Bernards Voices

Nature’s Eric Olson interviews Kerry Ressler’s on his research published in Nature 470, February 24, 2011:

Why do some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder, but others emerge from a horrific event relatively unscathed? A molecule involved in orchestrating the brain’s response to stress may hold the key to this difference.

Women are 30 to 50 per cent more likely to develop PTSD than men. (The interview doesn’t address the episodic nature of PTSD. I don’t believe this research tell us anything about an episode’s frequency or intensity–for example, a flashback triggered by a car back fire. Nor does it address the extent with which anxiety episodes are chronic and worsen over time. I have my own personal obsession, I guess would be the word, about whether levels of estrogen and how they change over a woman’s lifetime, impact the intensity of her anxiety or depression.)

During the interview, PTSD is mentioned often by the interviewer, but the researcher, Kerry Ressler, doesn’t seem to differentiate between PTSD, panic and generalized anxiety disorders, as well as depression. The biological factors (the protein: Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP), and its modulation by estrogen) impact fear inhibitors and stress responses independent of which anxiety disorder is being discussed. But it does appear that research was conducted on “heavily traumatized subjects,” rats, mice? Why? Because the symptoms were easier to induce and observe? Because the name PTSD is more eye-catching in headlines and grant applications?

Fast forward to minute 6:38 of the podcast:

Related transcript.
Research article abstract.

Dr. Ressler:

I don’t necessarily think that the symptoms at the final common pathway of symptoms level, there is necessarily a difference between men and women, but what we are increasingly learning about complex brain disorders is that there is probably many different ways to get to that disorder.

The Somerset Hills YMCA will be offering a 3 session Mental Health First Aid Training class to the community on Thursdays, February 23rd, March 1st & March 8th 2012 from 5:00pm-9:00pm. Participants must be able to attend all three sessions.  The cost is $75 which includes a light dinner, handbook and materials.

Mental Health First Aid is a groundbreaking, evidence based public education program that helps participants identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

Mental Health First Aid is offered in the form of an interactive 12-hour course that presents an overview of mental illness and substance use disorders in the U.S. and introduces participants to risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems, builds understanding of their impact, and overviews common treatments.

Those who take the 12-hour certification course will learn a 5-step action plan to help an individual in crisis connect with appropriate professional, peer, social, and self-help care.

This course has benefited a variety of audiences and key professions, including: primary care professionals, employers and business leaders, faith communities, school personnel and educators, state police and corrections officers, nursing home staff, mental health authorities, state policymakers, volunteers, families and the general public.

For more information on this upcoming training contact Susan Visser, Healthy Outcomes Partnership Coordinator at the Somerset Hills YMCA at svisser@somersethillsymca.org or 908-766-7898 x553

Listen to this short, 11 minute podcast, on deep brain stimulation treatment for intractable depression. These therapies were originally conceived of for the treatment of motion disorders, like Parkinson’s.
http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_110219b.mp3

This is billed as a treatment of last resort, after, for example, “the most effective” treatment, electroconvulsive therapy, fails.

I love it, when towards the end, the neurologist labels the psychiatrists involved “cheerleaders.” Everyone has their biases.

I am happy, nonetheless, that the researchers know to be focused on the long term, what they call “rehabilitation,” of chronic diseases likes depression.

From Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps, Psychology Today Making Change blog, The First Step to Meeting Your Personal Goal:

Strategies for dealing with emotions: 1. suppress/deflect, 2. minimize/deny, or:

3. Another way people try to manage their distress is by working to solve their problems intellectually. This is great when they are faced with a problem they can solve. But it becomes a problem in itself when people repetitively review a problem that has no real or clear answer.

Or worse, in my experience, you come up with a clear answer which fails. You’re seduced by your own analysis.

Leslie’s recommendation:

There is evidence that you can strengthen your ability to manage affect, much like you can strengthen a muscle. To do this, practice sitting with our emotions. Spend time allowing emotions to rise within you and then subside, which they will naturally do. With practice, you can decide when to temporarily suppress emotions or sublimate them (channeling your feelings into a healthy activity). And, the better you become at managing your feelings, the better you will also be at following through with good plans for self-improvement.

