 |
THE BATTLE TO SAVE THE HIGHLANDS - 6 June, 2004
By JOHN SULLIVAN
RINGWOOD
WENKE TAULE, mayor of this small Highlands town, pointed
across West Brook Road to her proudest accomplishment. A
few hundred yards away, a sloping green hillside met the
broad mirror surface of the Wanaque Reservoir.
The hillside was empty, and that was her point.
"This is
where they wanted to put the development," said Ms. Paul, a
former exercise instructor. "Right next to the reservoir.
Can you believe it?"
For generations, the New Jersey Highlands, a band of low
mountains and steep valleys stretching from Hunterdon
County northeast to the New York border that is home to
800,000 people, was the type of wild place that people
concentrated on taming. Farms replaced forests in the
valleys, dams trapped billions of gallons of water to
quench the thirst of distant cities, and tremendous
highways were carved into the mountains. But in the last
few years, attitudes have changed; many people now take
satisfaction in what is not built, rather than what is.
Not long ago Governor McGreevey - wrapping his arms around
several large issues that he hopes will carry him through
to re-election - came out with a sweeping plan to preserve
about 540,000 acres of this relatively pristine slice of
New Jersey. To do that, he wants to limit development
sharply in a 395,000-acre swath, called the preservation
area, and allow building in the remaining 145,000 acres on
the periphery. His proposal did no less than fan the
smoldering argument over the future of the Highlands into a
roaring political blaze.
Developers, landowners and others with an interest in
building in the mountain valleys declared that the governor
had gone too far. They mustered their considerable
political strength and - with the help of South Jersey
legislators who wanted to know what they could expect in
return for their support - trapped the governor's plan in a
Senate committee.
Environmentalists, no less combative but with considerably
less money and influence in the State House corridors, sent
pickets to one recalcitrant legislator's house and issued
screaming statements to the press intended to stiffen Mr.
McGreevey's resolve.
As for the governor, he was in Canada visiting his daughter
for much of the fight, and when he returned just days
before the Memorial Day weekend, furious deal-making
ensued. By last week, it seemed likely that a plan would
move forward, although a vote is not scheduled until June
14. Robert G. Smith, a Democrat from Piscataway who is the
plan's sponsor in the State Senate, said Governor McGreevey
would get his preservation plan in exchange for making it
easier for builders to receive permits from state
environmental regulators. The Assembly has already approved
the measure.
But judging by the grumbling at the end of last week, no
one was completely happy with the proposed bargain struck
by the governor and his legislative opponents.
"Of course, the devil is in the details in these kinds of
proposals," said Barbara Lawrence, executive director of
New Jersey Future, a state planning group. "But we have
been very supportive at the general level, of efforts that
would make it easier to build in places where we want it to
occur."
For their part, environmentalists worry that they have
opened the door to more development in the rest of the
state, while builders still pine for the mansions with
majestic vistas that could be carved into the mountainside.
But supporters of the Highlands say the compromise is worth
it. An undeveloped area that attracts more annual
vacationers than Yellowstone National Park will remain
semi-wild, and reservoirs that supply water to more than
half of the state's residents will be protected.
"Preserving the Highlands, on its own merits, is something
New Jersey must do," said Senator Smith, who is chairman of
the Senate Environment Committee. "The fact that it has
stimulated other discussions and other ideas is not a bad
thing."
Home of Skyline Drive
Skyline Drive wraps itself over one of the highest
ridgelines in the state, and cruising along the dips and
turns of the road, it is hard to imagine you are still in
New Jersey. Most of the state is covered with plains and
rolling hills, but this area, in northern Passaic County,
is dark forest and steep mountains. It is an offshoot of
the Appalachian mountain range that geologists call the
Reading Prong, and it runs from central Pennsylvania,
through the Hudson highlands and into northwestern
Connecticut.
The New Jersey Highlands was home to one of the country's
first iron mines, and many of the original settlers of
towns like Ringwood and West Milford were miners. The
mountains are also supposed to be rich in uranium, although
no one is seriously mining that.
But it is water - which fills the taps of about 4.5 million
of the state's residents - that is the real treasure. Many
of the state's small rivers originate in the mountains, and
the deep and narrow valleys provided perfect locations for
engineers to build the state's great reservoirs - the
Wanaque and the Monksville in the northeast, the Spruce Run
and Round Valley in the west. They are all connected
through a steel web of pipes and valves with the state's
most populous areas: Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth,
Patterson and nearly all the teeming suburbs in between.
