NJ to Spend $3M on Preservation of Islands, Forest, Wetlands and $8M on Pinelands

This story is from September, prior to the 200,000 acre preservation announcement. So, I think these would be included in that figure? Who knows? Either way, always good news!

This article originally appeared in APP.com.

New Jersey will spend $3 million to buy islands, forest and wetlands in the Barnegat Bay watershed and $8 million in the Pinelands

A $123 million shopping list for open-space lands approved by the Garden State Preservation Trust includes $3 million for islands, wetlands and forest around Barnegat Bay, $8 million for Pinelands forest and $12 million to buy out repeat flood victims along the Passaic River, state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said Tuesday.

The list has $66.2 million in cost sharing from the Green Acres fund for local open space and parks projects, such as $600,000 each for Trader’s Cove, the Barnegat Bay waterfront park in Brick, and boardwalk repairs in Long Branch.

Neptune Township will receive $600,000 for new bulkheading and boardwalks at its Shark River marina, while Ocean Township will get $325,000 in Blue Acres funding to help complete its buyout of 32 Poplar Village housing units that were heavily damaged by flooding during Hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to a tropical storm when it reached New Jersey.

Besides the Barnegat Bay and Pinelands purchases, state acquisition projects include $8 million for purchases in the Highlands region and an additional $5 million in purchases to link up public parcels in the upper Delaware River ridge-and-valley region.

The 2013 funding round comes out of the 2009 open space referendum and needs an appropriation from the state Legislature to go forward.

DEP Grant Preserves Ocean County Boy Scout Reservation

One benefit to Election Season: A lot of these deals move through much quicker, as to help the ruling party look better. When it comes to acres, I'll take it!

Post originally appeared on Ocean County Family & Community News:

Barnegat-(PR)–An agreement that will permanently preserve a 544-acre tract in the Barnegat Bay watershed in Ocean County was completed today when the Department of Environmental Protection acquired a conservation easement from the Jersey Shore Boy Scout Council and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, DEP Commissioner Bob Martin announced.

The $1.1 million agreement with the Scout Council will preserve the Joseph A. Citta Boy Scout Reservation Camp in Ocean Township, which contains camping facilities used by the Boy Scouts and many other outdoor user groups. The property, which offers public hiking trails, also is environmentally important, containing Pine Barrens habitat in the headwaters of the Oyster Creek, which is a tributary to Barnegat Bay.



The preserved land will link Ocean County’s Wells Mill Park to other preserve land in the Forked River Mountains, an ecologically unique area of rolling forests in the Pinelands National Reserve. The Scouts will be able to continue to own and manage the camp for camping and recreational use, and in turn have extinguished their development rights on the property while agreeing to providing a public trail system linking other open space.

As part of the 544-acre preservation deal, the Conservation Foundation assigned to the DEP an 84-acre conservation easement that it held since the 1970s on a portion of the Citta Camp. This acreage was included in the purchase agreement at no cost to the state.


This 544-acre easement acquisition brings the state’s total of preserved land in the Barnegat Bay watershed to 2,895 acres since Governor Christie announced his comprehensive 10-point Barnegat Bay restoration plan in December of 2010.

“New Jersey Conservation Foundation is pleased to play a role in the preservation of the Joseph A. Citta Scout Reservation,” said Michele S. Byers, executive director of New Jersey Conservation Foundation. “The Boy Scouts had the foresight to preserve 84 acres of the camp with New Jersey Conservation Foundation back in 1979, and we congratulate them and the Department of Environmental Protection for now preserving the entire camp"

Byers noted that over the past 30 years, New Jersey Conservation Foundation and the DEP have worked together, and with other partners, to preserve thousands of acres in the Forked River Mountain area of Ocean and Lacey townships.

The easement purchase is financed by $1.1 million in voter-approved state Green Acres Program funds. Ocean County provided funding for the survey work needed for the acquisition.

Stewardship of this easement will be provided by DEP’s Green Acres Program and the Division of Parks and Forestry as part of Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. The trails through the Boy Scout Camp will be an expansion of the trail system at Wells Mill County Park and open for public use.