My doctor, and some close friends, recommend mindfulness meditation. Be still, my beating heart. I achieve that at the yoga studio, it is harder, in a disciplined way, to bring it into my home. Maintain a daily practice. It is even harder with the thermostat set for 61–thankfully our winter has been mild so far.

In her follow-on post, in preparation for Thanksgiving, Leslie talks about gratitude the same way.

You might find it helpful to think of the feeling of gratitude as a muscle that gets stronger with use. To this end, below are two exercises that have been scientifically found to increase gratitude.

Gratitude journal: Keep a journal each night (for at least 2 months), listing at least 3 things that you were grateful for that day.

Gratitude letter and visit: Think of someone who has been a positive influence on you at anytime in your life, but who you have not thanked. Reminisce about how the person has made your life better, and then craft a letter to say thank you, being specific about what they did and how it affected you. Then set up a time to meet with the person without telling them why. When you sit down with them, read them the letter – slowly and with emotion. Give them a chance to react and respond. And, finally, take the opportunity to continue to reminisce together about what makes them so special to you.

Heavy lifting for me. I don’t know about you.

Reading self-help advice like this often churns my stomach–that emotion stuff–but I can’t argue that daily practices like meditation or focusing on what you are grateful for, would, if I could follow them, improve my outlook, strengthen relationships. If that’s what I wanted to happen. Do I want that?

And then Leslie’s next post, this one preparing for the holidays:

The best gift you can ever give those who love you is a healthy you.

On November 9, 2011, Michael Fellman wrote on bipolar disorder for The New York Times Opinionator blog on the Civil War.

… during the first year of the war, on Nov. 9, 1861, General Sherman, paralyzed by depression, was relieved of his command in Kentucky at his own request. Five weeks later, the wire services proclaimed to the nation: GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN INSANE. Just after his participation in the Civil War had begun, Sherman’s service was nearly destroyed.

As all students of the war know, he came back and soared to prominence, but his mental collapse and his recovery, unusually well documented, present a riveting example of the understanding of depressive illness in the Victorian world, and the relationship of bipolar illness to creativity and inspired leadership during difficult times, which Sherman certainly demonstrated later in the war.

As was true of Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman’s prewar life had careened from failure to failure. But where Grant self-medicated his frustrations with drink and retreated into stoic silence, Sherman experienced erratic emotional ups and downs that he shared with his friends and family in a manner that only intensified his self-laceration.

I’m not comparing myself to either Grant or Sherman, but by loose association, my therapist yesterday told me not to chastise myself. In times like these, when there were environmental factors (looming holidays, gloomy weather, and various events (triggers) that have to do with legal matters, and organizing my house for an upcoming change (I know I’m cryptic here), that I should be kind to myself. To not expect myself to be as productive as normal. To have the confidence that I will be productive later.

Why were we using a word like productive? My therapist and I were talking in the context of my upbringing and protestant work effort. My therapist said central to that ethos was a repression of emotions. I countered, but work is good. You don’t find happiness merely through pleasure, it requires progress towards goals as well. He agreed that work was good, but again he said, be kind to yourself, your effort is not always at the same level of efficiency.

Sherman was a West Point trained officer. He didn’t participate in the Mexico wars. In California, his troops deserted him for the gold rush. He ran a bank that failed. At the start of the civil war, he resigned from the Louisiana Military Academy (a.k.a LSU), and then failed running a street car line in St. Louis. He commanded a brigade at the Union loss at Bull Run.

In mid-August, 1861, [Sherman] was assigned to be second in command of the Army of the Cumberland, in Kentucky, a slaveholding, divided state, and the key to what would become of the Western theater — and perhaps of the Union itself.

Then, on Oct. 5, his superior, Robert Anderson (the commander at Fort Sumter when the war began) resigned because of health issues, almost certainly including major depression. Three days later, Sherman replaced him. Sherman lasted a tormented month before he was removed.