For years, this was an ideal arrangement; the Highlands
were isolated and the water, at least at its origin, was
clean. But the construction of such highways as Interstates
80 and 287 brought new development into the mountains, and
that means runoff polluting streams and concrete covering
watersheds.
In 1992, the United States Forest Service issued a report
warning that increasing development threatened the state's
water supply. In response, the state took relatively small
steps to correct the problem, primarily by buying tracts of
land bordering the reservoirs.
But 10 years later the service updated its report and
repeated its dire warnings. Marcus Phelps, who wrote the
report, said his study showed that 3,000 to 5,000 acres of
the Highlands were being developed every year. From 1995 to
2000, the Highlands lost 17,000 acres of forest and 8,000
acres of farmland. Furthermore, the report noted that only
about half the land considered crucial for protection of
the water supply had been preserved from development.
"The more building, the more change that occurs, puts more
stress on the ecosystem, both those that humans depend on
and those that wildlife depend on," Mr. Phelps said in a
recent interview.
For years, environmental groups had complained about the
encroaching development in the Highlands. The New Jersey
Audubon Society, which has a preserve in Ringwood, warned
about the loss of habitat for wildlife, particularly for
migratory bird species.
Eric Stiles, vice president for conservation at the
society, said building had "had a devastating effect" on
such species as the golden winged warbler and the red
shouldered hawk.
But state officials really began to take notice when water
company officials - often seen as business people first and
conservationists second - began making dire pronouncements
about the state of the water supply.
Colleen DeStefano, deputy executive director of the North
Jersey District Water Supply Commission, said in a recent
interview that if development was not curtailed in the
Highlands, the cost of treating water would increase $30
billion over the next 50 years, driving up the cost of
treating water four-fold.
"This small amount of land supplies half the state's
drinking water," she said. "You just can't replace that.
There is no place else to go."
Confronted with that warning, in September 2003 the
governor appointed a 19-member commission - made up of
environmentalists, state regulators, local officials and
builders - with Bradley M. Campbell, the state's
commissioner of environmental protection, as its chairman.
Mr. Campbell said the group quickly realized that drastic
measures were needed.
"If we don't achieve the protection, it is going to
compromise both the water quantity and the water quality,"
Mr. Campbell said. "Preserving the Highlands is not only
environmentally the right thing to do, but from a
cost-benefit analysis, it is the rational thing to do."
But he said there was a major roadblock: state officials
did not have the legal authority to protect drinking water
supplies, and there was no regulation preventing new
developments on the steep slopes above the reservoirs.
Developers Balk
In March, the panel recommended sharply
limiting development in the Highlands with only one
dissenting vote - that of Joe Riggs, the regional president
of one of the state's largest builders, K. Hovanian
Companies, and past president of the New Jersey Builders
Association.
Those recommendations formed the basis for legislation that
was embraced by the governor and subsequently proposed by
Senator Smith. The 101-page plan is extremely complicated
in its detail but simple in its broad concept: large-scale
development would be virtually banned from the 395,000-acre
preservation area that is crucial to the water supply and
the region's wildlife, with the exception of small projects
like additions to existing houses. For towns forced to
forgo development, the state would provide money over the
next 10 years to ease the pressures on these municipalities
to raise taxes. While it is not clear how much this would
cost the state, sponsors of the legislation place the price
tag at $10 million a year.
In the remaining 145,000 acres - land in the Highlands that
is peripheral to the preservation area - the state would
encourage development. For example, a town that agreed to
permit more building would be more likely to receive state
grants for public projects.
"We wanted to protect the water supply," Senator Smith
said, "but we also wanted to make sure the people in the
Highlands felt they were fairly treated."
Senator Smith said the builders' organizations had made
their opposition clear to him as well as other members of
his committee. He dismisses such opposition as thinking of
the short term. "Nobody is opposed to growth," he said,
"but you have to have the water to provide for it."
'Supply and Demand'
"People need a place to live," John
Barba, the current president of the New Jersey Builders
Association, said as he stood outside a new townhouse
development in Morristown, on the eastern edge of the
Highlands. Behind him, crews were applying the finishing
touches to rows of brick and clapboard town houses
clustered along Morris Avenue. Even with the work going on,
people were moving in, carrying furniture past the workers.
