Juneteenth
After becoming a federal holiday two years ago, Juneteenth will be observed on Monday, June 19, with many people having a day off work tomorrow, Friday June 16, which is 2023’s federally recognized date of observation.
For millions of non-Black Americans, observance of this holiday may still be very new. Juneteenth is a celebration of June 19, 1865, the date that a Union Army general arrived in Galveston, Texas to inform enslaved African Americans that the Civil War had ended, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and they were free.
Though it has been celebrated across the country for more than 150 years, the bill designating the holiday wasn’t signed into law until 2021. President Joe Biden approved the legislation on the week of Juneteenth that year; with limited time between the signing of the bill and the actual holiday in 2021, 2022 was the first year that much of the country recognized Juneteenth, June 19, as a federal holiday.
In Livingston, township offices will be closed tomorrow, Friday, June 16, in observation of Juneteenth. We at the Tribune will also close our offices in observance. Because it is a federal holiday, banks, post offices, the stock market, and several other businesses and services will also be closed to end the week. Not all states granted their employees days off. According to reports, fewer than half of states recognize Juneteenth as a paid day off for workers; we are proud that New Jersey is one of them.
On Monday, June 19, Livingston’s Committee for Diversity and Inclusion will hold a flag raising at Town Hall at 6 p.m. Speakers from the NAACP and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice are also expected to talk during the event. We hope many in the community choose to attend.
Rough Weather
It has been an interesting few weeks of weather, to put it mildly. To start the month, we had a multi-day heat wave, pushing temperatures into the 90s with a heat index pushing 100 degrees.
Last week, the Tri-State area turned practically apocalyptic for a few days, as smoke from Canadian wildfires resulted in several days of unsafe air quality in the region; tiny pieces of soot from the smoke of the fires filled the skies. Outdoors, during daytime hours, the horizon looked nearly orange and the air smelled and tasted like a campfire.
The elderly, young children, and those with lung issues were urged to stay indoors, though the faint smell of smoke was even apparent inside at the height of it. Some sporting events were even canceled.Air quality was considered “very unhealthy” for a sustained period of time, and at points last week, the New York City area had the most unhealthy air quality in the entire world.
Making all of these matters worse, of course, is a severe lack of rain.
While too early in the season to reach drought conditions, experts have classified New Jersey as abnormally dry. With significantly less rain than we typically receive in spring (prior to the typically drier summer months), we are likely to reach drought conditions some time over the next few months, unless steady rain is on the horizon. Forecasts do not show this to be the case.
The effects of this lack of rain are already apparent. Walking past Littell’s Pond earlier this week, we can never recall it looking drier in spring. Lawns look as yellow as they typically do at the end of August.
Is this all abnormal, or is it simply the new normal? All of the above weather related phenomena can be explained through our changing climate. So, as strange as this all seems, they may just be new seasonal events.
As the days get hotter and stay dry, we also anticipate the now annual pleas to be mindful of our water use. It must be stressed that water is a limited resource. It’s easy to forget this when we can turn on a faucet and enjoy a seemingly endless supply of it. But the fact of the matter is, our supply of water is not endless. And it never will be. Livingston, along with the rest of New Jersey, is continuing to grow. Every year, more and more people move into the area, including our own community. We all need water for drinking, bathing, cooking, washing clothes and dishes, flushing toilets, and many other everyday activities. As the population continues to grow, so do demands on our water supply.
Lawn watering is the single greatest drain on our water supply. According to water department officials, watering lawns actually doubles the amount of water the community uses. Consider that for a moment: half of all of our potable water does not get utilized for drinking, washing, or even filling our swimming pools; it gets dumped on grass. Livingston has a mandatory threedays- per-week restriction on lawn watering. More information, including the days residents are allowed to water their lawns, may be found at livingstonnj.org/lawnwatering.
