirds converging on the Jersey Shore. The annual invasion of horseshoe crabs, those ancient mariners who each spring make their way to beaches along the Delaware Bay to spawn, is in full swing. Worldwide, there are four species of horseshoe crabs, though in this area we're most acquainted with Limulus polyphemus , those familiar yet funky-looking creatures sometimes called living fossils. Horseshoe crabs are among those animals that almost defy explanation - not even a crustacean, they're closer cousins to scorpions and fleas than a lobster or blue crab, and can live more than 20 years.

It's a go for deepening 102 miles of the Delaware River navigation channel an additional five feet to allow for bigger ships and commerce, a judge in Delaware has ruled. U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson, who in January allowed the $300 million deepening to start along an 11-mile stretch south of Wilmington, also retained control by enjoining future aspects until further order of the court. On Wednesday, she lifted that injunction, ruled that the entire project could proceed, and denied a motion by the State of Delaware and environmental groups seeking a stay of future dredging of the river from 40 to 45 feet between Philadelphia and the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

The dramatic - and undoubtedly smelly - fish kill on Delaware Bay this month wasn't an effect of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as some readers posited. Or a sign of cataclysmic climate change. The deaths of thousands of menhaden that washed onto the bayshore of Cape May County were most likely the unfortunate result of steady winds, ocean movements, and even the science of flat soda pop. When the fish kill happened on Aug. 11, conditions were unusual but not unexpected, said University of Delaware oceanographer Matt Oliver, who's part of a group that monitors ocean conditions.

All day Wednesday, customers coming into Ben Budd's bait-and-tackle shop in Cape May County marveled at the thousands of dead menhaden they had seen along the Delaware Bay shoreline. By late afternoon, the state Department of Environmental Protection had announced that it was investigating what it termed a "major" washup of dead fish. Officials reported that the swath of dead menhaden - a small bait fish also known as peanut bunker - extended along seven to eight miles of shoreline from Kimbles Beach in Middle Township south to Villas in Lower Township, including an area known as Pierces Point.

Special Events A Taste of Northern Liberties Neighborhood history & tasting tour. W. Girard St.; 1-800-979-3370. www.zerve.com/PhillyFoods/NoLibs . $38. Closes 8/1. House Tours 19th-century home of the Rosenbach brothers. Ongoing. Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2008-10 Delancey Pl.; 215-732-1600. Included in admission. Rodin Museum Public Tours Commissioned by theater magnate Jules Mastbaum in 1926, this building is home to one of the largest Rodin collections in the world.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania announced recently that it was officially worried about the prospect of drought. The atmosphere must have taken it personally. For the fourth time in five days, heavy rain pounded parts of the region, turning Delaware County river towns into water parks, forcing evacuations in northern Delaware, and closing busy roads in South Jersey in time for the evening commute. The slow-motion afternoon storm deposited more than 1.75 inches at Philadelphia International Airport, where more rain has fallen in the last five days than in the previous 74. More than 3.5 inches was measured in Pennsauken.

Capt. Meredith Austin is the first female commander of the U.S. Coast Guard of the Delaware Bay based in Philadelphia. Austin, on the job since June, is responsible for everything that happens on water between Harrisburg and 200 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, from the Shark River near Asbury Park to Cape May, and all of Delaware. She oversees 756 Coast Guard members in 22 stations and on five Coast Guard cutters. The job of the Coast Guard is "very much firehouse," she says.

In what could be another blow to the long-delayed deepening of the Delaware River, U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators have restricted an annual federal appropriation for the project, seen as a boon to the region's economy and ports. But Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) and Pennsylvania port officials said yesterday that the measure would not block the dredging from the current 40 feet to 45 feet once the Army Corps of Engineers decides to begin. The appropriations bill still must be approved by the full House and Senate.

A new obstacle emerged yesterday in the epic battle over whether to dredge the Delaware River shipping channel, deepening it to 45 feet from 40, even as the project seems about to begin. Delaware environmental officials denied a permit the Army Corps of Engineers was seeking. It had applied for permission in 2001. Critics of the dredging characterized the denial as a major stumbling block, but supporters said the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, could proceed without Delaware's approval for the project.

A new obstacle emerged yesterday in the epic battle over whether to dredge the Delaware River shipping channel, deepening it to 45 feet from 40, even as the project seems about to begin. Delaware environmental officials denied a permit the Army Corps of Engineers was seeking. It had applied for permission in 2001. Critics of the dredging characterized the denial as a major stumbling block, but supporters said the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, could proceed without Delaware's approval for the project.