CONTACT:
Mike King Michael
Keady
908-283-0862 908-500-1999
FOR RELEASE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006
PHILLIPSBURG, N.J. – The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is mistakenly allowing a reduction of the 300-foot buffers intended to protect Category One (C-1) streams, the state’s purest waters, hiding their decision-making process from the public, and apparently misleading Governor Corzine into believing they are enforcing the buffers according to 27 statewide and local environmental organizations.
New state Stormwater Management rules that went into effect in February 2004 mandated the 300-foot buffers for C-1 waters that are so clean they support trout breeding. However, land in active agricultural use is specifically exempt from any buffer. Claiming that agriculture is more polluting than any other type of land use, the DEP has routinely reduced the stream buffers to 150 feet when farmland is sold for residential or commercial development. The agency asserts that cutting the buffer in half will still provide an adequate improvement in water quality on former farmland.
Governor Jon Corzine seems unaware of this policy. In an effort to reduce the disastrous flooding that has struck communities along the Delaware River and other state rivers in recent years, the Governor proposed on August 22 doubling or tripling the no-development buffers along 80 percent of the state’s rivers and streams. The Governor said that the other 20 percent of the streams are C-1 and already protected by 300-foot buffers. He was apparently not informed that the DEP is interpreting the rule in a way that makes 300-foot buffers unenforceable on most land available for residential or commercial development.
“The C-1 buffers was one of the biggest environmental
victories in the last 12 years, protecting water quality as well as tens of
thousands acres of sprawl,” said
Representatives of 27 environmental groups, including New Jersey Environmental Federation, New Jersey Highlands Coalition and Sierra Club, N.J. Chapter, have expressed their opposition to this automatic reduction of the 300-foot buffer whose purpose is to mitigate flooding and preserve water quality. In an October 9, 2006, letter to the DEP, the groups asked for the scientific support for the agency’s decisions, a list of all applications to reduce buffers, and details on how the decision-making process is administered.
“This is about protecting the quality of our drinking water and also reducing the volume and velocity of runoff into streams that flow into rivers and contribute to flooding,” said Julia Somers, Executive Director, New Jersey Highlands Coalition. “The DEP is simply wrong in their interpretation that the 300-foot buffer should be reduced to 150 feet when farmland is sold for development. The rule clearly allows an exemption only for land that is actively farmed. A 300-foot buffer should be applied when there is a change of use. What’s most galling is that these decisions are apparently being made behind closed doors, with no notice to the public or municipalities.”
When a developer applies for DEP permits, such as an intrusion into Freshwater Wetlands, state regulations require notification of abutters and municipal and county officials, and the applications must be available so the public can comment. However, the DEP treats the reduction in the buffer size as an administrative decision, so there is no notification of the parties as with permits, and no opportunity for public involvement.
“With no public notice, we’re just stumbling upon individual
cases, but it appears the DEP is giving out these buffer reductions
automatically,” said Laura Oltman, board member of REALsmart (The League for Real
Smart Growth). “In a case in Hunterdon
County, a DEP official said he saw an aerial photograph showing the fields had
been mowed, so that was enough disturbance to reduce the buffer to 150
feet. This property hasn’t been actively
farmed for more than a decade. But, now
a developer will be allowed to put half of a 44-unit townhouse development within
150 feet of a C-1 stream. It beats me
how someone mowing the grass can have more impact on water quality than scores
of townhouses, with salt on the roads in winter, lawns with fertilizer and
pesticide, all running off into a C-1 stream.
Plus, when it rains, all those impervious surfaces will increase the
volume of water in a stream that runs into the
The 27 environmental groups first wrote to DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson on July 1, 2006, to protest the agency’s interpretation of the C-1 buffer rules. On July 10, Lawrence Baier, Director of the Division of Watershed Management, emailed a reply in which he claimed that the change from agriculture to development would actually have less impact on water quality.
“Mr. Baier compares the worst case for agriculture against the best case for building, which is ‘low-density residential development,’” said Bill Wolfe, REALsmart board member and a former DEP employee who helped develop the C-1 rules. “His email says assessment of the reduction ‘must be performed on a case-by-case basis,’ but the reality appears to be that it’s just a rubber stamp, mindlessly granted wherever there has been any sort of disturbance of the land.”
Because the DEP’s buffer-reduction decisions are made with
no public notification, no one outside the agency – apparently even Governor
Corzine – knows how many pristine C-1 streams have had their 300-foot
protective zones cut in half. However,
the number is likely large because a major portion of development in
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EDITORS NOTE: Attached are the July 1, 2006 letter to DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson signed by 27 environmental groups; the July 10 email reply to that letter, signed by Lawrence J. Baier, Director, NJDEP, Division of Watershed Management; the August 9 reply from the environmental groups to Mr. Baier’s email; and the October 9 letter from the environmental groups requesting details on the scientific basis for the reductions and the procedures the DEP follows.