Over the following weeks, Sherman’s fears only intensified, while others observed a tortured man suffering what has long been defined in psychiatric terms as intense mania. For example, two sympathetic New York journalists who shared long nights at the Louisville telegraph office with the general grew deeply alarmed by his behavior. Sherman talked incessantly while never listening, all the while repeatedly making “quick, sharp…odd gestures,” pacing the floor, chain-smoking cigars, “twitching his red whiskers — his coat buttons — playing a tattoo on the table” with his fingers. All in all he was “a bundle of nerves all strung to their highest tension.”

Sherman was relieved of his command on Nov. 8 and reassigned to a lesser post in St. Louis. When the downward spiral continued, [his wife] Ellen Sherman came to collect him on Dec. 1, for three weeks’ leave back home in Lancaster, Ohio. There she began to nurse him back to health with a rest cure, the frequently effective 19th-century therapy: favorite foods, reading him his most cherished books, especially Shakespeare, and calming him sufficiently so that he could sleep. The real cure, as in all bipolar illness, is nature: the average mood episode rarely lasts longer than six months before it goes into remission by itself.

I’m not sure mental health professionals would agree with historian Fellman’s assessment of the real cure, but this essay was reviewed by Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, professor of psychiatry and director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts University.

The Planning Board will resume hearings on the Quarry’s proposed rehabilitation plan tonight at 7:30 pm at the municipal building on Collyer Lane. JM Sorge, the Quarry’s licensed site remediation professional and the person who is likely the most knowledgeable about current and future testing at the site is scheduled to testify.

Attached are several documents which were filed by Sorge regarding filings with the DEP. All of the files should be published at www.bernards.org in the future but were not available at this time. All documents may be viewed at the Planning Board office with an appointment.

The Planning Board hearings may be viewed live at Channel 15 for Cable customers and Channel 35 for Verizon customers.

4 attachments:
20090501 MQI MOA
20090506 Comments to RAWP
20110601 NJDEP Phase II Approval
20111129 List of Documents

PB Meeting December 20

On Tuesday evening December 20 at 7:30, Planning Board testimony will resume on the Millington Quarry Rehabilitation Plan. JM Sorge, the Quarry’s hired engineer and Licensed Site Remediation Professional, will testify. Sorge is the person with information regarding the Quarry’s plans, if any, to test the rest of the site and as to the reason their testing has been limited to designated Fill Areas A, B and C.

December 6 Meeting–Proposed Need for Fill

On December 6, James Cosgrove, a principal of Omni Environmental LLC, testified for the Quarry on the proposed lake management plan. Much of the testimony related to the alleged need for 156,000 cubic yards of riprap for lake bottom and bank. The Planning Board’s environmental expert questioned the need for riprap for the lake.

Consider that the quarry has for decades deeply excavated and sold the rock that it now seeks to import.  The Quarry has profited from sales and importation.  The Quarry’s right to profit must be balanced against the negative effects on the town. And it is fair to question to what extent the amount of proposed fill is related to profit vs need.

Last week a resident wrote the following Letter to the Editor of the The Bernardsville News: Need for More Fill at Quarry called “shocking”

– Citizens for a Clean and Safe Millington Quarry

Dear Residents and Neighbors,

The Planning Board will be visiting the Quarry to view the site as part of its review of the Rehabilitation Plan currently before the Board. The public is invited to join at 9:30 am tomorrow at the Millington Quarry on Stonehouse Road. The purpose of the visit is to better understand the Quarry’s proposal for a 50 acre lake and the purported need to import 58,000 loads of fill at a rate of 150-200 trucks/day. The tour will also offer an opportunity to learn where Fill Areas A, B and C are located, which are the subject of the Quarry’s Memorandum of Agreement with the DEP to test only those areas of the quarry. Testing of those areas has revealed contamination. The DEP has required additional testing under the MOA, which is still pending to our knowledge.  No plan for remediation of contamination has been accepted by the DEP.

CCSMQ seeks testing of the entire site. Any testing of the rest of the site is now under the control of the Quarry and its agent JM Sorge as its designated licensed site remediation professional, a new statutory process which replaces DEP oversight–one to which the Township Committee and CCSMQ objected.

