Monday, March 26, 2007
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER
Call it a down payment. That's how legislators and environmental activists see the $1.98 million for preservation of the water-generating Highlands that the federal government allocated last week.
"It's a good beginning. This opens the door to another source of funding for the New Jersey Highlands," Ringwood Borough Councilman Bill O'Hearn said Friday. O'Hearn, who is the conservation director at the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, said some of that money is earmarked to help preserve forest land near the Wanaque Reservoir in Ringwood and West Milford.
"We need a lot more federal dollars coming in," O'Hearn said of the conservation effort locally and across the region. "We hope this is the start of it."
In the 2004 Highlands Conservation Act, Congress and President Bush authorized $100 million over 10 years for conservation buyouts in the Highlands region that stretches from Pennsylvania through New Jersey and New York to Connecticut. The mountain region provides drinking water to millions of residents in the four states.
"Signing the Highlands Conservation Act into law was a milestone for preserving this region's open space and drinking water supplies," said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, the author of the legislation. "Implementation of the law is under way, and even with very limited resources this year, the Highlands still received vital funding."
Last year, the governors of the four states sent the federal Interior Department a list of conservation projects totaling $10 million. The Wyanokie Highlands in Ringwood and West Milford were at the top of New Jersey's list.
New York listed Arrow Park, adjacent to Sterling Forest, and the Great Swamp in Putnam and Dutchess counties. Connecticut sought funds for Litchfield Farms and Towner Hill. Oley Hills topped Pennsylvania's list.
O'Hearn said New Jersey's portion of the federal allocation is for preservation projects along the wooded ridges west of the Wanaque Reservoir, an area that local residents call the Wyanokie Highlands. These projects include Saddle Mountain, a 424-acre tract in Ringwood and West Milford owned by a rock quarrying company, and a nearby tract where a developer sought to build housing on steep slopes with streams that flow to the reservoir.
In both cases, O'Hearn said, a buyout funding package is being put together that includes state and, potentially, Passaic County and municipal open-space funds.
E-mail: barry@northjersey.com
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Public comment period extended
The public comment period for the Highlands draft master plan to protect North Jersey's water-generating lands has been extended by five weeks.
The governments of the seven counties in the Highlands region requested more time to review the draft plan after receiving additional data from the Highlands Council, said council spokeswoman Patricia Sly. She said the last day to submit comments has been extended from April 2 to May 11. No more extensions were planned, she added.
The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act of 2004 was meant to protect water-generating lands, while allowing for some further development in less environmentally sensitive areas.
The regional effort has initially been divided into two zones, a Planning Area allowing for significant development if the community allows it, and a Preservation Area, which severely curtails development. The draft master plan proposes expanding the initial Preservation Area into the Planning Area and adding a third area, a Conservation Zone for farming, and extending protected status to some lands in the Planning Area.
-- James Yoo