Commissioner Martin first announced a pending deal for the Citta Camp in December, 2011 at an event to mark the first anniversary of Governor Christie’s Barnegat Bay plan. At that time the agreement called for a 436-acre easement purchase. But detailed surveying of the Scout Council’s tract found it to be much larger, resulting in a 544-acres easement purchase, with an adjusted extra cost of $56,681.

In bid to protect Barnegat Bay, state buys 385 acres of Pinelands

Always good to see more acreage preserved along the Barnegat Bay!

Originally appeared on New Jersey Newsroom.

249 acres in Eagleswood and 136 acres in Stafford

The state Green Acres Program has purchased 385 acres of forests in the Barnegat Bay watershed, and Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said Monday the agency is on pace to preserve some 3,000 acres in the watershed by the end of the year.

The Green Acres State Land Acquisition Program purchased the land, encompassing two separate properties, for $607,052 from International Recycling Systems. The acquisitions are intended to preserve high-quality Pinelands habitat that will help protect water quality in the headwaters of Cedar Run, Westecunk Creek and Mill Creek, all tributaries of Barnegat Bay.

The properties - 249 acres in Eagleswood and 136 acres in Stafford - will be added to the Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area, managed by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Both properties consist of pine and oak forests that provide suitable habitat for species such as the state-endangered Pine Barrens tree frog, the state-threatened northern pine snake and the pine warbler.

At more than 11,500 acres, Stafford Forge is one of New Jersey's largest wildlife management areas. The area is popular with hikers, canoeists, bird watchers, hunters and nature lovers.

Since launching an effort to restore the ecologically stressed bay in December 2010, the state Department of Environmental Protection has set its sights on preserving 50,000 acres in the watershed. Martin said protected land helps filter and control stormwater that can carry harmful nutrients into the bay.

“The Christie administration remains steadfast in its commitment to improving water quality in Barnegat Bay, an ecologically and economically vital asset to the state," Martin said. "The preservation of land is a critical component of Governor Christie's 10-point comprehensive restoration plan for the bay."

The Christie administration has committed nearly $3 million to the preservation of more than 2,000 acres in the watershed so far, including projects that have added 180 acres to the DEP's Forestry Resource Education Center in Jackson, expanded Double Trouble State Park by 306 acres, and assisted Ocean County in preserving 836 acres of Pinelands in Ocean Township.

In addition, the Green Acres Program has reached agreement on a project that will permanently protect a 436-acre Boy Scout camp in Ocean County.

1,800 Acres Preserved Under Lakehurst Flight Path

After reading about the mess going on in Holmdel (which still has some absolutely beautiful farmland in some parts, but massive castles–seriously, one is like a castle on Holland Road. A tribute to the owner's massive ego?) right now, I needed a little "Acre Whore" boost. Here's one that popped into my inbox today. Good timing!

1,800 acres tract under Lakehurst flight path to be preserved

Originally appeared in Asbury Park Press

A sand and gravel mine and surrounding woods just east of the military runways at Lakehurst will be preserved in a joint $7.5 million effort by the Department of Defense, Ocean County and the state Pinelands Commission.

Ocean County will buy outright 387 acres on the Ralph Clayton and Sons property on Route 547 in Jackson near the Manchester boundary, with another 1,415 acres preserved with a conservation easement, said Anthony Cucci, New Jersey director for the Trust for Public Land, which helped put the deal together for the military and civilian agencies.

“It helps protect the water flowing into Barnegat Bay, which is a major goal of Ocean County and the State of New Jersey, and it helps the military base protect land around its runway from residential development,” Cucci said in a statement announcing the deal Thursday.

The agreement comes at a critical time on two fronts.

With the economic downturn, the county and state have a chance to preserve more land in the Barnegat Bay watershed, in a race to save natural lands that filter water heading to the bay. The Clayton property includes part of Long Brook, a headwaters tributary of the upper Toms River, said Dennis Blazak, community planning and liason officer for Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Keeping future development away from the runways helps protect the future of the base, at a time when defense officials have just revealed they will look for new rounds of base closings. The joint base is a survivor of earlier closings, and aviation units from all branches of the military have been consolidated there in recent years.

