India Brook Mendham:

[AndyS]

B.C. got a call from one of our members that was hiking along India Brook in Mendham Twp. earlier today. He came across what is clearly an illegal diversion in a C-1 wild trout stream. I took these photos and others and called in to WARN-DEP and got case # 1909-30-1227-17 and DEP Enforcement is alerted and looking into it.
Before B.C. left, a black pickup truck came down a dirt road on the other side where lots of fresh, new No Trespassing signs have been placed and he was shouting to me from across the river. I explained I was on the phone with the DEP because what I was seeing was multiple clear violations of NJ laws. Long story short, he knows he's screwed and while he denied even having any heavy equipment on site, I could hear an excavator working maybe 200 feet into the woods. Tree removal, illegal diversion ditch, fill in NJ Open Waters, working without proper DEP Land Use Regulation permits, without county soil conservation district permits, and doing all of this in a C-1 trout stream with spawning trout closures between September 15 and March 15. That's just for starters. The bridge abutments are historic as well.....