Citizens have questioned why the Quarry is proceeding with a Rehabilitation Plan but not a development plan, and why it is proceeding at all at this time when the DEP process is not complete and the plan for remediation of contamination has not been determined. The answer is that the Quarry cannot renew its quarry license without an approved Rehabilitation Plan. The 2008 Rehabilitation Plan, which has been the subject of litigation, has expired; hence, the litigation is stayed and the Quarry is presenting a new plan to the Planning Board. Without a quarry license, the land would be converted to two acre residential under the township ordinance and taxed accordingly. Consequently, the Quarry has decided to resume or continue mining as it claims. We hope that this background helps to understand the relevance and timing of the proceedings more fully.

Citizens have also questioned why the Township Committee or Planning Board would consider allowing any more trucks to bring in fill when the community testified extensively at the last hearings as to the diminished quality of life, pollution and danger presented by the Quarry’s heavy truck traffic, especially when the residents’ fears of contaminated soils dumped in Bernards Township were proven true. The answer to this question is that the township ordinance requires rehabilitation of the quarry site and allows for a two foot vegetative cover. The quarry seeks to import fill purportedly to fulfill the ordinance requirements and to provide fill for the proposed lake bottom. It is true that the quarry must prove that there is not enough fill on site to fulfill its requirements. The irony, however, is that some of the fill it already imported is contaminated and cannot be used for rehabilitative purposes.

Some citizens have asked for years why can’t we just put a fence around it. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea. And ultimately that question is one for the Township Committee which must balance the property rights of the quarry with the rights of the community to a clean and safe environment and a good quality of life. Residents seem to overwhelmingly agree that this can best be achieved with no more trucks dumping fill in thequarry.

The next Rehabilitation hearing is scheduled for December 6 at 7:30pm.

Citizens for a Clean and Safe Millington Quarry

Below is a letter that I have requested be distributed to each member of the Bernards Township Planning Board and staff.  I do not know today if my request will be honored.   Bill Allen,  11-18-11

November 14, 2011

To:                  Chair and Members of Bernards Township Planning  Board

Subject:           Review of New Quarry Rehabilitation Plan

Introduction:  MQI has submitted a new plan for rehabilitation of the quarry land with a lead drawing entitled “2011 Reclamation for Millington Quarry” and dated 10-13-11.   The township ordinance uses the term “rehabilitation”, and I will continue to use that term and its short version:  “rehab”. 

There follow some observations and recommendations that result from my participation in the revision of the quarry ordinance in 2001 and in the reviews of rehab plans after 2001.  

The new plan is the fourth in the series of plans that have been submitted since 2001.  It is helpful to give simple names to things.  I have named prior plans for the year in the date of the associated drawings.  These were Plan 2003, Plan 2006, and Plan 2008.  The new plan will be Plan 2011.

The term “Quarry” has previously referred to MQI and Tilcon acting together and I will continue to use that term for MQI acting alone.  PB is again short for Planning Board and TC is short for Township Committee.

1. Purpose of Rehab Plan:  The township ordinance for quarry rehabilitation states in section [4-9.5, a, 1]:  ” The purpose of rehabilitation is to return the quarry property to conditions, that are permitted by the township zoning ordinance, that do not endanger the health and safety of the public, and that do not endanger natural resources such as ground water and soil erosion.  The purpose of the rehabilitation plan … is to describe these conditions, how and when they will be met, and the costs to meet them.”

You are accustomed to reviewing applications to develop land.  You and the applicant typically adopt advisarial postures.  Perhaps you wish, as I often did when I sat on the board in the 70s, that these development applications would just go away. 

A plan for quarry rehabilitation is very different.  The township wants rehabilitation and requires a plan for carrying it out.  The township and the Quarry, who is also the owner of the land, have a common interest:  to develop the best possible rehab plan.  The outcome can be win-win. 

Members of the public, whom attorneys often call “objectors”, by their searching questions and proposals may fairly be called “facilitators”.    

2. Review Is Delegated Task:  You are accustomed to working in accordance with the state Municipal Land Use Law [MLUL].  Section [40:55D26, b] of that law states:  “The governing body may by ordinance provide for the reference of any matter or class of matters to the planning board before final action thereon by a municipal body …” 

The Bernards quarry ordinance was first adopted by the Township Committee in 1979 and then revised several times.  Resting on the provision in the MLUL, the township quarry ordinance delegates to the PB the responsibility to conduct a review of a rehab plan and to submit a report to the TC with its findings and recommendations. 

