Military Secrets In The NJ Pinelands: Behind Closed Doors, Military Funding Has Huge Influence On DEP Management Of State Forests

Pentagon Ordered DEP To Maintain Secrecy 

DEP Lied To The Pinelands Commission, The Media, And The Public

Part One: The Maps Set The Stage

Source: NJDEP.
Note the date: April 2020

After weeks of delay, the DEP has finally responded to my Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for government documents on military funding of DEP forestry projects in the Pinelands.

Today, I will begin the series describing the deeply troubling  information I obtained from these documents. Among other things:

• The documents tell a story of how the US military has a cozy relationship with and behind the scenes exerts a huge and hidden influence over DEP public lands management and conservation policies and practices, not only in the Pinelands but along the NJ coast as well;

• The documents show that the military funding drives DEP priorities and land management practices – including the location of projects – far more than any public preferences and/or the policies stated in official DEP plans and regulations;

• The documents show that the military ordered DEP to keep the military funding, military objectives, and project scope secret, and that DEP acceded to the military’s secrecy request;

• The documents show that, in order to comply with the military secrecy demand, that DEP misled the Pinelands Commission, and submitted intentionally misleading and materially false regulatory documents to the Pinelands Commission, including a highly unusual letter from DEP Commissioner LaTourette that threatened a lawsuit if the Commission failed to quickly approve the DEP plan;

• The documents show that DEP lied to the media and the public about the military objectives and funding of their Forest Management Plan and that DEP provided a false rationale to support the project to mask these military objectives;

• The documents show that DEP falsely claimed in the military REPI grant application that their Pinelands Forestry plan had received “all permits”, long BEFORE the Pinelands Commission approved the DEP plan on October 14, 2022;

• The documents show – similar to how inappropriate military equipment is provided to local police forces – that DEP used military money to buy industrial commercial logging equipment;

• The documents show that DEP defined the “project” to include 1.2 million acres, thereby setting the stage for dramatic future expansion and ongoing military funding; and

• The documents strongly suggest that conservation groups who actively supported and publicly promoted the DEP forestry plan – one of whom is identified as a “partner” by the military in the REPI program – were either duped by the military or also knowingly lied to the Pinelands Commission, media, and public about the military funding and objectives.

It’s all bad: for forestry, its log and burn to protect the military bases.

On “climate resilience” (flooding, shore protection, etc), the DEP protects military assets more than people and public infrastructure, in terms of where they conduct projects and the projects they pursue.

[Only after the military allowed them to, on February 22, 2023, DEP issued a highly spun press release, long after the fact, that obscures the actual project (which even had different names) and the timing on REPI funding and Pinelands Commission approval. This is more a a self disclosed coverup than an honest press statement. I sense that DEP did this to try to get out front of my disclosures, as I previously had written about the military angle in November. ]

We will break all this down in this series, as I disclose the contents of the military and DEP documents.

To begin Part One today, before I discuss the text of the documents, I will first post  just a few maps of the program, which are extremely revealing. These are all DEP maps submitted as part of the military REPI grant applications. The full DEP OPRA response is available upon request.

Readers should closely examine how land is described and classified (e.g. “military influence area”), the names of the projects, and the dates on the maps:

Note that this map has no date.

Note date: July 2022

Note date: November 2022 (conflicts with prior REPI grant application and other maps