Letter writer Deborah Post needn't worry that the Indiana bat and the wood turtle, two threatened species who depend on Highlands habitat, are getting preferential treatment through the Highlands Act.

Clearly, the favored endangered species of the Highlands Council are the deep-pocketed developers and property rights advocates, who have successfully lobbied for such a weak regional master plan that it bears little relation to the act itself. The act was intended to protect water quality and quantity, but the plan has veered in another direction.

One need look no further than the plan's conditional water availability analysis, which creates an imaginary water supply where current shortages exist, to see that promoting growth is the focus of the new plan. Existing community zones, placed as development zones over sensitive wetlands and constrained areas throughout the preservation area are another loophole designed to allow more growth.

And in a nod to local officials, the plan now allows municipal horse trading to move more and more land into growth areas.

The Highlands Council heard Post and the property rights advocates loud and clear. It's the rest of us they have ignored. I'm disappointed that those council members supposedly looking out for our water supplies -- Freeholders Jack Schrier, Tahesha Way, and Elizabeth Calabrese -- would support such a plan.

ROBIN O'HEARN

Ringwood

The writer is executive director of Skylands CLEAN, Inc.