To Mr. Barba, this type of development is too rare in the
Highlands. In fact, he said that from a sales standpoint,
the wall-enclosed complex - with units selling for $300,000
to $400,000 - was better suited to the Highlands rather
than on a small grassy hill hard by traffic whizzing along
on I-287.
"It is supply and demand," he said.
Not surprisingly, people often like to cast developers as
greedily paving over woods and forests to line their own
pockets, but it is not that simple. New Jersey already has
a scarcity of housing and, as Mr. Barba noted, restricting
the land that builders can use only compounds the problem.
In part, scarcity helps drive up the value of the remaining
land, forcing developers to concentrate on high-end
housing.
"The average price of housing in this state is approaching
$500,000," he said.
To Jarrod Grasso, vice president of the New Jersey
Association of Realtors, buying a house in the state is
becoming too expensive for many families. And though he
agreed with the state's desire to protect its water supply
and preserve the wild areas of the Highlands, he said Mr.
McGreevey needed to do more to allow for development in
other areas.
"We need to see more of a balance between preservation and
growth," he said. "People need affordable housing. Let's
give it to them, and let's give it to them in the
Highlands."
Builders made their objections to the governor's plan known
early; at least one of the eight public hearings on the
preservation area was flooded with developers and their
supporters.
But the real battle came in the Legislature, where the
builders and their allies hoped to lock the bill up in
crucial committees. They soon got their chance. Stephen M.
Sweeney, a Democrat from Gloucester County, who is vice
chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, opposed the
bill from the start because he said it was unfair to South
Jersey residents, who would see little benefit from
preserving the Highlands.
In exchange for his support in moving the bill out of
committee, Senator Sweeney demanded that the governor
promise funds to help South Jersey towns that experienced
record growth after Gov. Brendan E. Byrne issued an
executive order to protect the New Jersey Pinelands in
1979. That act, like the proposed Highlands measure,
directed growth toward towns outside the core preservation
area.
The governor's representatives quickly agreed to supply
about $2 million a year to help towns like Egg Harbor,
which has strained under explosive growth.
But Mr. Sweeney still resisted, and by late last week he
had not signed on to the governor's proposal. In a recent
interview, he added yet another concern, saying he was not
certain that towns in the Highlands would be sufficiently
compensated for lost taxes.
Because the negotiations have taken place largely behind
closed doors, the twists and turns in the talks are
unclear. In interviews, people familiar with the bargaining
say that Mr. Sweeney is holding out for changes that will
make it easier for developers to receive environmental
permits throughout the state, and that the governor's
office has proposed easing the permit process but only for
projects planned in urban areas.
For his part, Mr. Sweeney denied any connection between the
two issues, and the governor's office declined to comment
on the status of negotiations.
At the same time, environmentalists have been watching this
issue closely, and with growing concern. Jeff Tittel,
director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said
the governor was "allowing legislators to set the builders'
agenda and using the Highlands to do it."
Despite the sniping, the governor said he felt confident of
a successful conclusion.
"There is a growing recognition of the inevitability of the
passage of the Highlands legislation," Mr. McGreevey said
in an interview. "We all, Republicans and Democrats,
recognize the importance of protecting our drinking water."
Will He Bypass the Legislature?
Mr. McGreevey would not talk about specifics of the
negotiations, or whether he would be willing to compromise
on environmental regulations to secure passage of the
Highlands plan. But the governor did say he would not agree
to anything that "would weaken environmental protection."
If necessary, Mr. McGreevey has threatened to work around
the Legislature, something that two of his predecessors
have done to enact sweeping environmental measures.
Governor Byrne issued his order protecting the Pinelands,
and in 1987 Gov. Thomas H. Kean imposed an executive order
limiting building on wetlands.
Governor McGreevey says he is reluctant to take that step,
insisting that the Legislature should commit to the idea of
sharply limiting development of the Highlands. But he says
he will do so if there is no alternative.
For now, he is clinging to the belief that the Senate will
act.
"If necessary, an executive order will be signed," Mr.
McGreevey said. But he added that "the momentum, from my
perspective, is moving in the right direction."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/nyregion/thecity/06NJ.html?ex=1087632527&ei=1&en=507ee5bea640ca70
BACK
BACK TO TOP
|
|
|
|
A View for Generations
Palisades Interstate
Park System
MAP
Bear Mountain
Attractions
MAP
Bear Mountain
Suggested Hikes
MAP
|
|
