News from Skylands CLEAN, Inc.

Highlands final plan debated as vote nears

Environmentalists demand changes

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

BY PAULA SAHA

Star-Ledger Staff

Environmentalists continued to criticize the Highlands regional master plan yesterday, with the leaders of three environmental groups saying they would oppose the adoption of the plan next month unless major changes are made.

Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel said his organization would not only oppose adoption of the plan -- a long-awaited blueprint for future development and preservation in much of northern New Jersey -- but also would ask the governor to veto it. It would also take legal action over parts it feels feel undermine the Highlands Act, he said.

Ross Kushner, executive director of the Pequannock River Coalition, agreed. He said the regional master plan would "open the door" to development that the Highlands Act was to have prohibited.

Robin O'Hearn, executive director of Skylands CLEAN said her group "would rather rely on the (state) rules as they stand right now."

But Eileen Swan, executive director of the Highlands Council, called those assertions "completely ungrounded ... Any provisions we have ... are stricter than even the (state) regulations."

The environmental community is unconvinced and detailed a litany of complaints yesterday at a press event hosted by the New Jersey Highlands Coalition at Split Rock Reservoir in Rockaway Township. Coalition Executive Director Julia Somers said her group had yet to take a stance on whether or not the plan should pass next month, but had numerous concerns.

The Highlands is a 1,250-square-mile region that stretches through Passaic, Bergen, Morris, Sussex, Warren, Somerset and Hunterdon counties and provides drinking water to more than half of the state's population.

For years, environmentalists and scientists argued steady development was threatening the water supply. In 2004, Gov. James E. McGreevey and the state Legislature passed the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, imposing restriction on development in much of the area. The act created the Highlands Council, which would draft the master plan that is due to be adopted on July 17.

Environmentalists hailed the passage of the act as a major step forward, but their support for the council has waned. Chief among their grievances are proposed policies they say would allow development to continue in areas that have water deficits and zones essential for recharging aquifers. They also are protesting proposed policies that would allow development on farmland if it clusters on one part of a property.

Marion Harris, chairman of the Morris County Trust for Historic Preservation, also lamented the lack of attention to protecting historical resources in the current draft of the plan.

Swan noted that a number of the environmentalists' concerns have not yet been settled by the council, and that the panel was listening. For example, she said, the criteria for allowing development in an area where there is already a water shortage have been tightened up. Under policies currently proposed, she said, a town has to prove it can return more water to the ground than it will take out, and in some cases, towns have to actually redress the shortages before receiving any approvals.

The concern over aquifer recharge areas was also being re-examined, she said, as are concerns about the concentration of pollutants in groundwater.

Still, Kushner said there was clearly a divide in the council, with some members standing up for environmental issues, while others -- such as Vice Chairman and Morris County Freeholder Jack Schrier -- listened to the concerns of developers.

"I'm listening to everybody, and everyone on the Highlands Council is listening to everybody, which is how it should be," Schrier said yesterday. "What we are doing is following the law. The act does not want a prohibition of all development in all the Highlands."

Paula Saha may be reached at (973) 539-7910 or psaha@starledger.com.