Slowly but surely, the Hackensack River is getting healthier, but there’s more work to be done.
    Those are the findings of the first-ever “State of the Hackensack River” review compiled for Earth Day, based on studies by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission’s scientific arm, the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute, which has monitored water quality in the river for 16 years.
     MERI has been monitoring the percentages of dissolved oxygen in the Hackensack River each season since 1993, and has found that the water quality of has improved significantly.
   Dissolved-oxygen levels – a key to sustaining aquatic life – have increased by 11 percent over that time. MERI now continually takes the river’s pulse through solar-powered water-quality monitoring stations located at four sites along the Hackensack year-round.
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