In the conduct of its review the PB works in accordance with the township ordinance.  If there is some conflict between that and your procedures for land use work, the township ordinance controls. 

The authority of the PB is limited to the conduct of the review and submission of the report.  It has no authority to approve or reject a plan.  That authority resides with the TC, and the TC has no obligation to follow, or be limited by the recommendations of the PB.  In fact, the TC action in 2005 [for Plan 2003] did not follow the PB recommendation of 2004, and the TC action in 2008 went beyond the PB recommendation of 2008. 

In making its decision, the TC will probably rely on substantial parts of the record that the PB develops during the plan hearings.  It follows that this record should be relevant and as broad and as deep as possible.    

3. New Plan, New Review, New Record:  Some current board members participated in some of the hearings for other rehab plans.  Some did not.  Same for members of the public.  Plan 2011 is a new plan and you are conducting a new review.  Nothing in the records from prior reviews should carry any weight in the review of the new plan before it is entered as new testimony and made part of the new record.

4. Hearing May Prompt Plan Changes:  Ordinance section [4-9.5, a, 2] contains a key provision:  “In the course of the hearing, the planning board may recommend changes in the plan and the applicant may agree to these and amend the plan accordingly.” 

If you spot a flaw midway thru the presentation of the plan, you may move to get that flaw fixed.  If the flaw is critical, you may adjourn the hearings until it is corrected.   

5. Public Questioning of Witnesses Is Essential:  Ordinance section [4-9.5, a, 2] contains this statement for the rehab plan review:  “The Planning Board shall conduct the hearing and follow regular practices used for development applications. These shall include testimony under oath and the opportunity for members of the public to question witnesses and submit testimony.”

During its review of Plan 2003 the PB allowed members of the public to question a witness after board members had finished their questions.  This worked well.  The review of Plan 2008 was hurried by a court deadline.  The PB did not allow regular questioning and did not receive some potentially valuable input.  In the review of Plan 2011 it is essential that the board return to the letter and the spirit of the township ordinance and allow regular questioning of witnesses by the public.

6. Questioning of Witness Within Area of Expertise:  I have observed local land use boards off and on since 1972.  Common practice is to allow members of the public to ask questions that are relevant to the case and fall within the area of expertise of the witness.  They are not restricted to the testimony already given by the witness. 

Example:  Traffic engineers for a developer always provide analyses of traffic during peak hours in their reports and opening testimony.  Residents are usually interested in the traffic at other times:  when children are coming home from school, or when they are out walking or jogging, or when they just want peace and quiet near their homes.  Questions about this non-peak hour traffic are allowed.

7. Public Testimony:  The ordinance language in Section 5 above says that members of the public shall be allowed to “submit testimony”.  It does not say that they have to qualify first as experts in the subjects they are addressing.

Example:  A common complaint in development applications is that nearby real estate values will decline.  A land use board allows members of the public to assert this in their testimony, even though they are not qualified as experts in real estate appraisal.  Board members may not assign much weight to the testimony, but the board does allow it.

All public testimony must be allowed, so long as it is relevant and not repetitious.

8. Reports:  It is common practice for a professional witness to submit a report before his [or her] planned oral testimony.  Copies are distributed to board members and staff and made available for public review.  Interested persons may review the report and prepare the questions they intend to ask of the witness when he appears before the board.  When the witness does appear, his whole report is entered into the record, even though his oral testimony may cover only a small part of its content.  This practice works well.   

Members of the public should be allowed to submit reports in advance of their testimony for distribution and review in the same way as those from professional witnesses.

Wrapup:  Thank you for considering these comments and recommendations.

Bill Allen                  

The Quarry’s proposed Rehabilitation Plan has been posted on the Township website. You may click on this link Millington Quarry Reclamation Documents or go to www.bernards.org and scroll down under “News” to access the documents.

Please note that the Planning Board hearings on the Plan will be held potentially November 22, not sooner. Always check the Planning Board agenda on line before the scheduled meeting.

Citizens for a Clean and Safe Millington Quarry