Blazak says flights in and out of the base have increased four-fold in that time. Once a dedicated Navy installation, Lakehurst now hosts training flights by Air Force C-17 transports that make steep descents and climbs near the Clayton property as they practice combat operations.

In the announcement, county Freeholder John P. Kelly said the Clayton tract was a “high-priority acquisition” when Ocean County completed a joint land use study with the Department of Defense and Pinelands Commission in 2009.

“The Clayton acquisition removes a major encroachment threat to the Joint Base and enhances Ocean County's long term economic development viability,” Kelly said. “Ocean County has made a commitment to the base to make certain it remains an integral part of our homeland security.”

Without the county purchase 55 homes could have been built on part of the property. The acquisition cost $7.5 million, with $3 million coming from the Pentagon’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative (REPI), and $3.375 million from the Ocean County Open Space Trust Fund, which is funded with a dedicated portion of the county property tax paid by property owners and homeowners.


The Pinelands Commission contributed $1.125 million from its Pinelands Conservation Fund, which was set up in 2004 with $13 million from Atlantic City Electric, as part of an agreement that allowed the company to build electric lines in southern Ocean County.
County and Pinelands officials say keeping the land open will help preserve water and natural resources in the area, including several lakes and wetlands along the upper reaches of the Toms River. The county, Pinelands Commission and Jackson Township have cooperated for years to limit development potential along the Route 547 corridor – both to control residential growth and tax burdens in Jackson, and to preserve water quality and wildlife habitat along the upper Toms River.

436-Acre Boy Scout Camp Preserved

Oddly, this post comes from a website based in Columbus, Indiana.

TRENTON, N.J. — The state will spend $1 million to buy a Boy Scout camp near Barnegat Bay to prevent development there and help protect one of the nation's most ecologically fragile waterways from the pollution that development would bring.

On the first anniversary of its 10-point plan to improve the health of the struggling bay, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday that its Green Acres program would buy the development rights to the 436-acre Joseph A. Citta camp from the scouts.

"Gov. (Chris) Christie and I have made an unprecedented commitment to the restoration of Barnegat Bay, an ecological treasure that is vital to New Jersey residents and the state's tourism economy," said DEP Commissioner Robert Martin. "The preservation of this camp is just one of the administration's many accomplishments over the past year in implementing this important plan."

The Barnegat Bay plan includes closing the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in 2019, implementing the nation's toughest limits on the amount of pollution-causing nitrogen that fertilizer can contain and providing low-interest loans to local governments for water quality improvement projects. The nuclear plant's hot-water discharges are suspected of increasing algae blooms and hurting water quality in the bay.

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said the state needs to do a lot more to truly help save the bay.

"One year after the governor announced his plan for Barnegat Bay, we have seen conditions in the bay get worse while the governor weakens protections for the bay," Tittel said. "He has done press conference after press conference and we have seen rollback after rollback. This is about green cover while implementing policies that undermine protections for the bay and create more sprawl."

A bill making its way through the state Legislature would make it easier for developers to build near Barnegat Bay and other waterways by keeping in place maps that show where sewer connections can be made. The bill would keep the current rules in place for up to two years and prohibit counties from preserving land by removing it from the approved sewer zones.

Tittel said Barnegat Bay continues to deteriorate because of nutrient pollution from too much nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. The bay continues to suffer invasions by jellyfish and algae blooms from nutrient pollution. Jellyfish closed several beaches and pollution closed clam beds, and the loss of eel grass and other ecological indicators show things are getting worse in the bay, Tittel said.

Part of the administration's Barnegat Bay plan includes studies with leading research organizations, including Rutgers University and the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium, to fill in critical research gaps, provide baseline data and assist the department in making policy decisions about steps to restore the bay. These include studies of pollution-nutrient indicators, fish and crabs, algae blooms, the increase in the occurrence of jellyfish, shellfish declines and the benefits of wetlands in reducing the effect of nutrients.

More than 3,500 water sample bottles have been sent to laboratories for analyses, and more than 3,000 field measurements have been taken so far.